Top Form Workers Strike Over Wages at China Lingerie Factory

Top Form International Ltd. (333), a Hong Kong-listed lingerie maker, said as many as 200 employees at its plant in Shenzhen, southern China, staged a five-day strike over pay, a further sign of rising worker unrest in the country.

The employees started their strike on Nov. 16 and returned to work yesterday, Kenny Suen, the company’s vice president of production, said in a phone interview today. The stoppage was over wages, he said, without elaborating.

“The strike is now resolved,” Suen said. The impact was “insignificant” and the company can catch up on lost output “fairly quickly,” he said.

Companies have been facing increasing demands for higher wages from workers in China as inflation remains high, income inequality grows and real estate prices soar. In September, several hundred workers went on strike at a factory of lingerie maker Triumph International AG in the southern province of Hainan over a new employment incentive program.

Top Form dropped as much as 2.7 percent to 35.5 Hong Kong cents, before trading unchanged at 36.5 cents at the midday break in Hong Kong. The benchmark Hang Seng Index fell 1.9 percent.

The Top Form workers were protesting the company’s wage system, according to a press release on the website of nonprofit China Labor Watch.

To contact the reporter on this story: Vinicy Chan in Hong Kong at Vchan91@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Frank Longid at flongid@bloomberg.net; Stephanie Wong at swong139@bloomberg.net