Hepatitis B rights campaigners delivered a 5,000 signature petition to the head office of Hewlett-Packard (China) in Beijing on 29 August demanding that HP condemn the actions of its supplier Cal-Comp in sacking 22 employees carrying the Hepatitis B virus.
The 22 employees of the electronics components factory in Suzhou were fired late in 2006 after being forced to take a HBV blood test. Nine months later, Cal-Comp has not yet offered to compensate those dismissed and HP has failed to make any comment or take any action against its supplier.
Three of the dismissed workers have now filed a lawsuit against Cal-Comp demanding a total of 500,000 yuan in damages. The case (supported by China Labour Bulletin) was heard earlier in the year by a court in Wujiang, Jiangsu, and has now gone to appeal.
Cal-Comp's lawyer, Xu Fei, has been quoted by the Chinese media as saying that over one hundred workers left the company in 2006 for all sorts of different reasons, and that the plaintiffs were not forced to leave. One of the plaintiffs, in an interview with the Beijing News, however responded by pointing out nine HBV carriers all left Cal-Comp on the same day, 23 November; "Do you really think that is a coincidence," he said.
There are over 120 million people living with HBV in China, many of whom face institutionalized discrimination in the workplace, especially in electronics manufacturing, the food and beverage industry, hotels and beauty parlors.
The petition delivered to HP demands that the multi-national corporation, which claims to be a leader in global corporate citizenship, not only condemns its supplier's blatant discrimination against people with HBV but takes urgent action to rectify Cal-Comp's discriminatory practices. If Cal-Comp fails to mend its ways, the petition asks that HP terminate its business relationship with its supplier.
The petition notes that Electronics Industry Code of Conduct (EICC), which was initiated by HP, states in a clause that applies to suppliers as well as signatories that: "Workers or potential workers should not be subjected to medical tests that could be used in a discriminatory way."
The laws and regulations of People's Republic of China have clear provisions against HBV discrimination. For example, the Ministries of Labour and Social Security and Health issued a joint statement on 18 May 2007 making it clear that employers are not allowed to refuse employment or dismiss workers on the grounds of their HBV status unless there is an obvious risk of infection. And Article 16 of the Law on the Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases states: "No one shall discriminate infectious disease patients, pathogen carriers and suspected infectious disease patients."
Moreover, the new Employment Promotion Law, approved by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on 30 August, gives employees and job applicants the right to sue employers on the grounds of discrimination against sex, age, religion, race or physical disability.
China Labour Bulletin, in an effort to tackle the increasingly serious problem of workplace discrimination, is currently helping plaintiffs bring eight separate HBV discrimination cases across China. For an introduction to our work in this area, see Responding to Hepatitis B Discrimination in the Workplace.