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Workers in China

Friday 8 January 2010

China Daily year-end lists highlight the role of workers in 2009

Thu, 12/24/2009 - 17:58 — william

As the year 2009 and this decade (the “aughts”?) comes to an end, various “best of” lists are floating around on the Internet, and the China Daily has compiled an interesting series of lists on its website. Besides being a year that saw many cultural and scholarly giants pass away, 2009 will probably also be remembered as a year in which workers and common netizens started to use proactive and exceptional means to defend their rights – a trend CLB noted in our report- the Workers’ Movement in China (2007-2008). And 2009 will probably also be remember as a year in which various local governments had their credibility challenged like never before.

Of the year’s “Top 10 Saddest Stories”, three were directly about workers. There was the famous Zhang Haichao case− a man who elected to have surgery to prove that he indeed had pneumoconiosis, something the government denied. An employee at Foxconn committed suicide after being accused of stealing a sample iPhone and having been beaten by the company personnel. Chen Guojun, a manager at Jianlong Steel Holding Company, was beaten to death by workers at Tonghua who were angry over their company’s restructuring deal.

But besides these cases, there were other prominent incidents that seemed to indicate that class divisions are widening, and people are anxious to see more social justice. For example, also making the list was the tragic case of Tan Zhuo – a successful young man from Hunan living in Hangzhou – was run over and killed by a young, rich college student who was drag racing on public streets. The incident became even more prominent in the Chinese media after netizens found out that the police initially lied about how fast the car was going, in an apparent attempt to collude with the rich family of the racecar driver. The case seemed to epitomize the all-too cozy relationship between the rich and the government, and their disregard for regular people’s lives.

Other “saddest” stories of the year also revolved around poverty and callousness from official power, such as “poor student hangs herself in dorm”, and “man chops off finger to prove innocence”. One could also see this trend of citizens employing increasingly extreme forms of activism against powerful forces in the “Top 10 real estate debacles of 2009”.
Three workers made the list in the “Top 10 web celebrities of 2009”: a "bus beauty", a "cute sugarcoated haw" vendor, and a handsome traffic police officer.

Meanwhile the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences put out a white paper analyzing 77 high-profile mass incidents. They determined that the Internet and mobile phones played a crucial role in disseminating information in 23 of the cases, or roughly 30%. Therefore, as we see the rise of these popular internet incidents on almost a daily basis, and as China’s Internet population reached 338 million by 30 June 2009, perhaps it’s no wonder that the government is looking for new ways to control and censor the Internet.

Heavy sentence of journalist who took hush money raises questions

Thu, 01/07/2010 - 19:10 — william

The China Daily and other prominent media outlets have focused on the recent case of journalist Li Junqi who received a 16-year jail sentencing for taking hush money when reporting on a coal mining disaster that killed 34 people in Hebei. Li’s lawyer said that his client did not take the bribes, and he plans to appeal. Li was one of ten journalists and over 48 Party and government officials who were involved.

Although journalists should maintain professional ethics, and Li’s behavior, if the allegations prove to be true, is clearly unethical, yet two recent media reports shed light on some of the institutional and structural reasons that make the paying of hush money to be such a widespread practice and put this incident into perspective.

The first article shows that many rural county governments are filled with corruption, and that it is almost impossible for any individual official to stay clean. Graeme Smith, a scholar at the University of Technology Sydney, spent over four years researching a rural county in Anhui province for his article Political Machinations in a Rural County published in the China Journal, and what he found was a complex and layered network of corruption throughout the county:

The perpetrators of corruption are rarely morally good or bad. Rather, they are playing by the unwritten rules of a system that makes them utterly dependent on the patronage of those higher up the tree - and oblivious to the needs of those below.

In rural counties, the Party Secretary is also particularly powerful:

Within… (the) county, the Communist Party secretary is king. He has the final say in all personnel decisions and the interpretation of central government policy. He runs the bureaucracy like a giant franchise system.

