Strike hits factory of Japanese electronics maker
0 
Workers at a Japanese-owned factory in Guangzhou, capital city of south China's Guangdong Province, went on strike Wednesday with demands for higher pay, local sources said.
The factory is owned by Japanese company Omron and makes electronic components for automakers Honda and Toyota.
The workers downed tools at the Omron (Guangzhou) Automotive Electronics Co. factory. The exact number of workers on strike is not known but the factory has 635 employees.
The workers are demanding their monthly salary be raised to 1,800 yuan (about 264 U.S. dollars) from the current 1,300 yuan.
Company managers and local trade unions are negotiating with the workers.
The strike is the sixth in China to hit Honda Motor Co. or its suppliers since May.
Worker strikes have spiked among foreign-invested factories in southern China's manufacturing hub after workers at a Honda parts supplier in Foshan City, Guangdong Province, received monthly pay rises of up to 800 yuan following a high-profile strike in May.
The workers at the Honda parts supplier now receive an average salary of 2,000 yuan per month, 900 yuan above the minimum pay level set by the local government.
The string of strikes forced Honda, Japan's second largest automaker, to repeatedly shut down its assembly lines.
A spokesman for the Omron factory said it is unknown whether Wednesday's strike will affect the production of its customers like Honda.
The strike at the Omron factory comes as a strike at another Honda parts supplier in Foshan entered its ninth day.
About 200 of the nearly 230 workers at the Atsumitec Auto Parts (Foshan) factory have been on strike since July 12 demanding a monthly wage increase of 500 yuan (73.52 U.S. dollars).
