By Zou Le

A one-day strike by 2,000 employees at an electronics company in Suzhou, Jiangu Province, ended Sunday after management agreed to give the workers their year-end bonuses.

United Win Technology Ltd., an LCD panel producer, had cancelled the employees' year-end bonuses in 2008 due to the economic crisis. More than 2,000 employees gathered in front of the office building on January 5, amid rumors that the 2009 bonus would also be cancelled.

Protestors held up banners reading, "Tainted company, give back my year-end bonus."

Angry protestors reportedly destroyed company facilities and smashed cars until police showed up and held 31 people for questioning. Three people suffered minor injuries, China News Service reported.

Zhang Lisheng, vice president of the company, issued an apology to the staff Sunday.

"The protest reveals some problems in our management and lack of communication with the employees," he said.

Zhang asserted that the cancellation of the year-end bonus was merely a rumor.

Xue Haijun, an employee, told the news agency that the rumors were the main reason for the protest.

According to Zhu, the protest ended after the company sent a letter of apology to each employee by email, verifying the date on which the bonus would be paid.

Some workers said employee morale was low after a hexane-poisoning incident at the factory last August, and that the threatened cancellation of the bonuses further angered workers, leading to the protest.

Last August, seven employees suffered hexane poisoning at the factory, allegedly because of the company's lax inspection standards and mishandling of the chemical. The victims have all recovered, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

Local police said the salary protest was unrelated to the poisoning incident.

Sheng Shuguang, director of the center for social security studies at Sun Yat-Sen University, told the Global Times, "Employers have the liberty to determine whether to issue the bonus or not based on the company's yearly profits, but that has to be clarified in the contract."