A rash of strikes at Chinese factories highlights growing restiveness among migrant workers, an unsettling development for foreign manufacturers and a privileged communist leadership now far removed from its roots in labor movements a century ago, AP reported. Taiwanese and Japanese companies including Honda Motor Co. have been scrambling to defuse labor disputes that have paralyzed production and sometimes erupted into violent clashes between workers and state-backed union officials. Meanwhile, a spate of worker suicides at the mammoth factory complex operated by iPhone maker Foxconn in the southern city of Shenzhen has drawn attention to the intolerable stresses many young workers face on factory floors run with military-style discipline. -- SPA
