BYD Workers Lead Mass Strikes to Challenge Wage Cuts and Broken Promises

China Labour Bulletin 17 April 2025

In a dramatic show of collective action, thousands of workers at BYD’s factories in Wuxi and Chengdu walked off the job in late March and early April 2025, protesting steep pay cuts and deteriorating working conditions. The unrest erupted in the wake of BYD’s 2023 acquisition of Jabil Inc.’s Green Point factories, marking the electric vehicle giant’s strategic entry into the mobile electronics manufacturing sector. The strikes reflect a broader, ongoing labour conflict within BYD, following a similar large-scale protest at its Wuxi plant in May 2024, highlighting systemic labour issues within the company.

The first major protest began on March 28, 2025, when more than a thousand workers— many of them mid-level managers—protested inside BYD’s Wuxi factory. Brandishing banners and raising their voices, they demanded the company honour its previous promises or provide fair compensation for those choosing to resign. Their grievances centred on recent cuts to performance-based wages and the elimination of birthday subsidies, benefits that many had come to rely on. Videos circulating online captured the tense atmosphere, as police quickly intervened to contain the unrest.

Just days later, the spirit of resistance spread to BYD’s Chengdu facility, where workers staged similar protests from March 31 to April 1. There, employees accused management of breaking promises made during the Jabil acquisition transition. Their demands were clear: job security, transparency around workplace changes, and fair compensation. Workers in Chengdu were especially frustrated by reduced working hours, forced department transfers, and slashes in allowances and bonuses.

These incidents trace back to BYD’s December 2023 acquisition of Jabil Inc.’s mobile electronics business for 15.8 billion yuan, primarily operating through Green Point plants in Chengdu and Wuxi. During the transition, BYD promised workers their wages and benefits would remain unchanged for at least 18 months. Furthermore, filings reviewed by CLB with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission indicated that Jabil had budgeted between USD 150 million and USD 180 million specifically for employee severance and benefits related to restructuring. Despite these commitments, many promises were broken within six months, as workers faced declining wages, irregular schedules, and new performance targets inconsistent with prior agreements.

Based on CLB’s previous reporting in Chinese, workers at Green Point had historically relied heavily on overtime to achieve livable wages, working up to six days a week and 12 hours daily, previously earning between 5,000 and 6,800 yuan monthly. However, after BYD introduced a four-shift rotation system in 2024, work hours dropped significantly, and monthly incomes fell to around 3,000-4,000 yuan, barely above Wuxi’s local minimum wage of 2,940 yuan. Workers believe this shift change aimed at pressuring them into voluntarily resigning, thus allowing BYD to avoid paying legally mandated severance. Such tactics are not new for BYD. For instance, at BYD’s Changsha factory, workers staged a strike on 20 April 2023, protesting similar reductions in hours and pay, resulting in mass resignations due to severely reduced incomes.

CLB’s investigations reveal that BYD’s wage structure, characterised by a low base salary and excessive reliance on overtime, represents a systemic problem across China's electronics and manufacturing sectors. For example, a forklift driver at a BYD factory earned approximately 5,700 yuan, of which only 2,410 yuan was base salary, while around 3,100 yuan came from overtime. He worked 11 hours a day and took only five days off that month, including working three 11-hour shifts during the five-day Labour Day holiday. His total overtime reached 122 hours—far exceeding the legal limit of 36 hours per month set by the Labour Law of the People’s Republic of China.

To make matters worse, BYD has reportedly used standard work schedules (five days, eight hours) as punishment for underperformance, effectively threatening workers with severe income loss if they fail to meet productivity targets. Under such a schedule, monthly earnings can drop dramatically, pushing workers into accepting exploitative overtime conditions out of necessity.

CLB emphasises that addressing these underlying problems requires collective bargaining mechanisms in accordance with Chinese law. Enterprise trade unions must proactively represent workers in negotiations to establish fair wages and lawful working conditions. Despite trade unions’ serious failure to act during the 2024 Wuxi strike, CLB points to a contrasting case in Vietnam, where BYD successfully negotiated with local unions following labour unrest in 2022. There, BYD agreed to a 15% salary increase, improved meal standards, additional paid breaks, and an annual bonus equivalent to one month's salary.

In stark contrast, the resolution of the March 2025 strikes in China remains murky. According to social media posts, BYD’s Chengdu factory displayed a proposed solution on-site but forbade workers from taking photographs, and arranged for some workers—mainly mid-level management staff—to work overtime during the Qingming holiday (April 4–6) in an apparent attempt to appease them. Nevertheless, complaints from workers have continued to appear on social media platforms.

CLB calls on BYD and relevant trade unions in China to engage constructively in negotiations, ensuring workers' rights are upheld and labour relations stabilised. CLB further urges BYD to recognise that refusing to engage in dialogue with workers or forcing them to resign not only harms productivity, reputation, and workplace morale, but also constitutes a violation of relevant Chinese labour laws and regulations. As a leader in sustainable manufacturing, BYD bears a responsibility not only for technological innovation, but also for upholding legal and ethical employment practices across its global operations—especially in its home country, China.
https://clb.org.hk/en/content/byd-workers-lead-mass-strikes-challenge-wage-cuts-and-broken-promises

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