Under this system in which corruption is a regular part of government affairs, and as in this coalmining disaster case − in which the powerful county Party Secretary and other officials were directly involved in bribing the journalists − one might question to what extent an individual journalist would feel at liberty to disobey the Party secretary’s orders and publishing information about the coal mining disaster without “proper” authorization.

Similarly, a recent Global Times article shows that bribery is not only rife in political circles, but in journalistic circles as well. In a recent conference at Beijing Foreign Studies University, reporters from around the nation discussed the issue of bribery. There was a lot of debate about journalists taking “food coupon news” – writing puff pieces for companies or government departments. There was controversy about the whether there was a difference in taking money to write positive news stories on the one hand, and taking hush money to cover up negative events that had already happened on the other hand. However, there was virtual universal recognition that bribery and the giving of hong bao’s (red packets filled with cash) was widespread in China today.

Government departments, public relations companies and owners of private business operations all routinely hand out hong bao – red envelopes – to journalists seeking favorable coverage.

So-called "transport fees" can range from a 50-yuan note for a local newspaper reporter to thousands of yuan for a top TV reporter. Hush fees go even higher – even tens of thousands of yuan.

"Handing out red envelopes in the name of ’transport fees’ to Chinese journalists is a hidden rule here," said Wang Jingqi from Pegasus Communications, a Daniel J Edelman Company in Beijing.

While none of this background information should excuse or justify the behavior of corrupt journalists and government officials, it does raise questions about whether sentencing a particular journalist for such an excessive amount of time will fix this systematic problem, or whether it’s just a game of “killing the chicken to scare the monkey”.

In any case, honestly and accurately reporting mining disasters after the fact won’t fundamentally alter the appalling safety record in Chinese mines. Only by giving workers a larger say in their production and workplace safety issues will the problems start to see a fundamental change in nature.

Dagongzhe Migrant Workers’ Centre fights on despite violent attack
Dec 15, 03:31
Click here to download this introduction in PDF format
CLNT_Dagongzhe_INTRO.pdf

It has been two years since labor activist Huang Qingnan almost lost his leg to a machete attack on 20 November 2007. The founder and registered person of the Dagongzhe Migrant Worker Centre in Shenzhen was attacked in broad daylight for his work educating migrant workers about their legal rights and assisting them take their disputes to court. Chinese labor rights NGOs in Shenzhen are accustomed to administrative repression, but this violent attack was a frightening escalation of the threat to worker activists.

In CLNT’s 6 December 2007 issue we worried that the attack might be the start of escalating violence against labor NGOs http://www.clntranslations.org/article/26/shenzhen-labor-activist-attacked. We are pleased to report that the violence has not run rampant in the last two years. Thanks to the vast amount of support that poured in immediately after the violent incident, even local Chinese authorities and the official trade union had to demonstrate some official concern. However, open antagonism and suppression from the local authorities and capital has now been translated into legal manipulation in the courts.

In this issue of CLNT, we have translated a statement by the Dagongzhe Migrant Worker Centre on the second anniversary of the attack. From this statement, and discussions with Dagongzhe staff, we have learned that five people were arrested and found guilty of the attack. One of those arrested was the mastermind behind the violence – the owner of factory buildings in the local area, who blamed the Dagongzhe Centre for driving away his tenants. In the translated statement and this CLNT editorial, we share how Huang has spent the last two years engaged in a battle on three fronts: to bring his assailants to justice in court: to obtain official recognition of his acquired disability: and to have the damage to his leg recognized as an occupational injury. All on this, on top of his battle to regain his health, and ensure the survival of the Dagongzhe Migrant Worker Centre where he has worked for the last eight years.

Open support for Huang Qingnan
Immediately after the attack, Huang and the Dagongzhe centre were inundated with expressions of solidarity and support around the world. Particularly remarkable were the demonstrations of support from within China. When the assailants were due to appear for their first hearing on 24 December 2008, a group of 66 people from Hong Kong and mainland China protested openly outside the court, demanding a just sentence. The hearing was cancelled. 70 people gathered again on 16 January 2009 when the hearing was adjourned, and 30 were blocked from observing the sentencing hearing in May.

