In May a scandal erupted over brick kilns in northern China found to have been operating with slave labour, much of whom were children.

About 400 distraught parents had posted a plea on the internet to the Government to help them to find their missing children. They feared that the children, mostly teenage boys, had been sold into slavery in Shanxi province and neighbouring Henan. Officials say that 576 enslaved workers have since been rescued, but the true number is believed to be far higher.

One man, Heng Tinghan, 42, had lured 32 rural labourers with job offers, then forced them to work in the brickyard. They ranged in age from 14 to 58 and included seven who were mentally handicapped.

 He had become the chief villain in the scandal after state media said that a worker died at the kiln he ran in Hongtong county’s Caosheng village, and broadcast pictures of workers with their skin rubbed raw or severely burnt. Across the region workers as young as 8 were recruited from bus and train stations with false promises, or abducted off the street and then sold to kilns for 500 yuan (US$66) each.

Heng, the foreman at the brickyard, was given a life sentence on charges of intentional injury and unlawful detention. The owner, Wang Bingbing, was jailed for nine years. The brickworks was in a courtyard belonging to Wang’s father, a local Communist Party chief, who has since been expelled from the party.

 

On 18 May, US Change to Win Federation Trade Unions Chair, Anna Burger led a top-level delegation of major leaders from the Service Employee International Union (SEIU), International Brotherhood of Teamsters and other industrial trade unions to begin its visit of China. This is the first time that a US national trade union delegation has visited China and represents a break with American trade unions’ previously policy of non-recognition of Chinese unions.

On 22 May, Burger indicated in Beijing that she has reached a series of understandings with the ACFTU on how to promote practical cooperation between the two national trade unions. The visit represents an important and key first step toward the establishment of formal and friendly relations at the top level between the unions of the two countries. During the visit, the delegation met with high level government and ACFTU officials including Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions chair Chen Hao, ACFTU chair Wang Zhaoguo, and Jia Qinglin, who is the 4th ranking official in the Chinese government.

For a long time, the largest US national trade union – American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organization (AFL-CIO) has refused any contact with Chinese trade unions making it impossible to establish a normal relationship between the two unions. In 2005, seven US industrial trade unions separated from the AFL-CIO and established the second largest national federation of trade unions - Change to Win Federation of Trade Unions (CTW). CTW advocates active cooperation with Chinese trade unions.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters Chairperson James P. Hoffa said, “helping Chinese workers to secure higher wages is beneficial to protecting the rights of US workers at home.”   However he also stressed that although contacting the official ACFTU was “the only choice”, this “contact” with the ACFTU does not imply “acceptance” of the positions of the ACFTU.