From 5 July to 14 August, more than 1,800 workers from the Zaoyang Fertilizer Factory [ZFF] in Zaoyang City, Hubei Province carried out a 40-day-strike. They demands included asking the government to fulfill its promises of giving them retrenchment compensation of 1,200 Yuan for each year of service. However, instead of dialogue with the workers, the government sent several hundred police and riot police to the factory to undertake ideological work with the workers on August 11. Unsurprisingly, workers replied to the governments tactics with bricks and tiles and no agreement has been reached. From 14 August onwards, Zaoyang Public Security Bureau [PSB] ordered the secret arrest of workers actively involved in the strike - whoever discussed the strike would be detained and the whole residential area was under police surveillance and full of fear. CLB conducted a series of interviews with workers and PSB officials. Last Saturday, a ZFF worker talked to CLB and today, CLB interviewed a PSB official from Zaoyang to discuss how the government will handle the case.
PSB Official:
The situation is that the workers stopped production and have blocked the [ZFF] gate since 5 July and our leaders from municipal committee, municipal government and our seniors - Xiangfan municipal committee - kept working with them. We worked continuously on them, from 5 July to 11 August, more than a months time, asking them stop blocking the gates. ZFF has quite a lot of workers, more than 1,800, and with their families, the figure is up to 6,000. The municipal committee assigned us different tasks: the cadres in the city and committee leaders were sent out to work separately. We visited workers at their homes but our 30 days of work was a waste of effort. The notifications we posted were torn up. This caused the municipal committee government to organize officials from the PSB, the procuratorate and a deputy-municipal law enforcement team to do propaganda work in the morning of 11 August - all leaders of the municipal committee went too. We asked them to leave; you know it was mainly propaganda work. Before we could reach the factory gate, the workers threw bricks on us and we couldnt get any closer. We could only use loudspeakers to give them our messages, but it didnt seem to be useful. You know there were women, old people, so many people there
the families. We couldnt take any action, besides shouting from 5/6 am to 4 or 5 pm. Once we tried to get closer, they would throw bricks on us and we couldnt take any heavy tactics to disperse them. One reason was there were so many people there and the other reason was that they had women, the elderly and children amongst them; we simply couldnt do anything. They had more than 1,000 people there and they allowed women and the elderly to be in the front - if we used harsh measures, it would be totally unequal.
Han Dongfang [Han]:
How many law enforcement officials were sent in total?
PSB Official:
400 to 500. You know together with families members and children, they [the workers] had more than 6,000 people and it was impossible to remove them using military measures. What if accidents [injuries] broke out in the process of removal? It wouldnt be good. Therefore, we could only distribute propaganda materials and talk to them with loudspeakers but it didnt work. After all, they have carried this out from 5 July to 11 August - its a long time.
Han:
So no results on 11 August?
PSB Official:
Basically no, but that wasnt too bad. We were worried that if they would throw more bricks that night, more injuries would occur, so we could only hold back. Our next strategy was to gather accusation evidence [presumably for a criminal prosecution. Ed] and to get information of active workers in the earlier strike. That was difficult
really difficult [to get evidence]. Workers have a strong sense of self-protection. We took action against the more active ones on 15 August. We have got three now - they were the more influential people.
Han:
Did they organize [the strike] and do publicity and communication work?
PSB Official:
Well, they have different tasks. Some posted banners, some did propaganda work, and some incited other workers.
Han:
So the people you detained were agitators, organizers and poster-composers?
PSB Official:
Yes, exactly.
Han:
How many so far?
PSB Official:
[As of] Today we have detained seven or eight.
Han:
Seven to eight?
PSB Official:
Seven to eight, right! We also arrested two people, those incited and organized [the strike].
Han:
You said you had detained seven to eight people. Didnt that irritate the workers?
PSB Official:
Sure, they got mad.
Han:
So what did they do? Did anything happen during the arrest process
?
PSB Official:
Well
in detaining
we couldnt do it in public so we must make secret detentions. It wouldnt be possible to detain anyone from the mass of workers when they were that emotional. We detained two or three people on 4 and 5 August and guess what, 100 to 200 workers came and pushed down the gates of the PSB office. You know the workers
have lost their minds.
Han:
Are those detainees ordinary workers or cadres?
PSB Official:
Well, since the retrenchment last year, there has been no difference between workers and cadres. Just imagine, the factory had no money after the restructuring and it was not a state-owned enterprise, so the ranks between workers no longer exist.
Which level of government decided to take action against the workers? He explained:
PSB Official:
The party committee from the senior level of government approved our action.
Han:
Which level?
