The ICFTU recently issued a public appeal to Hu Jintao, the President of China, calling for the immediate and unconditional release of detained workers in Xianyang and Yancheng.
Those detained were among some 6,800 workers taking part in a strike at the former Tianwang Textile Factory (now called Xianyang Huarun Textile Factory) in Xianyang city, Shaanxi Province, which was recently taken over by the Hong Kong-based conglomerate, China Resources (Huarun). The strike which had lasted almost seven weeks was in protest at attempts by the factory’s new majority owners to force workers to sign new labour contracts. The new management were demanding that all the workers accept a one-off severance payment (of one month’s basic salary for each year of service) after which an unknown number of the workers would be re-employed on short-term contracts at a much lower wage and would lose their previous seniority status. In addition, these rehired workers would have to serve a six-month “probationary period,” during which they would only receive 60 percent of their new and reduced salary. Most workers had been working at the plant for some ten years or so.
The names of those detained are not yet known. At the same time as detaining scores of workers – who were in the process of electing a factory level trade union - the new management reportedly agreed to two of the striking workers main demands. This policy of conciliation on the one hand and repression on the other has now resulted in an end to the strike. The outcome of the agreements is not yet known.
Two female labour activists, Liu Meifeng and Ding Xiulan, were arrested for “disturbing social order”. Liu and Ding are both female workers from the Zhongheng Textile Corporation in Funing County, Jiangsu Province. Originally an SOE, the company (employing some 3,000 workers) filed for bankruptcy and offered workers around 400 Yuan in severance pay for every year of service. The laid off workers were not provided with any social security or medical insurance benefits. The factory went on strike at the start of September at these unfair conditions. After several mass protests the local government agreed to resolve the situation in return for an end to the strike. The workers agreed and ended their protests – however in response local police began to detain scores of workers involved in the previous protests. On 20 October, thousands of people attended a public meeting in Yancheng, where police formally arrested Liu Meifeng and Ding Xiulan.
Mr. Hu Jintao
President of the People’s Republic of China
C/o Ministry of Justice
Chaoyang District
Beijing
People’s Republic of China
By fax: + 86 10 647 298 63
By e-mail: minister@legalinfo.gov.cn
IHLO-TUR/TP-JS 4 November 2004
Dear Mr. President,
Detention of workers in Xianyang City and Yancheng City
Only days after writing you to denounce the sentences imposed on independent labour activists at Xing Ang’s shoe factory owned by Stella International in Guangdong Province, I am forced to write to you again in protest at the arrest and detention of workers attempting to protect their jobs and conditions in the face of aggressive and dictatorial restructuring of state owned enterprises.
I must thus call on you, Mr. President, to use your authority to order the immediate release of twenty detained workers from the former Tianwang Textile Factory in Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province as well as Ding Xiulan and Liu Meifeng from the Funing County Zhongheng Textile Factory close to Yancheng City in Jiangsu Province.
According to our information, Ding Xiulan and Liu Meifeng were detained on 20 October after organising a strike and several peaceful protests in response to unfair redundancy compensation terms offered to them by the factory management. Ding and Liu have been charge with “disturbing social order”. In reality, they engaged in no more than exercising their right to freedom of association guaranteed by the International Labour Organisation’s Conventions No. 87 and 98.
In Shaanxi province, the former Tianwang Textile Factory in Xianyang City was recently taken over by listed China Resources (Huarun). The Huarun management subsequently demanded that all 6,800 workers sign new contracts that take no account of seniority and stipulate a six-month probationary period on reduced wages. Management has since dropped the latter clause.
The employees responded by taking peaceful strike action and demanding negotiations. At the same time the workers began electing trade union representatives with a view to registering a trade union branch with the All China Federation of Trade Unions, in accordance with China’s Trade Union Law. However in mid-October, the local authorities began arresting workers involved in the strike. At the time of writing none of the names of the twenty workers in custody have been released.
Mr. President, the ICFTU is dismayed that your government continues to repress the right to freedom of association and to deny the right of workers to hold peaceful protests in violation of Article 35 of the Constitution itself. We strongly urge you not to allow more names to be added to the grim list of workers currently imprisoned in China for defending their legal rights in the work place.
As a Member of the United Nations’ specialised agency, the International Labour Organisation, China is bound to uphold its basic principles, including freedom of association. The ILO has repeatedly asked your government to allow workers to exercise the right to strike and the ILO noted in 1999 that it “must once again recall that it has always considered the right to strike to be one of the essential means through which workers and their organizations may promote and defend their economic and social interests ... It therefore requests the Government to take the necessary measures for the legislation to be amended so as to ensure that workers are not punished for the exercise of this right." Moreover, we respectfully remind you, Mr. President, that the taking of strike action is not illegal in Chinese law.
China’s reform process in general and the restructuring of state owned enterprises in particular have attracted great praise from the international community. However, we would remind you that an integral aspect of such policies is the active participation of working people via representative trade union organisations. To date the All China Federation of Trade Unions has failed to organise effective participation or to defend their members’ legal interests – a fact acknowledged by former ACFTU Chairman Wei Jianxing.
In this light, we would sincerely ask you, Mr. President, what kind of message does it send to anti-trade union trans-national companies such as Wal-Mart and Kodak, who have defied Chinese law and refused to allow any kind of workers’ organisation in their Chinese factories, when workers elsewhere are detained and charged for defending their legal rights and interests?
The international trade union movement calls upon your government to show greater respect for workers’ fundamental rights, including the right freedom of association and the right to strike, and to immediately and unconditionally release the detained workers in Xianyang and Yancheng.
Yours sincerely,
General Secretary
Cc: Mr. Wang Zhaoguo, Chairman, ACFTU, Beijing (by fax: 86-10-68 59 33 19)
