Huizhou Battery Workers Fight for Compensation

“Big bags of cadmium arrived at the factory from Hong Kong…We had to bag them down into smaller quantities. We had no adequate protection. Most of all, we didn’t know it was dangerous. No one told us so how could we have known?”
(A battery worker at the GP-Chaoba factory in Huizhou)

“The employees of a production and business operation entity shall be entitled to know the dangerous elements that exist in the site or position of work as well as the corresponding prevention measures and emergency measures; they shall be entitled to give suggestions concerning the work of production safety of the entity where they work.”
(Article 45 of Production Safety Law of the People's Republic of China)

These extracts illustrate the gap between law and reality that plagues workplaces all over the world. The problem is particularly acute in export zones where generally younger workers are employed in ‘investor-friendly’ environments. And this gap has been thrown into sharp relief in Mainland China where management at two factories in the town of Huizhou in southern Guangdong province stand accused of gross safety violations.

The accusations have been made by a group of employees and over 30 Hong Kong labour and human rights groups that have mobilised to support them. The accusations have been accompanied by an ongoing struggle of strikes and petitions by workers demanding a full medical investigation and improved working conditions. The factories, GP Chaoba and GP Xianjin, produce nickel-plated batteries for the major Hong Kong-based company Gold Peak Industries (Holdings) Limited (hereafter GP) which has a 50 per cent share in both factories.

Cadmium is a hazardous chemical and is used by GP as electrode material for nickel-cadmium batteries. The health effects of cadmium depend, as with any other chemical, on the concentration, route of exposure (inhalation or ingestion) and duration of exposure. Workers at the factories argue that very little safety equipment – such as ventilation – was installed to limit the impact of working with cadmium until the factories began to attract negative publicity in early 2004. Cadmium can be ingested via clothing worn or food consumed in the location of cadmium. Workers interviewed by the Hong Kong labour NGO Globalization Monitor said that until recently the factories lacked changing rooms and suitably located canteens.

Cadmium is not pleasant. According to a Europe-based trade union health and safety official:

“Exposure to cadmium produces a wide variety of effects involving many organs and systems. Early detection is the key to avoiding damage, especially to kidneys in order to prevent more serious renal effects and those on the lungs or bones. There have also been studies indicating that chronic exposure to cadmium may give rise to cancer.

Lower cadmium concentrations with longer periods of exposure can be expected to give rise to chronic cadmium poisoning. Fully developed poisoning among industrial workers shows two main effects: renal dysfunction and emphysema. The kidney is most frequently the critical organ, but under certain conditions (short-term peak exposures) it may be the lung.”

Workers at the Huizhou GP factories began to fall seriously ill in November 2003.

Insufficient Testing

Some of the 3,000 workers in the two factories have been at the factory for up to eight years. Management claims that 1,000 of these workers have actually come into contact with cadmium and that these workers have been tested. However, it is clear that given the previously poor safety environment, all workers need to be independently tested on a regular basis and the results made public. To date, the factory and the local authorities have made no genuine effort to take this logical step.

China’s national standard covering cadmium in the work place is GBZ17-2002 which provides for ‘observation’ of employees who have high levels of cadmium in their blood or urine but have not reached levels that can be medically diagnosed as constituting ‘poisoning’. Of the 1,021 workers who have taken part in company-arranged tests, 400 have ‘high’ levels of cadmium and 177 of these workers have levels high enough to warrant further ‘observation’. A further two workers have been diagnosed as having been “poisoned” by cadmium. Some of the workers have paid for their own follow-up tests and the results have shown up to ten times the level of cadmium than the original tests.

Testing for cadmium is complex and the levels found can vary at different times. The medical – and common sense – answer to this problem is regular testing over a period of time so that an accurate diagnosis can be made. In short, more tests are needed. Management is going in the opposite direction and has refused to recognise the validity of the workers’ own tests and as such is ignoring valuable medical data.

Moreover, the 177 workers categorised as having ‘high’ levels of cadmium state that they have been given contradictory information and even forced to leave hospital. For example, on July 8, doctors from the Guangdong Hospital for Occupational Disease and Prevention told ten hospitalized workers from the GP Chaoba factory that they were still in need of medical care as a result of high levels of cadmium. The following morning a bus from the factory arrived and the workers were forced by the hospital director and local police to leave the hospital and were promptly driven back to the factory. One worker was so worried she ran away.

In mid-August, the GP Chaoba factory arranged for urine tests for 200 workers who had been employed at the factory for more than five years. Of these 200 workers, 140 were over the accepted level of cadmium and another 60 had higher than normal levels of Beta-2 microglobulin in their urine. The results came through on September 8 and led to a strike by over 500 workers, most of whom had more than 5 years service at the factory and had previously tested negative during tests carried out in June and July. The strike brought production to a complete halt and after three days forced management to arrange further hospital tests. The workers agreed to go back to work and production has been restored.

Support from Hong Kong

Following an earlier protest at GP’s office, Hong Kong labour groups held a second protest at Gold Peak’s 2004 shareholder meeting on September 10 which attracted considerable media attention. After the meeting, which was interrupted by two protestors who had previously bought GP shares, GP Chairman Victor Lo told reporters that the two workers diagnosed with ‘cadmium poisoning’ would be offered 18,000 yuan (1,777 Euros) each in compensation and that another 70 workers under ‘observation’ due to high levels of cadmium would be duly compensated. This is a reference to a non-negotiated compensation offer of 3,000 yuan and 8,000 yuan depending on the levels of cadmium discovered. The offer was presented as a ‘take it or leave it’ deal. Workers were also instructed by management to clarify within 15 days whether they intended to continue working at the factory.

The Hong Kong groups have backed up the workers demands for fair compensation. Given the appalling past record the factories have in violating basic labour and safety laws, the compensation on offer is not enough. They have demanded that Gold Peak admit its responsibilities and:

• Publicly acknowledge that this case involves actual and potential cadmium poisoning and is not simply a question of some workers having high levels of cadmium. GP should also publicly acknowledge the potential of cadmium poisoning to damage human health in the short term and long term and that compensation should be approached in this light.
• Enter into genuine negotiations with workers’ representatives aimed at achieving a just solution rather than bringing the matter to a close as quickly as possible.
• Provide funds for independent and ongoing testing for all employees past and present

Repression is not a solution

Over the past three months, there has been considerable media coverage of this case on the mainland and in Hong Kong. The state-owned station CCTV has broadcast a documentary which was broadly sympathetic to the workers’ case.

However, there are warning signs that the workers’ attempts to get justice will lead to more sinister ‘solutions’ from the local authorities. Desperate efforts to petition authorities in Beijing in early September as well as the continued strikes and numerous local petitions have attracted warnings from management and the Huizhou government. On September 3, management from both factories went so far as to issue a joint statement with the local government announcing that the matter has been handed over to the police who were looking into public order offences and illegal petitioning. Management has even written to workers threatening prosecution if they petition the central government, a constitutionally recognised right in China.

The warnings are clearly designed to increase feelings of helplessness among the workers and indeed there are clear indications that many workers are coming to the conclusion that they have no choice but to accept a minimally improved compensation offer and leave their jobs to face a lifetime of medical uncertainty and illness.

There are branches of the state-controlled All China Federation of Trade Unions at both GP Chaoba and GP Xianjin, but they are staffed by management and are little more than ornaments. As such, attention to this case from Hong Kong groups and also the wider international labour movement will be an important factor in solving the dispute in a just manner.