CHINA

Striking is Illegal

From Ruth Sinai, Ha’aretz, 18 April 2001, and Kav La’Oved (Workers’ Hotline), 26 May 2001

After a strike about payment of wages to Chinese migrant construction workers in Tel Aviv, Israel, Chinese authorities in Xiudong city, China sent the workers a letter on 7 April threatening to jail them when they return to China and to deduct money from wages for causing losses to the Israeli company.

The threats are particularly worrying, as the first gives a clear message that the Chinese government is more worried about company profits than labour rights, while the second implies that the government has access to the workers’ wages. The letter was signed by the Xiudong police (PSB), the local prosecutor and the city court.

170 workers went on strike in late March to protest non-payment of wages.

The company, A Dori, had in fact paid wages into the migrants’ bank accounts, but had not told the workers about the accounts. Once this was clarified and the workers could access their pay, most strikers returned to work.

The workers began work in February 2000, but the first payment in their accounts was not made until December 2000.

But some were dissatisfied that money had already been withdrawn by a Chinese delegate, and are now working illegally in Israel. These are the people most in danger from the Chinese state when they return home.

Chinese law states that workers who halt production face three to seven years imprisonment. This speaks volumes for the Chinese Communist Party’s attitude to socialist principles, and refutes claims by apologists for China’s harsh treatment of activists who have stated that while there is no right to strike in China, it is not illegal.

From South China Morning Post, 9 May 2001

After a huge blast wrecked a coal mine in Heilongjiang province on 8 May, nine miners were reported dead, 45 missing.

The Nanshan Coal Mine Company is state-owned, but the government contracted out the work in No. 1 Coal Mine in Hegang city, where the explosion happened.

105 workers died in the company’s mining accidents within two months in 1998.

Private contractors are accused of bribing state officials and negligence to evade regular supervision.

In April the Beijing authorities announced that local officials are legally responsible for incidents within their administration.

From AFP, 22 May 2001, China Daily, 22 May 2001, and South China Morning Post, 9 April 2001

A mine explosion in Shaanxi province killed 38 people and injured 16.

The explosion occurred in early April at the Chenjiashan mine near Tongchuan city. At present it is unclear whether the mine was private- or state-owned.

The mine exploded within days of China’s premier Zhu Rongji chairing a meeting on industrial safety in Beijing.

29 miners were trapped 200 metres below the ground in a gypsum mine in Guangxi province on 18 May after a mine cave-in. No subsequent reports were available indicating a fatal outcome.

In Nanxi county, Sichuan province, 39 miners were still missing nearly five days after the Qinglongzhui mine where they worked flooded on 18 May. At a prison near the damaged mine AFP reporters spoke to a guard who said that the dead mine workers were prisoners. A propaganda bureau official said the mine was run by the labour camp bureau.

In yet another tragedy in Shilin coal mine, Sichuan’s Guang’an county eight miners died and seven were missing after an explosion on 20 May.

China is the world’s biggest consumer and producer of coal but has an appalling safety record.

From South China Morning Post, 29 May 2001

According to the government, 503 miners perished within six weeks in mining accidents. This prompted the government to tell state-run mines to close down small pits, it was announced on 23 May.

However a small pit, the Dayuan mine, in Longhui county, Hunan province employing 20 men blew up on 28 May with only three survivors. The bodies of ten miners were found, seven were ‘missing’.

From South China Morning Post, 12 June 2001

On 11 June Hunan province’s Shaoyang city police charged Li Wangyang with trying to overthrow the government.

Li is a veteran of China’s democracy movement, having helped organise the Shaoyang Workers’ Autonomous Federation in 1989. WAFs were the first trade unions independent of the only legal but management-friendly worker’s ‘union’, the All China Federation of Trade Unions, since New China was established in 1949.

Li was released from prison last year due to ill health – he has not walked unassisted since then, and was arrested in his hospital bed on 6 May after claiming compensation from the government for his medical condition which he is certain was caused by his treatment in prison where he was beaten violently and regularly.

Hong Kong’s Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy says Li shrank from 1.82 to 1.72 metres while imprisoned.

Li’s sister was sentenced to three years in a labour camp for helping him with his compensation claim.

From South China Morning Post, 15 June 2001

Despite repeated claims that restructuring of state owned-enterprises (and more importantly the accompanying redundancies) would be completed by the end of 2000, workers are still under threat of redundancy.

Tens of thousands of workers at a refinery had been on strikes, go-slows and demonstrations for around 20 days by mid-May.

The Yanshan Petrochemical complex is in Fangshan county near Beijing, owned by state-run giant Sinopec, which has promised its investors mass lay-offs to raise profits and reward them.

Pensioners joined the industrial action fearing that they will no longer be paid after restructuring.

One worker said, “We are all very angry about what is happening. We do not know what our future will be like. The leaders refuse to talk to us.”

When the rumour that 10,000 workers would be axed by Sinopec, other daughter subsidiaries also began industrial action.

Company spokesman, Xiao Du, claims the job losses are entirely voluntary. But workers seem not to believe him. It is said that people who have worked for the plant for over 20 years are being offered stingy compensation in return for resignation.

From China Daily, 12 and 16 June 2001

Following a rash of fatal mining accidents, the authorities have ordered down all small state-run coal mines that are below standard.

An emergency circular issued by the State Council on 13 June ordered the closure of all collective or private township and village run coal mines must also close temporarily while safety inspections are made. According to the circular 55 percent of the official 118 major accidents from January to March occurred in township and village enterprises.

Gas explosions are responsible for most of the accidents. These occurred due to lack of safety awareness, poor management and obsolete equipment and procedures.

Recently state-owned mines have illegally opened small mines, subcontracting the work to private companies where safety procedures are largely ignored to boost profit. The cost for this kind of short-sightedness is paid for in human death and injury.

Government statistics show that 573 miners died in 77 mining accidents in the first quarter of 2001, an increase of 93 deaths and 22 accidents over the same period in 2000. Experience suggests that all the figures are likely to be under-reported.

The government opened a campaign for safety in mines at the end of May. Despite government claims that mines failing to meet standards would be closed immediately, government inspections condemned 416 companies to close, but 258 are still operating.

From the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, 20 June 2001

The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy says that since May 2001 the Guangxi provincial authorities had urged the independent Guangxi Business Daily to merge with the official Guangxi Daily – a government mouthpiece.

The independent paper had refused as it was making good money.

A worker from the paper’s advertising section suggested the closure could be because it was out-performing government controlled competitors.

Guangxi province officials confirmed that the paper closed on 10 June, retrenching 700 workers.

Three former staff are detained by police after police banned a demonstration to protest the closure.

The Guangxi Daily announced that the closed newspaper’s subscribers would receive the Guangxi Daily instead.