Welcome move

Both Foxconn's offer of a 30-percent rise in wages to counter the spate of recent worker suicides at its Shenzhen unit, and Honda's plan to raise basic pay by almost a quarter to end a strike at its Guangdong plant, are clearly long overdue.

It is a pity, however, that such badly needed wage rises have come about only as a result of crisis management.

Foxconn, the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer, said in a statement that it was hiking pay to offset rising consumer prices and living costs of workers. It also cited better corporate performance as reasons for the raise.