Posted on 12/22/2001 9:45:39 AM PST by super175
There's little sense of celebration this holiday season at lawyer Zhou Litai's crowded house in Shenzhen. He's too busy looking after workers who lost hands, legs or feet in factory accidents while churning out Christmas gifts for the world.
Some of Mr Zhou's clients come to him straight from the hospital. Others, on crutches or with bandaged stumps, trek from around China to his home in Shenzhen hoping that he will take up their fight for compensation for work-related accidents.
The gifts labelled "Made in China" that millions will receive this season may well have come from factories in Longgang and other grimy industrial suburbs of Shenzhen.
"Christmas gifts? You see what tears, what sweat are spent by the workers making these products?" said Mr Zhou, a self-educated lawyer and former migrant worker himself.
A third of China's exports come from factories in Guangdong producing such items as Christmas decorations, toys, electronics, shoes, clothing and small items likely to find their way into Christmas stockings.
Chinese goods are cheap mainly because they are made by workers paid less than eight yuan (HK$7.80) an hour who toil long hours, often in poor conditions.
Overworked, untrained workers lose limbs in unsafe machines. Girls gluing soles on to shoes in unventilated workshops are poisoned by fumes. Workers locked into dormitories and factories are killed in fires. Explosions, fires and other work-related accidents killed 47,000 people in the first six months of this year, state media say.
Up to 30 workers at a time live with Mr Zhou's family, two to a bed, four or more to a room, while seeking compensation for their injuries. Stricken by their plight, Mr Zhou feeds and houses them in the hope of collecting a 10 per cent lawyer's fee if they win their cases.
Jiang Zhongao said he used to work 14 hours a day or more to meet the demand for circuit boards - until January 20, when his left hand was severed by a moulding machine.
"The equipment was old and falling apart," Mr Jiang said. "If I'd only been working eight hours a day, I probably wouldn't have had any accident. But I was sick with a cold and dizzy."
Mr Jiang's employer agreed to pay 30,000 yuan in compensation, less than a third of the money he believes he is entitled to.
Mr Zhou said he is dealing with 700 cases involving severed hands - 500 from factories in Shenzhen. One of his clients, Dang Jianjun, 21, lost both hands three years ago while working at a computer factory.
Despite a 1995 labour law mandating a 40-hour work week, workers at many Chinese factories toil 12 hours or more almost every day. Safety measures are minimal and physical punishment routine, according to Anita Chan, an expert on Chinese labour at the Australian National University. Ms Chan, who recently published a book titled China's Workers Under Assault, said her research found a sharp rise in accidents when work hours exceeded 60 a week.
According to industry figures, about half of China's toy factories are in Guangdong, employing about one million workers and producing about 50,000 models of toys. Some factories are huge - with as many as 15,000 workers who live, work, eat and sleep there, going home just once a year.
"I get calls and threats from factory owners, managers and local officials every day. They accuse me of ruining the investment environment," Mr Zhou said. "This maiming is not national policy. But at the local level, officials must change their attitudes."
There is a whole lot here...
Hong Kong and Taiwanese companies as well as some US companies allow work to go on in these types of conditions and if someone pipes up about it, see you around charlie.
The national goal of China is to attract FDI, and seeing how work regulations are frowned upon by some businesses (because it cuts into the bottom line) the general feeling is "take one for the team".
If China does get some kind of labor unions going, then it makes China a little less price competitive in their export business. That in turn will make that FDI vaccum in China pull a little less hard...
China sometimes gets a lot of those manufacturing contracts because they don't play by the same rules as some of our other partners...
The end result is economic mind you...
Patronizing those businesses, wether they are Mainland owned, US owned, US contracted, Taiwanese owned or Hong Kong owned... it doesn't matter, is kind of causing a problem...
While investment is great for the Chinese government because people have jobs, but this end of things needs some big time work...
Until these "workers" rise up and overthrow their Communist masters, they'll continue to die and be injured by the tens of thousands.
Why is it that socialist liberals, who bitch about working conditions in China, can not see it as a failure of a system (communism) instead of nasty capitolists exploiting the working class? Folks, in a communist society the working class and the ruling class are one and the same. Communism is a tried and failed system. Socialism is just communism lite.
Do you have a Bible handy? Check out Ephesians 6:5-9 and Colossians 4:1.
While also religious, it is also the foundation of the law.
Folks, in a communist society the working class and the ruling class are one and the same. Communism is a tried and failed system. Socialism is just communism lite.
You are making a foolish argument in regards to China in that there is yet another aspect... feudalism. Most of the time these kinds abuses stem from feudal abuse more than communist ideals.
Sort through the Bill of Rights. In there are the reasons given for revolution. They fought conduct unbecoming human dignity, and feudal thought. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal..."
In this case they are equal unless we have to pay them...or if they speak up they are gonna get shut-up... the hard way...
We all know the likelyhood of that happening.
What most likely would happen is they would have a "state sanctioned" union just for face value and to make everyone feel better.
HEAR ME NOW. BELIEVE ME LATER.
AMERICA LAST? OR FIRST. IT'S YOUR CHOICE REALLY.
(oh yeah right, now i begin to hear the typical tin foil hat smear from the blind)
The sick irony is, of course, that they're in a communist country and they can't organize.
The sick irony is, of course, that they're in a communist country and they can't organize.
No, my friend. The people own nothing. The government owns the means of production. And if you think the people own the government, you are sniffing some serious glue.
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