Articles:
1. Wal-Mart - Sweatshop Toys Made in China - “Always Low Prices” Means Rolling Back Respect For Human Rights
3. Repression in China Worsens Worker Protests
4. Statement Raj Purohit, The Lawyers Committee For Human Rights
5. China continues to blatantly ignore international standards on labour and human rights.
Websites:
1. The IHLO is the Hong Kong Liaison Office of the international trade union movement. Our aim is to support the international trade union movement in Hong Kong and to monitor trade union rights and labour developments in China.
Articles accessible through external links:
Workers'
Rights in China - China's massive clothing and textile
industries are built on flagrant and persistent abuse of workers’
rights.
CHINA'S TOYS OF MISERY - from website of National Labor Committee at http://www.nlcnet.org/ .
In a matter of weeks, the "busy season" will begin in China, when three million toy workers- mostly young women- will be locked inside 2,800 factories. They will be forced to work 15 hours a day, seven days a week, thirty days a month, handling toxic chemicals with their bare hands, while they are paid wages as low as 12 cents an hour making toys for our holiday season.
On May 13, 2002 the Washington Post ran a long article on the death of Li Chunmei, a 19-year-old woman who fainted one day on the production line of the toy factory where she worked and that night died of what China's more daring newspapers call guolaosi—"overwork death."
More stories about atrocious working conditions in China, visit the National
Labour Committee website, and type in 'China' in the search box.
Watch our video of the
February 10 demonstration at "Toy Fair." (Quicktime .mov)
| Repression
in China Worsens Worker Protests (from website of Human Rights Watch, at http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/08/china080202.htm ) |
(New York, August 2, 2002) - The
Chinese government's refusal to allow independent trade unions is
fueling worker protests, Human Rights Watch said in a
new report released today.
The 50-page report, "Paying the Price: Worker Unrest in Northeast China," analyzes in detail the demonstrations that took place from March through May 2002 in three cities in northeastern China, and the government response to them. "The Chinese Communist Party is facing a serious dilemma: it claims to protect workers, but those very same workers are protesting in the streets," said Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division. "The workers want the right to form their own trade unions. They want to have a voice in decisions affecting their work and their benefits." The unprecedented demonstrations lasted longer than any since the 1989 pro-democracy movement. In Liaoyang, metal workers laid off from former state-owned enterprises took to the streets intermittently over a ten-week period. In Daqing, laid-off oil workers encountered a massive show of force and security forces detained at least sixty workers for periods ranging between twenty-four hours and two weeks. In Fushun, thousands of laid-off miners and workers from nearby factories blocked roads and rail lines until they were given limited payouts. Four key protest leaders in Liaoyang city were indicted on March 30, 2002 after leading a four-year effort to bring workers' complaints to the attention of local authorities. They may be put on trial at any time. Yao Fuxin, Pang Qingxiang, Xiao Yunliang and Wang Zhaoming are charged with "illegal assembly, marches and protests" and could face five-year prison terms. The four men have been held for almost five months with little, if any, access to family and with no legal representation. Across China, state-owned enterprises that once promised workers lifetime employment and a secure retirement have downsized or closed. Many workers, some with decades on the job, are owed months in back pay and have lost their pensions, as well as health and social welfare benefits. "These workers are protesting the hypocrisy of the Chinese government," said Jendrzejczyk. "Although the Chinese constitution calls workers 'the masters of the country,' the government treats protesting workers as criminals." Chinese law prohibits workers from organizing independently. Only one organization, the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), can legally represent workers, and it is under the control of state authorities. It has never spoken out against the laws and regulations routinely used to justify putting independent labor activists in prison. Human Rights Watch found that the Chinese government's response to all three protests was relatively restrained, in part perhaps because labor unrest threatens the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party, and authorities fear an even broader backlash if they crack down too hard. In their handling of the protests, however, Chinese officials violated fundamental rights to free association, expression and assembly. Authorities refused to issue permits for demonstrations, threatened employed workers with loss of pay if family members took part in rallies, and placed restrictions on media access to the affected areas. Security forces physically assaulted protesters, seizing many for short periods of time and refusing to release them until they promised to forego further protests. Human Rights Watch called on the Chinese government to immediately and unconditionally release all those detained for peaceful activities to promote the rights of workers to associate freely. This urgent request applies to workers held in connection with this year's protests in the northeast, to those held for trade union activism during the 1989 pro-democracy movement and in 1992 and 1997-98, and to those in prison for exposing workers' problems to a broad audience within China and to the international media. China should also fulfill its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that it ratified in 2001. China has declared that the application of Article 8(1)(a) must be consistent with China's Trade Union Law--the very law that denies China's workers the right to organize independent trade unions. As a member of the International Labor Organization (ILO), China is obligated to abide by its core principles, including free association and the right to collective bargaining. Human Rights Watch called on China's trading partners and governments involved in bilateral human rights "dialogues" to put pressure on Beijing to ask ILO's assistance in reforming its labor practices to bring them into conformity with international freedom of association standards. Human Rights Watch further appealed to corporations doing business in China, urging that they refrain from complying with requests from Chinese authorities to discriminate against, fire, or in any way discipline workers who attempt to form their own unions, peacefully protest their conditions of work, or go on strike.
