Mainland Media

A bloggers' take on the Attack on the Dagongzhe workers Centre and Huang Qingnan

IHLO has translated an interesting blog by a writer with a Guangzhou ACFTU affiliated writer – and follow-up response by a labour rights advocate in the Shenzhen area. The article attempts to put the recent attacks into context and inform readers about the difficult circumstances under which such centres operate. It also mentioned the role of the local Shenzhen ACFTU. The follow up comment gives more background about some meetings between the local ACFTU branch and labour rights groups, the interaction between the two and the response from the ACFTU. We have omitted the first page of general background about the personal relationship between the writer and Huang Qingnan for reasons of brevity only. A short summary of the two authors and the blogspace they are using is at the end.

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Recently the labour rights activists in Shenzhen have been targeted for frequent attacks and violence from criminals. Amongst them, Huang Qingnan suffered the worst. The criminals stabbed into his legs with knives so violently that one of his legs may have to be amputated. Huang himself is a disabled person. His face had been seriously injured with sulfate in a malicious revenge while he was working in factory in the past. Nobody has yet been identified for responsibility. Now he is faced with another traumatic disaster.

Huang has been working at Dagongzhe Centre registered in Longgong town, Shenzhen to provide para-legal consultation and quality training services to workers. Their work is popularly received by workers. Huang and his colleagues have been particularly active to assist workers and promote the newly passed Labour Contract Law which will be effective soon. Of course this brings them to offend the interests of sweatshop employers. Huang and his colleagues are almost sure the attack against Huang was directly related to the labour work they are doing. In fact attacks and harassment of various levels had started targeting the centre even before Huang’s incident. The purpose of these attacks is simple --- to force the centre to cease operation.

The work and commitment of Huang and his colleagues deserves acknowledgement and appreciation. Yet due to some reasons both subjective and objective, most of the time the government views their work and existence with half eyes closed although due to regulatory reasons, the government does sometimes takes more oppressive measures against them. Fully aware of the ambiguity of the centre and their work, Huang and his folks play low profile, providing what is necessary to workers without raising any eyebrow.

The trade union, as far as I understand, view these people not without respect. In October this year, the Shenzhen ACFTU invited activists engaged in labour work like Huang does to a meeting. In the meeting, the trade union recognised the contribution of the legal work of the activists on labour rights protection. The trade union even proposed to unify and host their activities under the banner of the trade union. This is an encouraging sign for the activists present in the meeting, giving them a sense of returning to the family again.

Therefore it is the enterprises that uphold absolutely no corporate social responsibility, or simply the employers lacking conscience that are hostile to the existence of the labour rights activists and their active work. To them, these activists are thorn in the eye that must be removed without any delay. Notwithstanding, they took action, actions that were no different from those of gangsters. This resembles what Mr. Wu Xi called ‘cost of bloodshed’. These people use violence to physically harm the individual not only to make the individual helpless, but also the new law helpless so as to keep their profit making intact. When capital goes out of control, it becomes a knife that kills. This is a dangerous siren.

Here is a citizen, a disabled person, who takes on a career that improves the well being of his life and that of others through hard toil and self learning. However some malicious people are determined to destroy his path, and to make him a doubly disabled person. This is absolutely intolerable under any circumstances. However, I am worried that the so-called mainstream people would view this incident not with sympathy for the victim or condemnation against the violence, but apathy, if not secret joy in seeing it happened because of Huang Qing Nan’s identity as a ‘civil human rights activist’. This would be real misfortune. If this really happens, the people who do so are actually lowering themselves to the same level as the criminals. A dangerous siren also is it.

We appeal here, not only to our counterparts, but the government and the civil society to stand together. The society should stand together to give Huang Qing Nan moral support and economic assistance, to help him pass this ordeal and stand up on his own again.

We call upon the public security to investigate this case, arrest and punish the criminals as soon as possible, and to return justice to the victim.

Appendix

Comment from Wang Tong Xin, Deputy Chair of Shenzhen ACFTU on Civil Society Human Rights Activists

In October, Shenzhen ACFTU called upon a group of several tens of ‘para-legal agents’ such as Zhang Zhi Yu, Qi Yun Hui, Yu Guo, Shao Mei Ling, Yang Jia Feng and Li Ming Tao to a meeting at a hotel in Bao An district. Zhang Zhi Yu said, ‘This meeting is called because the trade union wants to understand the rights activists’ personal conditions and the methods they use in protecting workers’ rights. The trade union wants to learn from our experiences.’ Each participant then gave speeches for 10 minutes on how they became engaged in rights protection work.

Wang Tong Xin, the Deputy Chair of Shenzhen ACFTU concluded by saying, ‘(You) The civil society rights activists are people with understanding who have done a lot of work that should be the government’s duties. Different means have been used. Some of them cause harm, some of them un-conventional. Overall, their work takes effect and results in pushing forward the work of the government. Shenzhen is improving step by step in protecting the rights of workers and the establishment of the legal system. In this sense, the para-legal agents of Shenzhen are playing a positive role.’

The Deputy Chair Mr. Zhang added that if the employer-employee relation continued to get worse, political stability would be affected.
The invited activists such as Zhang Zhi Yu understood from the meeting that Shenzhen government had established three study groups ie the National People’s Congress Working Group, the Political Consultative Conference Study Group and the Li Ming Deputy Major Study Group to specialise on the question of para-legal agents.

The Shenzhen ACFTU also revealed that the trade union was planning to establish sub-district level labour rights protection and service centres, eventually to include ‘these folks’. The initial target was to include 60 of them into the centres as assistants to lawyers and work on labour rights protection. A reminder was sent to these ‘folks’ to abstain from contact with non-Chinese media and from receiving funding from non-Chinese sources.

  ON the following Sunday after the meeting, Shenzhen ACFTU sent officers from the labour rights protection department to visit Zhang Zhi Yu’s Chuen Feng Labour Disputes Consultation Service Centre located at Da Long Street of Bao An district. The union officers observed the worker’s training session organised by the centre. The centre also invited the visiting officers to conduct a guest training session.
(The above information was provided by Zhang Zhi Yu.)

Source: http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4aa673c201000fm1.html

About the author:
The blog is owned by a journalist called Zhan Chuan-hai, who works at the Nanfang Workers’ Newspaper (Bi-daily), a newspaper run by the Guangdong Provincial ACFTU. See http://cq.netsh.com/bbs/744530/

In his personal blog, Mr Zhan writes about his daily encounters with workers, employers and rights defenders. As preamble of this article, he wrote “I couldn’t write everything I want here and I think this article is very unlikely to be published by the newspaper. Others are welcomed to re-post it elsewhere).

About Zhang Zhi-yu
He was the founder of Shenzhen Migrant Workers’ Association (since 2004). The association did not formally register itself and provides free legal consultation and recreational activities for workers. In November 2006, it was one of the core organizations which called for reducing the fee at the labour disputes arbitration bureau.