On the afternoon of May 31st the workers on strike were physically confronted by local township ACFTU members (Foshan City, Nanhai district, Shishan township), and the factory site was blocked by local police.

In the morning the management took the dayshift workers to the canteen. Yamada, the general manager of Nanhai Honda, the township ACFTU, the township government and several teachers from vocational schools were at the meeting. Yamada guaranteed that they would not retaliate or dismiss any worker.

After the meeting, workers returned to their workshop. There were people with local ACFTU tags and yellow hats at each workshop. At the Transmission Assembly Division, the division managers requested workers to resume work one by one but this was rejected. The workers refused to be video-recorded by the local ACFTU and demanded that they erase their records. Several workers were then beaten up by some people from the local ACFTU during the confrontation.

When workers from other divisions learnt of the news they resumed the strike. But more workers were beaten up by the local ACFTU members near the factory gate. Two workers were knocked to the floor; their faces were bleeding. The batterers then returned to the ACFTU van. Police at the gate did not react to the whole confrontation.

When the reporter tried to reach Nanhai Honda in the afternoon, they found that the police had blocked the road 1km away from the factory. A group of riot police and ordinary police were guarding the factory gate.

Original reported by Caing.com http://business.caing.com/2010-05-31/100148761.html