Walkout at sports shoe plant

Workers at a plant operated by footwear giant Yue Yuen Industrial Holdings went on strike on Monday in a dispute over pension payments.

The Taiwanese company is the world's largest manufacturer of branded sports and casual shoes and supplies Nike, Crocs, Adidas, Reebok and other industry leaders.

The walkout happened at Zhuhai, Guangdong province, where Yue Yuen employs 5,000 people. The strikers returned to work later in the day.

One employee who gave her name as Yang said she started working there in 1998 but did not receive pension fund payments until 2003.

In May the management promised to pay the arrears and start contributing to a housing provident fund on July 1 but then delayed doing so, she told the Southern Metropolis Daily.

Another employee said the company's contributions to his pension fund were based on the minimum wage in Zhuhai rather than on his actual wage, which is much higher.

The strike was partly triggered by a misunderstanding, according to the Zhuhai Federation of Trade Unions. Workers feared the Zhuhai plant would follow Yue Yuan's factory at Zhongshan in stipulating that workers without local household registrations would not be allowed to take money from the housing fund in some circumstances.

However there is no change in the policy in Zhuhai, said the federation.

In April workers at a Yue Yuan plant in Dongguan went on strike over underpaid social security benefits. Afterwards the Zhuhai federation worked with the local social security bureau and the plant on plans to pay the pension fund arrears and housing fund contributions.

The management agreed to pay, but because of the amount of work involved and the complex procedures the process is still going on, said the federation.

The company could not be reached for a comment.