POLICE DETAIN 20 IN CENTRAL CHINA OVER STRIKE AT TEXTILE FACTORY
Kyodo News
3 November 2004
Police in central China have detained at least 20 people over a strike involving 6,800 people at a Hong Kong-owned textile factory, effectively ending a seven-week-old action, a labor group said this week.
Police in Xianyang, Shaanxi Province, have been detaining "worker activists" since before Oct. 20 but not pressed charges, according to the China Labor Bulletin, a Hong Kong advocacy group. The labor group police also issued "wanted" notices for three workers at Xianyang Huarun Textile Factory and questioned 40 others about a sit-in.
The striking workers say the new factory owner wants to cut people's wages and seniority status while rehiring workers under six-month probation terms, during which they would earn 60 percent of their normal salaries, the labor group said in a statement. Most workers have been employed there for 10 years.
Workers also have not been allowed to form a factory-level trade union and register it with the Chinese government, the statement says.
"The Xianyang Huarun workers' strike action was peaceful from start to finish, and having their own union would have allowed the strike to be resolved in a calm and constructive manner," said labor bulletin Han Dongfang. "Instead, the local government has resorted to knee-jerk repressive tactics that slam the door on the central government's policy of social dialogue."
Workers who try to set up independent unions can be sentenced to 10 years in prison for subversion, so direct worker-employer negotiations are the only way to settle disputes, said Tim de Meyer, a labor standards specialist with the International Labor Organization.
Since Sept. 17, about 200 of the worker activists have kept up a 24-hour vigil, with tents and other paraphernalia, outside factory gates.
A spokeswoman for the Hong Kong-based China Resources Enterprise Ltd., which bought the factory last year, said the strike had ended and was "under control" with the detention of 20 people.
Although detailed information was unavailable, the spokesman said she thought the factory and workers would reach a settlement on the dispute.
China Labor Bulletin said China Resources Enterprise agreed to drop the probation and to sign longer contracts but that the wage issue is unsettled.