PSB Official:
Here, the lowest level is the township government and ours is simply a small county government. We all have to listen to commands from the party committee of the municipal government. To tell you the truth, the action of the police follows party instructions, we have to obey; it is our job to bring their orders into action. The consequences of our action, well, we cant undertake arbitrary arrests, nor should we consider [the interests of] the people.
Han:
You mean it was the municipal government that ordered the detentions?
PSB Official:
Right. The leaders of party committee asked us to detain [workers], to take action, so we did. If they asked us not to do anything, we would stop right away.
Han:
Ok, put it like this: do you think it would be better in order to ease the tension between workers and the government - if you had not detained anybody?
PSB Official:
The strike broke out on 5 July and has been going on until now, the government tried several methods to solve it and one of them was to use delaying tactics. In the Workers Representatives Congress, it tried some ideological work and it kept going on, at the end even cadres from the party and government who had relatives in ZFF were asked to do ideological work with workers and that lasted for more than 40 days.
Han:
Was that successful?
PSB Official:
If it was then there wouldnt have been the incident on 11 August.
Han:
So it was useless?
PSB Official:
Right, useless.
Han:
Did the workers send any representatives to negotiate with the government or has the government organized any meetings to solve the dispute between the factory and its workers in the last month or so?
PSB Official:
ZFF workers were causing troubles last year during the restructuring and the same thing happened this year. This time, they tried to protect themselves better. The government held many meetings and requested them to send representatives, but they refused to elect representatives and also, nobody wanted to be the representative.
Han:
Why didnt they elect representatives? I have heard that last year, the PSB did something to scare them. Is that the reason?
PSB Official:
No. We arrested one or two people last year, because they incited the workers to block the road and railway. The court even sentenced one, who was the leader of the railway blockage.
Han:
Is his name Zhang Jun?
PSB Official:
Right, right, there was a Zhang Jun, if I remember it right.
Han:
So, no representative comes out to talk and the government wants to impose social order again. Now it seems the government has got social order but what about the workers problems? How could they be solved if no communication between the 2 sides exists?
PSB Official:
There have been five meetings, including a forum and a congress, to let the workers raise their ideas. At first, nobody talked about the retrenchment and later, once it was raised [unclear by whom Ed]; the local government immediately announced its retrenchment policy, based on the governments retrenchment policy, by putting up the poster for the workers to read. However, nobody said anything about the governments poster, nobody, absolutely no one!
Han:
Then what did the workers want?
PSB Official:
The retrenched workers thought the compensation was too low, too little money. Also the terms of retrenchment outraged the workers; it seems ZFF management was too harsh.
Han:
Did the general trade union of the city do anything in the last month?
PSB Official:
Trade union! It has to listen to the party committee anyway. There was no trade union in ZFF. Since the restructuring, the internal structure and staffing of the factory have gone through a series of changes and nobody knows who is running ZFF.
Han:
After talking to you, I have the impression that using detentions and sentences will hurt the feeling of the workers. They will develop a sense of distrust towards the government, even if they dont admit it out loud.
PSB Official:
[Laugh]. The situation you described
well, I would say we cant think about what impact on their feeling would be. You know the workers, if they make one request, can you answer them? If you can, they probably will raise another request and can you still answer that? It will become a never-ending problem. It is a society with rule of law and we shouldnt, just for a few peoples interests, give the rule of law up.
On the one hand, the PSB official believed that their detentions of workers were based on the rule of law and enhanced the social order while on the other hand workers from ZFF held the opposite view. A ZFF worker told CLB how the PSB officials detained and attacked workers.
Worker:
Last night, a tricycle operator said he saw a child secretly apprehended in the street, you know, they even detain children, so nobody knows how many they have detained.
Han:
Are the workers still gathering by the ZFF entrance?
Worker:
No, they have all gone.
Han:
Is the ZFF gate open?
Worker:
Yes, there are police vehicles stationed there and whoever talks about this [the workers action] will be in trouble.
Han:
You cant even talk about it?
Worker:
Yesterday, whoever mentioned it was detained. Last night they took away a person from the residential area secretly and workers went to the PSB to ask for the reason. Some workers went into the PSB office and once they got there, they were detained.
Han:
Did they only detain male workers or both men and women?
Worker:
Both, some are 30 years of age, some 40 and some 50. My girlfriend was beaten up there.
Han:
They attacked people?
Worker:
Right, so nobody dares to talk about it anymore.
Han:
So is it a graceful submission?
Worker:
It is not possible to be like that.
Han:
You mean workers dont submit wholeheartedly?
Worker:
No, we dont.
Han:
But nobody dares to voice out their views?
Worker:
Yes. Nobody dares to say that. It is said that the municipal committee has made an order: to arrest as many as need be.
Next week, CLB will interview a ZFF worker who was injured at work and refused reasonable compensation.