At a criminal appeal court hearing on 31 December 2004, seven Chinese shoe factory workers walked free in the southern city of Dongguan, Guangdong Province, after their original sentences of up to three-and-a-half years' imprisonment were reduced to nine-months, suspended for one year. Three under-aged workers were also released and their original suspended prison sentences dropped. They had all been in jail since April 2004.
This reversal of the sentencing of the Stella International shoe factory workers all of whom had been involved in mass protests at Stella's Xing Xiong and Xing Ang factories in late April 2004 represents a significant landmark in the history of the modern labour movement in China.
The Stella case demonstrates that principled and well-written defence arguments by mainland Chinese lawyers, coupled with a bold and well-coordinated campaign by concerned labour groups and the international labour movement, can make a real difference to the fate of detained Chinese worker activists, even in a case involving major criminal charges.
China Labour Bulletin confirms that the new sentences handed down by the Dongguan Intermediate People's Court on 31 December 2004 were as follows:
Xing Ang defendants: Wan Jiafeng, 20, Chen Nanliu, 24, Ma Changwei, 18, and Qu Pengtao, 21, were each sentenced to nine months imprisonment, suspended for one year. Wan was originally sentenced to three-and-a-half years, and the other three to three years each. An under-aged female worker, Chen Suo, 16, has been released, although her conviction is sustained. She was originally given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for three years.
Xing Xiong defendants: Liu Jufei, 29, Ding Kui, 19, and Liu Rongneng, 19, were each sentenced to nine months imprisonment, suspended for one year. They were originally sentenced to three years. Two under-aged workers, Geng Chunfei, 16, and Liu Haiyang, 16, were released, although their convictions are sustained. They were each originally sentenced to two years' imprisonment, suspended for three years.
However, one of the Xing Xiong shoe factory defendants, and Lawyer Gao Zhisheng, whose law firm in Beijing represented six of the workers, told CLB that they had not been informed beforehand of the date of the appeal hearing, so they had not known that the court would announce the sentence reductions on that day. When Lawyer Gao's firm called the Dongguan Court to ask about the appeal verdicts, he was brusquely told to wait for a copy of the verdict to be mailed to him.
The defendants had been charged with "intentional destruction of property" in connection with two mass protests involving thousands of workers at the Xing Xiong and Xing Ang factories owned by the Taiwanese company Stella International on 21 and 23 April 2004 respectively. Excessive working hours, low pay, frequent wage arrears and the poor quality of food provided at the factories canteens were the triggers for the protests. (For further information, see: Five Stella workers Sentenced to Up to Three-and-a-Half Years' Imprisonment and Five More Stella Shoe Factory Workers are Sentenced to Up to Three Years' Imprisonment Following Mass Protest in April)
The strikes were reported by the mainland media, and China Labour Bulletin believes that the court's decision was in part a reaction to the media, in particular a long analysis published by the China News Weekly (Zhongguo Xinwen Zhoukan) on 25 October 2004. (For CLB's translation of the news article, see: Mainland News Weekly Analyzes Reasons for Worker Unrest at Stella Shoe Factories) In a rare move, the semi-official magazine highlighted Lawyer Gaos argument in his defence statement for Chen Nanliu one of the Xing Ang workers that the prosecuting authorities had failed to prove that the workers' actions were in any way planned or organized. It also quoted a labour expert in Guangdong as saying that "workers should be allowed to organize themselves and to have a legal channel to express their grievances" a proposal that coincides with China Labour Bulletin's long-standing advocacy that Chinese workers should be allowed to established free and independent trade unions.
International Labour Movement Put Pressure on the Dongguan Court
The Stella workers received international support. On 29 October less than a week after the sentencing of the Xing Ang workers the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) sent a letter to President Hu Jintao protesting against the sentences. They also issued a press release on 2 November. The Netherlands-based Clean Clothes Campaign sent letters to Stella International's buyers, including Reebok and NIKE, urging them to write to the Dongguan Court and the Stella management to plead for leniency in the sentencing. At CLB's request, the CEO of Reebok himself wrote to the Dongguan Court requesting leniency for the Stella Ten; and we understand that Clark's shoe company did likewise.
After investigation into the workers' allegations of the factories' abusive employment practices which had led to the protests, China Labour Bulletin decided to provide full legal assistance to the workers. The families of six of the ten detained workers agreed to accept CLB's legal assistance. We then contacted Lawyer Gao, who immediately agreed to take on the case and offered to handle it free of charge, asking for only transportation and accommodation costs for the six different lawyers required. Lawyer Gao made a powerful defence speech at the trial of first instance on 25 August 2004 highlighting the underlying causes of the exploitative working conditions that led to the Stella factory workers' protest, namely the government's unqualified support for foreign investment and its neglect of workers' rights and labour standards since the start of China's economic reform over twenty years ago. (For CLB's translation of Lawyer Gao's defence statement, see: Defence Statement on Behalf of Hired Labourer Chen Nanliu)
Although this case is a milestone on the journey towards workers' rights in China, we should not forget that the appeal court still maintains that the ten Stella workers are guilty of their alleged offences. Instead of scapegoating individual workers in this way, the Chinese authorities should address the real issue of why labour unrest has become so widespread. Workers need to be able to establish their own independent trade unions, so that they can voice their grievances peacefully and negotiate with their employers on working conditions, wages, health and safety, and other issues of vital concern to workers around the country. China Labour Bulletin believes that this is the best and only way to ensure workers' rights and to reverse the rising tide of labour unrest and mass worker protests in China today.
10 January 2004