New foundations for struggle and solidarity: The culmination of development and privatization on a Guangzhou Island

For nearly a month, garbage piled up throughout the streets of Guangzhou’s edifice to higher education as China saw another cleaner strike. The disgruntled employees are the sanitation workers who keep the Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center – a literal island housing ten universities and some 200,000 students – garbage-free and fit for study.

This strike erupted over the sudden replacement of the sanitation contractor by which the cleaners were technically employed, putting in jeopardy the jobs workers had held for ten years and leaving them with a difficult choice between moving to far away work sites and losing the accumulated benefits of long-term service with their company.

Workers chose to resist, and beginning on August 10th, staged a series of escalating actions that seem close to winning them acceptable conditions.

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