Some 3,000 workers were dispersed from outside China's Linzhou Iron & Steel Co. plant in Henan early Sunday morning after nearly a week's worth of demonstrating. The workers were protesting the sale of the government-owned plant to private company, Fengbao Iron & Steel Co., which they feared would mean pay cuts and job cuts. For now, the sale has been called off in labor's second triumph this month. New management will take over the restructuring of the plant. The protest represents a growing trend of labor activism in China as the All China Federation of Trade Unions, the only labor union in the country, takes a greater role in workers' rights in response to many protests that have broken out in the economic downturn.
See "China halts steel-firm sale amid worker protest", Shai Oster, The Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2009