Sichuan Dongcai Insulating Material
Enterprise, a company claimed to be producing the best insulating materials for
eight years, proposed a restructuring program on
Liu Changli [Liu]:
Now… I am trying to expose it.
Han Dongfang [Han]:
Have you got any result?
Liu:
No.
Han:
When did it first happen?
Liu:
It has been going on for two years.
Han:
So what happened two years ago?
Liu:
Our factory’s management wanted to “sell the company themselves and buy it back themselves”.
Han:
What do you mean by “selling the company themselves and buying it back themselves”?
Liu:
The senior leaders wanted to sell the state-owned enterprise (SOE) and bought it themselves.
Han:
Who are the senior leaders?
Liu:
The leaders of the factory.
Han:
The senior managers?
Liu:
Right. The leaders of the factory, they wanted to buy it.
Han:
What is the name of the factory?
Liu:
Han:
Is it a SOE?
Liu:
Yes, it’s been operating for some decades already.
Han:
How many workers were there in your factory?
Liu:
We had some 2,000 in records but only some 1,000 were really working at the factory.
Han:
How about in 2003?
Liu:
At that time, the factory was going through a restructuring exercise; the state ownership was going to change to a private ownership. They attempted to buy the factory themselves during the restructuring.
Han:
Are you saying the factory’s management wanted to buy the SOE themselves?
Liu:
Right.
Han:
Which year was it?
Liu:
2003.
Han:
What kind of method did they use?
Liu:
They cheated the workers. Then the workers protested, struck for two days and finally the local government got involved to stop the strike.
Han:
When was the strike?
Liu:
On
Han:
Why did it happen?
Liu:
Because they wanted to sell it [the
factory] and buy it back themselves. they wanted to steal the state-owned
property. The factory was worth tens of million Yuan. In 2002,
Han:
What did the proposal say?
Liu:
The senior management wanted to buy it.
Han:
What was the proposed price, how did they estimate that?
Liu:
They got somebody to estimate the price. The factory’s asset was valued at some 30 million Yuan lower than that it should have been worth.
Han:
Some 30 million Yuan lower than the actual price?
Liu:
They hid some 30 million Yuan. Later, the
revaluation showed that the factory’s asset was worth some 90 million Yuan, but
the price the management proposed was some 60 million Yuan. The legal
representative of the factory wanted to take up 80% of the shares. He embezzled
the SOE’s money. They employed their own accountants to evaluate the company’s
assets. Without holding a workers’ congress to discuss the ownership transfer
beforehand, they approved the sale of the company. They wanted to make the
transaction cheap, and the
Han:
So the so-called “selling the company and buying it back themselves” didn’t work out in 2003.
Liu:
Right, it didn’t work, but it has already caused harm to us. The original plan was stopped because of the workers’ protest and the intervention by the city government. Later, we tried to report the case to the local authorities. But then they produced fake reports and false financial documents. They destroyed and manipulated the evidence.
Han:
After the strike, did the factory continue to its production? Was it still run by the same management?
Liu:
Yes.
Han:
Were you one of the “whistle blowers” at the time?
Liu:
Right.
Han:
Did the transaction fail after the proposal was exposed and the workers launched the strike?
Liu:
Yes.
Han:
After that incident, did the factory management revenge on the informants? What kind of revenge was that?
Liu:
Revenge, so many different types. You know, we have worked in the factory for some decades and they created some troubles to sack us. Two of us were sacked after the incident, because we were very firm in pointing out the problems.
Han:
What position did you hold in the factory?
Liu:
I was a middle-rank cadre. I have served as a workshop supervisor, section secretary, head of security guards, head of the armed force, factory manager, all of them. Now the factory cancelled the cadre-rank among the workers. All of them become ordinary workers.
Han:
When did you and your coworker lose your jobs?
Liu:
In March 2004.
Han:
What was the reason for the termination of your jobs?
Liu:
They said reform. They said people had to compete for the posts. They forced us to apply for other jobs that we were not able to do. So we didn’t apply. Later, they arranged some jobs for us but we refused.
Han:
What kind of jobs did they ask you to apply?
