ZHONGSHAN, Guangdong - Hundreds of employees at a Honda factory in Zhongshan agreed to suspend the strike they began last week and to resume production, according to a company insider.

However, while they have returned to work for the time being, many of the company's employees are waiting for a final resolution to the labor dispute, which the company has promised to deliver by Friday.

"Most of strikers have returned to their positions, but some of them refused," Koji Matsuyama, an official at Honda Lock's headquarters in Miyazaki Prefecture of Japan, was quoted as saying by the Wall Street Journal.

The company, meanwhile, did not reveal how many employees remain on strike.

Some 1,500 employees of Honda Lock Manufacturing Co, most of them migrant workers, went on strike last Wednesday for better pay and conditions.

The strike is the latest in a series of labor disputes that have hit factories in the province, an industrial hub which manufactures nearly a third of China's exports.

It is also the third strike to hit Honda Motor Co in the past month. The two preceding strikes ended with the company agreeing to raise workers' wages.

The plant has allegedly begun to post advertisements to recruit new employees, promising a monthly salary of 2,000 yuan ($293), while the strikers earn 1,700 yuan a month.

The strikers asked management for another 500 yuan a month, but the company only agreed to an additional 100 yuan, along with a promise to raise overtime pay.

Matsuyama said the company has asked for four days, starting Monday, to consider the workers' demands.

"On Friday we plan to present the workers with our final offer," the Wall Street Journal quoted him as saying.

Some of the workers said they had agreed to return to work until Friday, when management has promised to put a new offer on the table after an earlier proposed raise of 200 yuan a month was rejected as being too low.

China Daily - Agencies

(China Daily 06/16/2010 page3)