Amnesty magazine: China fails its workers

July/August 2002 Issue 114

News Review

Workers’ rights are being undermined and widespread labour unrest is repressed as China shifts towards a free market economy. Economic reforms have caused closures of state-owned enterprises and a huge increase in unemployment. According to official statistics, more than five million workers were laid off from state-owned operations during 2001. Unemployed workers are often promised redundancy money that never appears.

Workers habitually face extremely poor conditions including filthy and poorly ventilated workplaces. Overtime, often unpaid, is frequently compulsory. Factory employees may be forbidden to get married or have children. Workers are often exposed to dangerous chemicals without the necessary safeguards. When there are accidents, medical expenses are often deducted from pay. It has been reported that in the south of China, an average of 13 factory workers a day lose a finger or an arm, and one dies every four and a half days.

Labour protests, strikes, demonstrations and factory occupations by angry workers have been reported nearly every day in March and April 2002. Workers are demonstrating against low pay, illegal working conditions, lay-offs, redundancy terms, management corruption and delayed welfare payments.

As independent trade unions are not permitted in China, such protests are generally illegal and have often been dispersed with excessive force by police. Many peaceful protests by workers over pay and benefits have turned into pitched battles between the workers and armed police, resulting in casualties and arrests. Workers and activists have been harassed or imprisoned for taking part in such protests or publicising them. The rights to freedom of expression and association are routinely denied to those as a threat by the authorities.

Workers from Daqing Oilfield, one of China’s largest state-owned oil fields, have staged massive demonstrations since 1 March to protest against inadequate welfare benefits, redundancy pay and the increased costs of pensions. Up to 50,000 workers joined the protests and several injuries were reported on 19 March when paramilitary police clashed with the demonstrators. The workers’ demands included the setting –up of an independent trade union. It is reported that the Daqing Laid-Off Workers Trade Union Committee was set up during the protests and is operating underground.

In the city of Liaoyang, huge demonstrations against lay-offs, insufficient severance pay and management corruption have taken place. Some 5,000 laid-off workers from several state-owned factories gathered outside government offices on 11 March. The workers accused their management of colluding with government officials to secure assets from dismantled enterprises, while failing to compensate the workers, some of whom had not been paid for more than 18 months.

The protests escalated on 18 March when 30,000 workers from around 20 Liaoyang factories gathered in front of the city government offices, demanding the release of Yao Fuxin, a workers’ leader from the Ferroalloy factory detained the day before by the police. On 20 March a large contingent of armed police was reportedly deployed to crack down on the protesters and three more workers’ leaders- Xiao Yunliang, Pang Qingxiang and Wang Zhaoming- were arrested. The four labour leaders have been charged with “illegal assembly and demonstrations” and several hundred workers have been demonstrating almost every day demanding their release.

On 28 February 2001, the Chinese government ratified the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. However, the government entered a reservation on its obligations under Article 8 of the Covenant, which guarantees trade union rights. While the right to strike is not expressly forbidden in China, neither the right to strike nor the right of freedom of is respected.