It is highly unusual in China for such large numbers of workers to collectively mount an administrative lawsuit of this kind against the local government. Moreover, the lawsuit is being waged against the background of a series of detentions and criminal trials of other Tieshu workers who took part in a mass public protest in Suizhou on 8 February. (The administrative lawsuit addresses only one of the Tieshu workers complaints: the workforce as a whole insists that the company owes it more than 200 million Yuan in back wages, pension and redundancy payments, worker shares and other entitlements.)
Before the court hearing, the workers representatives put up posters in the Tieshu dormitory areas, stating the venue and time of the hearing and calling upon fellow workers to attend it. On the morning of 29 April, over 100 workers packed into the courtroom. The hearing continued for three hours and was adjourned at noon by the presiding judge; no date was set for the next hearing.
The Tieshu workers decision to take the Social Insurance Bureau to court was taken only after the factory management had ignored many months of public demonstrations and repeated calls for constructive negotiation. In their administrative lawsuit, the workers are asserting that the local governments inaction over the Tieshu Factorys continued refusal or inability to pay workers their full pension constituted an act of administrative negligence, one that resulted in each worker being underpaid on average by around 200 Yuan per month.
In another move showing the workers strong determination to utilize all legal means to resolve their case, several of the workers detained by police after the mass demonstration in Suizhou on 8 February are now said to be planning to sue the government for the alleged ill treatment and torture they received while in detention.
The workers had previously attempted to use the courts to gain redress. In 2003, over 300 workers filed a joint complaint to the Suizhou Peoples Court asking that missing pensions and other benefits be paid by the Tieshu Group. However, the court ruled in favour of the factory. The workers appealed, but on 5 June 2003, their appeal was rejected by the Hubei High Peoples Court. The workers then issued a public appeal proclaiming their determination to continue their struggle and to take the case to the central authorities. CLB since learned that their lawyer had withdrawn from the case following pressure from the authorities.
Three Workers Tried on Criminal Charges
On 22 April 2004, Chen Kehai and Zhao Yong, workers from the Tieshu Textile Factory who were among at least nine detained by police after the 8 February protests in Suizhou were tried on charges of disturbing public order in an irregular court proceedings held at the Suizhou No.1 Detention Centre.
According to China Labour Bulletins information, Zhao and Chen were tried under summary procedures an abbreviated form of trial in which defendants have reduced rights to legal defence, as provided for under Chapter 2, Section 3 of the PRC Criminal Procedure Law in cases where the applicable sentence is no more than three years of imprisonment. The courts verdict against the two worker activists has not yet been announced.
Chen Kehai, 37 years old, was charged and tried on 22 April under Article 290 (Paragraph 1) of the PRC Criminal Law, which covers acts that allegedly disturb public order to such an extent that work in general, production, business operations, teaching or scientific research cannot go on and heavy losses are caused. The Suizhou Procuracy (the public prosecutor) alleged that on 8 February 2004, Chen was one of more than 1,000 laid-off Tieshu Textile Factory workers who forced their way into the factory to prevent a new company (Tieshu Textiles Ltd.) that had been set up in the wake of the original Tieshu factorys bankruptcy from beginning its first day of operations. The prosecution indictment describes Chens offences as having been serious. Article 290 of the Criminal Law states that ringleaders of such activities are to be sentenced to terms of between three and seven years imprisonment, and that active participants are to receive up to three years imprisonment.
Chen Kehai was released from custody after the trial and has been ordered to remain at home awaiting sentencing.
Zhao Yong, 33 years old, was charged and tried under Article 291 of the PRC Criminal Law, which covers acts that allegedly disturb order at railway stations or bus terminals
or [persons who] resist or obstruct public security administrators of the State from carrying out their duties according to law. Persons convicted under Article 291 are liable to prison terms of up to five years. According to the Suizhou Procuracy, on 8 February Zhao Yong participated, along with many other laid-off workers from the factory, in a large-scale protest march that went from the gates of the former Tieshu Textile Factory into the city centre, and from there on to the main Han-Dan railway line, which the workers proceeded to block for a period of three and a half hours. The only item of evidence offered by the Procuracy to indicate that Zhao might in any sense have instigated this collective protest action by the Tieshu workers was that he is alleged to have stated at one point during the protest march: Theres an alley here; it leads up to the railway line.
Zhao Yong currently remains in police custody at the Suizhou No.1 Detention Centre.
On 26 April, a third worker, Zhu Guo, was tried at the Zeng Du District Basic Peoples Court in Suizhou on charges of assembling a crowd to disturb social order. According to CLBs information, he was tried under normal (rather than abbreviated) trial proceedings, which suggests that he may be set to receive a heavier sentence than either Zhao Yong or Chen Kehai. No verdict has yet been announced. According to reliable sources, a visibly shaken and distraught Zhu Guo cried out to his family in court that he had been beaten black and blue while in detention.
Zhu Guo remains in detention at the Suizhou No.1 Detention Centre.
