BY EVA CHENG
On November 4, Beijing removed a seven-year ban on foreigners' purchase of Chinese state enterprise shares listed on stock exchanges, opening the way for the privatisation of an estimated US$300 billion of state assets and more massive layoffs. On the same day, more than 2000 workers from the north-east industrial city of Liaoyang protested for the right to work and for the release of four of their leaders who were arrested seven months ago for organising workers' protests.
Their action continued, at a reduced size, the next day. Two sacked textile workers were also rescued after attempting suicide by lying on a rail track.
Most of the protesters were former metal workers whose employer went bankrupt a year ago. They were part of massive protests involving more than 90,000 workers earlier this year in north-eastern China, demanding work, unpaid wages and punishment for corrupt government and enterprise officials.
In March, these actions involved 50,000 oil workers in Daqing, 30,000 metal and other workers in Liaoyang and 10,000 coal miners in Fushun. These initiatives were the high point of thousands of (generally smaller) protests throughout China in recent years, caused by workers resisting being laid off, or being denied work, wages or entitlements.
The workers' problems spring from the 1990s, when the government began to increase its push to dismantle China's planned economy. Since then, profits have taken priority over social needs as state firms are privatised, resulting in widespread layoffs and the withdrawal of state-provided social entitlements. The new managements race to get rid of their existing workers in favour of new recruits.
Beijing's policy since the late 1990s was to retain only the "biggest" state firms and leave the rest in the cold. Long used to being an organic part of a planned economy, unwanted "smaller" firms have struggled to cope with the sudden change. Many haven't survived.
Others are cutting their work force fiercely to keep their heads above the water. Most cheat or tempt their workers out of their employment contracts by a one-off payment which usually doesn't last long. If the workers refuse to go, they are nominally kept "employed", but are given no work and paid only starvation subsidies that usually arrive late. Similarly, long delays in wage payment has become a norm.
Many corrupt officials try to get a cut for themselves during this process, often blatantly plundering state assets. This has joined the other effects of privatisation as a source of workers' anger.
Corrupt officials are also active in the countryside. Their usual tactic involves rampant taxation "justified" by all sorts of ridiculous pretexts. This has provoked much popular anger.
On September 12, about 30,000 cane farmers in Yizhou, in Guangxi province, put the city government office under siege for a whole day. They wanted the government to pay their long-overdue procurement bills. The farmers also wanted the procurement price increased from the existing dirt-cheap level of 22 Renmibi per tonne.
During the protest a few dozen cars in the office compound were destroyed, office windows were smashed, along with televisions, computers, chairs, desks and other materials, many of which were dropped from a great height. At the end, more than 10,000 protesting farmers proceeded to the main rail artery and blocked traffic for six hours.
The farmers had tried twice in the previous week to press for their demands through negotiations but were ignored. They revealed they had difficulties even just feeding their families.
However, most known protests occurred in cities, with recent examples such as:
Most of them, together with another 2000 or so co-workers, had earlier been paid Rmb 2000 each (about four times the average monthly wage) under a "voluntary" termination arrangement which required them to forego most benefit entitlements.
Only recently did the workers realise the firm wasn't going to fund their retirement and social insurance coverage. Then came the news that the management had sold 73 hectares of the firm's land at a big discount from the market price. Workers smelled corruption and demanded the land deal be reversed and the reclaimed proceeds be used to address their needs.
Already protesting for the fourth time in two months, the workers were further angered by the fact that while not being paid, they each had to fork out Rmb 240 to maintain their retirement benefit coverage. In addition, the company-run school, where most of their children were studying, had not eased up on its charges. The workers also demanded some of these fees be waived.
<%-2>The workers demanded the reclamation of their unemployment benefits and retirement protection. They also wanted the younger workers to be taken back, even if as dormant employees paid minimal subsidies while awaiting work. The workers also plan legal action and have been collecting donations for this.<%0>
About 4000 workers from other associated firms joined the protesters on September 3 in solidarity.
At the September 24 protest, big banners were put up and workers spiritedly argued their case on the streets when the police were called in. They started making arrests, arguing that the protesters were from the "Falun Gong sect". Angered, workers encircled the police for 11 hours, releasing them only after a police chief apologised and promised no more arrests.
The workers have been put on a starvation subsidy of Rmb 80 per month for some time while their jobs were frozen. Workers had no confidence that the financially strapped city government will pay them anything at all after it takes over.
Workers' anger reached boiling point when the mayor's car knocked and dragged a blockading protester for tens of metres. Workers turned the car over.
Meanwhile, up till at least mid-October, the four Liaoyang workers' leaders who have been detained since March were still denied access to legal assistance. The pretext was that the cases involved a "state secret". This, however, hadn't stopped other Liaoyang workers campaigning for their release. Six-hundred people protested again on September 29 and 30. These and other workers planned to gain a wider hearing by taking their protests to Beijing during the Chinese Communist Party's 16th congress, which will be held for a week in early to mid-November.
From Green Left Weekly, November 13, 2002.
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