That’s right, I said a victory for the unions. Yeah, I know that there really aren’t any unions here in China, and the only one that actually exists is a quasi-governmental (read wholly governmental) body that is kept on a very tight leash. But I’m going to stand by that post headline.

We’ve just gone through several intense weeks of labor unrest at manufacturing centers down South. Many of these protests have resulted in wage hikes from companies like Honda and Foxconn. Sure, these are foreign companies, and the government here has sort of let this happen, probably only because the protests hadn’t spread to a lot of domestic firms.

And yet. Despite this being a containable phenomenon, I’m seeing a lot of these stories these days:

At least nine Chinese provinces and cities will raise minimum wages from today by as much as a third after Premier Wen Jiabao called for measures to head off growing worker unrest in the world’s third-largest economy.

Wen highlighted the government’s concerns that labor disputes over wages may spur social unrest when he called on companies last week to create “harmonious employment relations” by gradually raising incomes and ordered officials to handle “new issues” with skill.

I’m frankly surprised that Grampa Wen would get anywhere near an admission that the moves on wages were in any way connected to the recent protests. Sounds a lot like the government being directly influenced by protesters. Wow.

This is quite a victory for labor, isn’t it? These guys had very few resources, had little backing from anyone in the government, and were working off of email and social networks to get organized.

And yet they prevailed.

Even really weak organized labor can get results. Imagine what real unions could do? This is a victory for unions.