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The Lawyers Committee For Human Rights,
Open Forum on Human Rights in China 05 August 2002
Page 1
Introduction
The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (LCHR) is an independent non-governmental human rights organization. Our work is focused on holding governments accountable to the international standards of human rights and on developing stronger models of corporate accountability in the global market place. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) is charged with a mandate tomonitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China, and to submit an annual report to the President and the Congress. As the Commission prepares to write its first annual report, the Lawyers Committee urges that the Commission maintain a strong focus on its human rights agenda, and, in particular, on the implications of economic liberalization and WTO membership for Chinese workers. LCHR urges the Commission to use its voice to influence Congress and the Administration to put concern for Chinese workers hurt by the liberalization of China's economic and trade policies at the forefront of the United States' trade relationship with China.
Page 2.
Impact of Economic and Trade Liberalization on Chinese Workers
Chinese workers protesting labor conditions, corrupt management of wages and pension plans, and the loss of thousands of state enterprise jobs, are frequently detained and their cause ignored by the Chinese government. The well-known case of the Daqing oil workers at the Liaoyang Ferroalloy Factory, where protest leaders were arrested, is only one example of the Chinese government's repressive response to workers' allegations of management corruption in private companies or in state-run enterprises. (see footnote 1) In fact, Amnesty International noted recently that many worker protests are unreported by local governments attempting to hide evidence of unrest and instability. (see footnote 2) According to a Lawyers Committee interview with Han Dongfang, a Chinese labor advocate, the frustration of workers with the dire employment conditions in China is rapidly reaching a boiling point:
"The discontent I hear in the workers' voices is like a ticking time bomb. The first time I heard someone say, "There's no way out, this country needs an all-or-nothing revolution," I felt excited. But Chinese workers need to be aware of the implications of such a revolution. Each time I hear this kind of talk, I ask people the price of revolution is high, but who is going to pay most dearly for it? Will it be the rich officials who can fly out of the country as soon as they feel the need to run? Or will it be the hard-up workers?"
Footnotes to Page 2
1. See Chinese Labour Bulletin, Updates on Workers' Protests in Liaoyang and Daqing, July 25, 2002 at http://iso.china-labour.org.hk/iso/news_item.adp?news_id=2038 ; Chinese Labour Bulletin,2000 Brick and Tile Workers Take Over Factory for Pension Benefits in Inner Mongolia, July 19, 2002 at http://iso.china-labour.org.hk/iso/news_item.adp?news_id=2006.
2. Amnesty International, Workers want to eat - workers want a job, April 30, 2002 at http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/Index/ASA170222002?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES\CHINA.
3. Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Interview with Han Dongfang, Chinese Labor Advocate, at
http://www.lchr.org/workers_rights/wr_china/wr_china_1.htm
(last visited July 30, 2002).
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Page 3
(see footnote 3) Although workers have attempted to address their complaints through legal channels, there are few options available in China's legal system. A recent New York Times article described how Chinese workers sued their employer, the Shenzhen Jianye Construction Company, for lost pension plans. Eight percent of workers' salaries were automatically deducted from each paycheck for the plan, but when retiring workers attempted to claim their pensions, they were informed the money was not available. The Shenzhen workers' lawsuit in the Communist Party-controlled judicial system failed to remedy the construction company's abuses of the pension scheme, further frustrating workers and demonstrating the serious limitations of legal remedies for China's workers.