A fourth Tieshu worker detained after the 8 February protests and then formally charged under the criminal law, Yang Yongcai, has now been sent home to await trial.
Arbitrary Detentions, Arbitrary Releases
Four other Tieshu Textile Factory workers who were detained around the same time Wang Hanwu, Sheng Bing, Wei Yiming and Hu Wenzhong have all been released from jail over the past few weeks. (A fifth detainee, a woman named Chen Xiuhua, was sent home by the police in late February because of illness.) These releases were both unexpected and unusual, since at least four of these five workers had already been formally sentenced by the Suizhou Public Security Bureau to terms of between one year and 27 months in re-education through labour (RTL) a so-called administrative punishment imposed by the police without benefit of a court hearing for the accused. Wang Hanwu had been sentenced to 27 months in RTL, Sheng Bing to 21 months, Wei Yiming to 18 months, and Chen Xiuhua to a one-year term. (It is unclear as to whether Hu Wenzhong had also been sentenced to RTL prior to his release.)
Several of these five workers, prior to receiving their RTL sentences, had been formally charged under the Criminal Law and hence faced criminal trial proceedings. In a clear circumvention of due legal process, however, the Suizhou authorities have failed either to formally suspend the previous criminal proceedings against the released workers, or to provide them with any document certifying that the subsequently imposed RTL sentences have now been revoked. In short, the authorities treatment of these five detained workers has been marked by official capriciousness and disregard for legal procedure from start to finish. Technically, the door remains open for any of them to be re-detained by the police at any time, sent back to RTL camps, or even criminally prosecuted.
The case of Wang Hanwu vividly illustrates the arbitrary behaviour of the Suizhou authorities in their post-8 February crackdown on the Tieshu workers. Wang was originally arrested on criminal charges, but in early April, after the Suizhou Public Security Bureau (PBS) learned that he had hired a prominent criminal defence lawyer to represent him at his forthcoming trial, it decided instead to sentence him administratively to a term of two years and three months of re-education through labour, thereby obviating the need for any trial. Under Chinese law, however, a person sentenced to RTL has the right to take out an administrative lawsuit against the PSB, challenging the sentence in open court, and Wang decided to assert this right. Upon hearing of this, Suizhou PSB officials then began to negotiate with Wang's wife. In a striking example of the flexibility of Chinese law, they reportedly offered to release him if she would sign a statement saying that Wang would drop his planned lawsuit against the PSB. According to CLBs sources, Wang Hanwus wife duly signed such a statement and on 15 April Wang was released from the Suizhou No.1 Detention Centre along with the three other laid-off Tieshu Textile Factory workers who were still being held under RTL sentencing orders (Shen Bing, Wei Yiming and Hu Wenzhong.) However, no formal release papers have as yet been provided by the PSB, and the original criminal charges against Wang Hanwu have still not been withdrawn, leaving open the possibility of a future criminal prosecution. Despite the obvious risks, Wang Hanwu is reportedly planning to press ahead with his administrative lawsuit against the Suizhou PSB.
Background and further details : 18 months of protests despite arrests, detentions and beatings
On 2 January, 2003, more than 1,000 laid-off and retired workers from the Tieshu Textile Group in Suizhou city, Hubei province, held a massive demonstration in which they blocked the Wuhan-Xiangfan railway line for over two hours. The retired employees organised the protest after the company had cancelled its contribution to their pension fund (the pension payments were paid partly by the company and partly by the government.)
Two months after the protest, the retirees had still not received any official response to their demands. For two consecutive days, from 12 March to 13 March, some 300 retirees stood in the pouring rain and blocked the entrance to their former workplace, demanding answers from the company. From 12 March onwards, retired employees from the Tieshu Textile Group staged further collective demonstrations, blocking the factory entrance for a week and halting production.
In view of the local authorities consistent refusal to respond to the workers longstanding attempts to resolve the dispute through peaceful negotiation and administrative complaint procedures, the workers continued their protests and on 8 February 2004 an estimated 2,000 workers and retired workers from the Tieshu Textile Factory in Suizhou, Hubei Province staged further public demonstrations in their ongoing struggle to recover unpaid pension and other entitlements and against corruption at the factory.
According to eyewitnesses interviewed by CLB, on 8 February some 1,200 workers blocked the local railway for most of the morning. They were then joined by several hundred more workers. Later that morning, around 800 armed police and regular police from neighboring towns arrived to disperse the protestors and block the arrival of hundreds more who were heading toward the scene. In the violent confrontation that followed, according to eyewitnesses, scores of demonstrators were injured, including an elderly woman.
In the aftermath of the 8 February demonstration, at least nine workers from the Tieshu Textile Factory were detained, with several receiving formal arrest notices, signaling that the Suizhou government has decided to end by force, rather than by constructive negotiation, the now fifteen month-long peaceful campaign by the Tieshu textile workers to recover more than 200 million Yuan in back wages, redundancy payments, worker shares and other entitlements still owed to them by the bankrupt factorys management.
30 April 2004