The attack and the trial were covered by several mainland newspapers. The Dagongzhe centre felt that all reports were sympathetic to Huang’s case, except for the final report on the sentencing hearing, when Shenzhen government authorities required the media to published a pre-prepared uniform article. Following his release from hospital, Huang was visited by the Deputy Chair of the Guangdong Federation of Trade Unions, and Deputy Chair of the Shenzhen Federation of Trade Unions – which donated 10,000 RMB (1,465 USD) toward his treatment. By March 2008, the Dagongzhe Centre had received a total of 52,976 RMB (7,758 USD) in donations from mainland China alone, including 9,000 RMB (1,318 USD) raised by teaching staff at Sun Yat Sen University in Guangzhou, and 4,000 RMB donated at a community bazaar put on by Dagongzhe Centre.

The struggle for a fair trial
The five behind the attack were arrested on 28 January 2008 – including the local factory owner who ordered the assault. They were found guilty on 18 May 2009 by the People’s Court in Shenzhen’s Longgang District, and sentenced to serve prison terms ranging from five years to eighteen months. The sentences were all later reduced by the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court. The factory owner’s original sentence of four years was reduced to two. Word has it that he has already been released. Huang was awarded 96,869.89 RMB (14,186 USD) in compensation for medical and related expenses. Six months later, however, he is yet to receive even one cent of this compensation.

The Dagongzhe centre was appalled by the light sentences and applied to the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court for a retrial on 21 July 2009. But the application was rejected in August, and again in September. A spokesperson of the Dagongzhe centre said they are angry at the unjust sentence from the court, and disappointed at the conduct of local authorities.

The struggle for recognition of Huang’s injury
While fighting to make sure that his assailants did not get off the hook, Huang meanwhile struggles to obtain official recognition of the disability suffered to his leg, as well as recognition the disability be classed as an occupational injury.

The knife attack almost completely severed Huang’s left leg. Now he can only walk a short distance, and requires a car to get around. In April and June 2008, the Longgang District Public Security Bureau and the People’s Protectorate in Shenzhen both confirmed that Huang has acquired a “level 6” disability. But in December 2008, the People’s Protectorate added insult to injury by reversing the decision and denying him disability status. The court will not grant any compensation for disability, pay for equipment to aid his mobility or any psychological support.

Meanwhile, the Department of Labor and Social Security is refusing to recognize Huang’s case as one of occupational injury, depriving him of workers’ compensation. In June 2008, Huang sued the Department of Labor and Social Security because of its decision, but on 10 December 2009 the People’s Court in Shenzhen’s Futian District upheld the Department’s decision. Huang’s claim for occupational injury was rejected again by the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court in February 2009.

What now for the Dagongzhe Migrant Worker Centre and labor activists in South China?
After several serious cases of inflammation in his injured leg, Huang Qingnan is currently recuperating in his home province of Fujian. He has been under heavy surveillance in Shenzhen, and for the time being it is unclear whether he will be able to work openly in that city again. He remains the register legal person of the Dagongzhe centre.

Huang and the Dagongzhe centre have continued to face intimidation. The tires on Huang’s car were slashed on 11 August 2009, and around the same time the Dagongzhe Centre received harassing phone calls and posters were torn down from outside their office. Nonetheless, the centre is resolved to continue its work in defense of workers’ rights, and their determined spirit is captured in the translated article. Readers may want to note that Dagongzhe Centre avails itself of a kind of language, passionate and uncompromising, that sets it apart from other labor NGOs.

The translated statement from the Dagongzhe Centre also highlights other violent attacks on rank and file worker activists, and the ongoing abuse and injustice, the ploys used by employers’ to extract the last drop of sweat from workers at a time of economic hardship in the Pearl River Delta.

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