Factory violence

A dispute between migrant workers and factory bosses in Guangdong province spiraled into violence on Tuesday when 200 workers took their demands to the local government, Chinese media reported.

The China Daily newspaper said nine people had been detained by local police in the southern city of Chaozhou after a mass protest led by migrant workers from Sichuan province, after one worker was seriously injured on June 1 in a fight with bosses over unpaid back wages. The paper said a young worker and his father suffered serious injuries in a knife attack during a fight a factory boss in the original dispute. The hundreds of others took their complaints to the local government building, where the heated crowd ripped down a gate.

The Chaozhou incident is the latest in an ongoing string of labor unrest in China's factory zones in recent years, when young migrant workers have demanded better pay and treatment from factory managers that have long depended on cheap labor from the provinces to fill manufacturing jobs.