labor - Walk-out at Italian furniture maker in Shenzhen

The threat of pay cuts and a beating of three Chinese workers by Italian supervisors caused a strike at the DeCoro factory in Shenzhen, southern China, AP reports, quoting Chinese media on Thursday. About 3,000 workers stayed away to protest a possible cut in pay.

Reports said riot police armed with shields and clubs dispersed Tuesday's protest. Factory managers gave workers a "day off" Wednesday but had been expecting them to work Thursday, said a report by the state-run newspaper Southern Metropolitan Daily.

The row started last week as workers discovered their paycheck was lower than expected. Some of the workers claim that beatings are part of the standard management style in the Italian company.

The newspaper said DeCoro's president, Luca Ricci, had written a letter of apology and appealed to staff to return to work.
Ricci founded DeCoro in 1997 with the express purpose of using inexpensive, skilled Chinese labour to handcraft Italian-style leather sofas for the U.S. market, where about three-quarters of its products are sold.
The company said its 190,000-square-metre factory, opened in June 2003, is the biggest sofa factory in the world, with a capacity to turn out 55 containers of sofas every day.