Sun, Jul 07, 2002 page11

• China's workers can't get satisfaction

  STATE-RUN ENTERPRISES Unable to compete with growing competition from at home and abroad, some companies have not paid there employees in years

  • NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  Much of industrial China has been gripped by labor unrest, from protesting oil workers in the eastern province of Shandong to retired steel workers in Guizhou in the southwest. Disgruntled workers are blocking traffic and railways, staging protests, shutting down production and risking arrest.

  The widespread strife has been viewed by some as a serious threat to China's political stability. But experts say there is little chance of a Solidarity-style labor movement starting up anytime soon. It's not just repression that's stopping workers from organizing; they lack the vision to unify their disparate causes.

  

  Workers of the Daqing No. 2 Construction Co haven't been paid by their employer for four years. Some are now selling vegetables on the street to survive.

  PHOTO: NY TIMES

  Two recent protests against state-run enterprises in this gritty city exemplify the plight.

  Workers of the No, 2 Construction Co haven't been paid in four years. They weren't fired or laid-off or otherwise made eligible for any state benefits. They were simply told not to come to work because there was no money to pay them. They obstructed a railway in protest, but virtually nothing came of it. They are angry, frustrated and disheartened.

  Across town, thousands of workers at the Daqing Petroleum Administration have been holding a sit-in for months to protest a buy-out package they say is unfair and leaves them with little for their future. Their rage is compounded by what they see as blatant corruption -- managers are thriving while the underlings suffer. They vow to demonstrate until their demands are met.

  These two groups of workers, living in the same city, victims of the same painful economic restructuring and driven by the same outrage at official malfeasance, barely know of each other's existence.

  "Workers must be organized in order to develop their class consciousness," said Chen Feng, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University who studies labor issues. "Relying on workers to sympathize spontaneously would be difficult. Workers won't see the class interest by themselves; they only see personal interest."

  To workers in Daqing, the bad guys are the local officials or bosses, not the central policies that allow those officials to get away with withholding paychecks or possibly even lining their own pockets.

  "Their only demand is to have enough to eat," Chen said.

  The lack of political freedoms, the absence of a free press and arrests of anyone who dares speak out on behalf of workers make it nearly impossible to spark a broader labor movement. Paltry payouts usually are enough to get most protesters to go home.

  "It's not easy for workers to organize," said Yawei Liu, a China specialist at the Carter Center in Atlanta and history professor at Georgia Perimeter College. "The government clips their wings at the embryonic stage. As long as they're isolated, it's not a problem [for the government]."

  Movements that are truly organized -- such as the Falun Gong spiritual sect, which has a hierarchy of leaders and set up sophisticated underground communications channels -- are viewed by the government as a genuine threat and ruthlessly suppressed.

  Still, the government's strategy for defusing labor protests -- arrest a few, payoff the rest -- cannot be maintained indefinitely, experts agree.

  "There's no chance of workers linking up," said Xian Yulin, a 59-year-old Daqing oil bureau retiree who sympathizes with the protesters. "Things are too tightly controlled. But sooner or later, it will explode. Something will happen. But now the time is not right."

  So far, most labor protests have been spontaneous, set off by two factors: economic desperation and anger at corruption. Participants have largely been limited to people who were already out of work and had little left to lose. Employed workers have rarely gone on strike, neither to protest corruption nor in sympathy with other protesting workers.

  Yet, as competitive pressures brought by China's entry into the WTO force bloated state enterprises to further slash expenses and boost efficiency, more and more workers will be without jobs.

  More than 25 million people since 1998 have lost their jobs and 17 million have found other work, according to official statistics. Another 20 million people -- equivalent to the population of Texas -- will be out of work in the next four years.

  Hardest hit are the generation of low-skilled, middle-aged workers who were told at the beginning of their careers that they were "masters of the state" and would eat from the "iron rice bowl" for life.

  "Reform and opening up is good, but we have nothing to eat," said Zhang, 57, a carpenter for the No. 2 Construction Co. He would give a reporter only one name.

  Urban poverty

  The dire situation has given rise to a new phenomenon in modern China -- urban poverty. According to the official Xinhua News Agency, 5.45 million urban dwellers make less than US$18 a month. China's so-called rust belt, its industrial base in the northeast, has about 1 million people who qualify for basic welfare subsidies but do not receive them, Xinhua said.

  The urban poor now have to compete with migrant laborers from the countryside for work, something that would have been unthinkable in China a decade ago.

  Many of the unpaid employees of the construction company have resorted to selling vegetables and grains at the street market to get by, once work that was done strictly by peasants. If they're lucky, they eat meat a couple times a year. Many survive mainly on rice, noodles and other staples.

  Mrs. Li, 44, wakes up at 3am every morning to make steamed buns. She earns about US$35 a month selling them at the street market for US$0.03 apiece. Her only worries now are eating and keeping her teenage son in school.

  "If he has no education, then he has no future," said Li, who declined to give her full name.

  The workers have tried demonstrations. About a year and a half ago, 2,000 of them went to the nearby train station and stopped traffic for nearly an hour. Net result: five people were arrested and everyone else got a measly US$30 holiday bonus at the following new year.

  Workers said things had been fine at the state-run construction company, which once employed 8,000 people and built many of the city's major structures, up until about five years ago, when it was restructured. Like thousands of state-run enterprises, it lost its state subsidies, issued shares and became responsible for its own profits. But, as in many cases, not all ties to government were severed and managers placed priority on lining their own pockets instead of running the company efficiently, workers said.

  "The local government runs down the state enterprise, siphons off the money, sells off the land, sells off the machines or siphons off the business to their relatives or their own newly-set up private enterprises," said Anita Chan, a senior research fellow at Australian National University who specializes in labor issues in China. "A lot of this is happening. This change of ownership is really legalizing this corruption. This is one of many reasons why the state sector isn't doing well, and why workers get so upset."

  At the Daqing Petroleum Administration, restructuring started three years ago as its parent company, PetroChina, prepared to list on stock exchanges in New York and Hong Kong. Protesters were also stirred by corruption, or at least the perception of it. They saw managers driving nice cars and getting fat bonuses while their own buyout package left them with hardly any medical care or old-age insurance.

  Though the construction workers and oil workers in Daqing have not linked up, they have developed at least one common belief -- disillusionment with the Communist Party.

  "If they just took a few of the corrupt officials and executed them, these workers wouldn't be out there protesting," said a 65-year-old oil bureau retiree who sympathizes with the protesters.
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Eurovision Song Contest triggers surge in betting interest

  • 2

    Barcelona crowned champions

  • 3

    Napoli close in on title despite Parma stalemate

  • 4

    Sinner cruises past Ruud, Gauff battles into final

  • 5

    Entertainers questioned amid military service furor