(see footnote 4) Despite a revised trade union law, China's workers still lack the right to organize independent trade unions, cannot strike to protest working conditions, and cannot vote out local officials that support private or government-owned businesses.
(see footnote 5) The reality of China's accession to the WTO involves far more than expanding access to huge, untapped markets. China is the world's leading exporter of apparel and textiles, and the majority of global apparel production will likely move to China in the near future. Theexpiration of export-regulating quota agreements in 2005 will further this growth.
(see footnote 6) However, the benefits of economic liberalization are not realized by many of China's workers, who suffer under working conditions that include forced labor, child labor, excessive overtime, substandard wages, and exposure to hazardous substances. China has labor laws governing these conditions,
Footnotes to page 3
4. Philip Pan, Chinese workers' rights stop at courtroom door, New York Times, June 28, 2002, at A01.
5. Id.
6. Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Workers Rights in China, at http://www.lchr.org/workers_rights/wr_china/wr_china.htm
(last visited July 30, 2002).
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Page 4
but those laws are rarely enforced and workers lack legal channels through which they can reform working conditions.
(see footnote 7) Although China has only ratified two of the International Labor Organization's fundamental conventions,
(see footnote 8) it has made significant international commitments to the rights of its workers. China's membership in the ILO binds it to the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work
(see footnote 9) and commits China to respect freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, and the elimination of forced labor, child labor, and employment
discrimination. (see footnote 10) Additionally, the election of China's All-China Federation of Trade Unions
(ACFTU) to the Governing Body of the ILO in June 2002
(see footnote 11) offers an opportunity for the international community including the United States -- to remind China of its international obligations towards workers rights. Recommendations The Lawyers Committee recommends that the Commission focus on workers rights in its evaluation of China's WTO membership and the liberalization of China's markets. The Commission should consider the ambassadorial role of American companies in China and work to ensure that those companies respect the letter of China's labor laws when producing goods in China. Providing humane working conditions and basic human freedoms for Chinese workers is
Footnotes to page 4
7. Id.
8. C. 100, Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 and C. 138, Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (See International Labor Organization, Ratification of the ILO Fundamental Conventions, at http://webfusion.ilo.org/public/db/standards/normes/appl/appl-ratif8conv.cfm?Lang=EN.)
9. International Labor Organization, Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, available at http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/decl/declaration/text/.
10. Id.
11. International Labor Organization, Governing Body 284thSession, June 2002, at
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/gb/docs/gb284/index.htm.
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Page 5
not only guaranteed by international law; it is also a priority for American consumers and investors, who are increasingly concerned with how their goods are produced.
(see footnote 12) Although ensuring equitable trade access for American companies to China's vast markets is of obvious importance, especially in a time of recession, in its first annual report the Commission should prioritize the preservation of workers rights in China's trade liberalization efforts.
Footnotes to Page 5.
12. "Respondents said they would be more likely to invest in a company that invested in companies that didn't harm the environment (70%), had a good record of hiring and promoting women (63%) and minorities (62%), and are not involved in sweatshop labor practices(57%)." (See Yankelovich Partners, 1999 study, at Calvert Group, Ltd. website, "Know What You Own" page at http://www.calvert.com/sri_kwyo.asp (last visited August 3, 2002).
China continues to blatantly ignore international standards on labour and human rights.
excerpt from article on report presented by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) to the International Labour Organization (a UN body), 2nd June 2002 (see full article at http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991215395&Language=EN )
"The first part (of the report) brings updated information on 15 cases submitted by the ICFTU in previous years. It concerns prisoners whose release has long been demanded by the ILO. They include Zhang Shanguang, a veteran labour detainee, who was repeatedly kicked and punched by prison guards after he organised a petition against torture at the Hunan Provincial Prison no.1, an electrical machinery factory in Yunagjiang City. He suffers from tuberculosis and heart disease, but is forced to work in shackles and to undertake the hardest work. Another case is that of Yao Guisheng, a member of the 1989-era Changsha Workers’ Autonomous Federation, who was sentenced to 15 years. Regularly beaten, forced to wear shackles, he has become mentally ill, though the government denied any ill-treatment when questioned by the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture, in 1994."
Other reports from International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU):
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