Liu:
Those were posts of which we had no experience. There was only one technical consultant in the factory and they arranged him to do some other unrelated tasks.
Han:
Who made such an arrangement?
Liu:
The senior leaders.
Han:
So, from your understanding, was it a way to revenge on you?
Liu:
Right. They were in fact breaking the law, but they just did what they liked.
Han:
What procedure did you go through to dissolve your labour relation with the factory?
Liu:
When they dissolved our labour contracts, they said we had failed in applying for the jobs they assigned to us and they quoted Article 26 of the PRC Labour Law saying that they could sack us because “the workers are incompetent for the jobs assigned to them and still fall short of the standards even after being trained or given other jobs”. They used such an excuse to fire us. But in fact, it was not that we were incompetent for the jobs.
Han:
You mean they put you in a post you have never worked before?
Liu:
They asked us to apply and compete for posts we had never held and experienced before. So how could we compete for such a position? In fact, they just wanted to trap us and find some excuse to get rid of us.
Han:
Did you bring the case to the local Labour Disputes Arbitration Committee?
Liu:
Yes, but the committee said it handled only disputes, not revenge.
Han:
Didn’t your case involve mis-positioning of job duties that made you lose your job?
Liu:
Right, indeed.
Han:
Didn’t you mention this to the committee?
Liu:
Yes, we did and we gave evidence. But you know, according to the interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on the PRC Labour Law, employers are required to provide evidence to the labour disputes and arbitration committee in any labour dispute cases. So the factory management made up some fake evidence in favour of itself and ignored those in favour of us. We told the arbitration committee that we lost our jobs because they revenged on us for exposing their bad conducts, but the committee ignored our evidence.
Han:
What was the result of the arbitration?
Liu:
They rejected our demand, saying that it
was lawful for the factory to dissolve our labour contracts. The committee said
the factory had such a right to do that. Well, alright, the state gave the
factory such a right but it should only exercise it lawfully. They shouldn’t
abuse this privilege. Later, we filed a lawsuit to the Youxian District Court
in
Han:
What were the courts’ reasons for reaching those judgments?
Liu:
They ruled that the factory was correct and it was lawful for them to dissolve our labour contracts.
Han:
Was it the same as the result of the arbitration?
Liu:
Right, the same thing.
Han:
What is the appeal you make to the procuratorate?
Liu:
We hope that it will rule that it was illegal for the factory to fire us and dissolve our labour contracts by revenging on us [for exposing their plan to sell the factory and buy it back themselves].
Han:
Are you saying that you were punished because you were identified as one of the “whistle blowers” who exposed the factory management’s plan?
Liu:
Right, they knew that we were the “whistle blowers” and accused us of violating “ten rules” of the factory. Saying that we had violated these “rules”, they reproached us in front of other workers in the factory.
Han:
When was the first trial of your case?
Liu:
In July last year. We first went to the Labour Disputes Arbitration Committee but it didn’t give us a judgment after the deadline, so we brought the case to the court. The first judgment took more than three months, when it finally came through in November [2004]. We made the appeal in December and it finally delivered a judgment after the spring festival.
Han:
When did you take your case to the local procuratorate?
Liu:
After the second trial, we went to the procuratorate.
Han:
Did it accept your appeal?
Liu:
Yes, we raised two points: first, there is a direct relation between the factory management’s revenge and our dismissal and it was wrong for the court to have failed to consider our evidence; second, only my coworker and I were dismissed and it was unlawful for the factory management to do that. These are our main arguments.
Han:
Have you hired a lawyer to represent you from the beginning of this case?
Liu:
Yes, during the arbitration and the first trial. We didn’t hire one for the second trial because it was only carried out in papers.
Han:
How about this time at the procuratorate?
Liu:
No, we don’t need it because the procuratorate knows the case pretty well. You know there was bribery involved in the first trial.
Han:
Have you got any evidence?
Liu:
Yes, we also provided the evidence.
Han:
You mean you presented the evidence to the procuratorate?
Liu:
Right, the procuratorate knows our situation very well.
Next Saturday, we will continue with Liu Changli’s account.