Work safety is an issue of major concern for millions of workers in China, especially those working in naturally high-risk industries. Many factory owners and managers in China routinely ignore their legal obligation to provide proper and effective safety regimes and necessary protective equipment for their workers. Besides allowing the employers virtual impunity in this regard, the government's inability or lack of will to enforce the country's own laws and regulations on occupational health and safety places the lives of countless Chinese workers under daily threat.
In this issue of the E-Bulletin, CLB reports on the plight of jewellery workers in southern China who were provided with no on-the-job protective equipment and who are now dying of incurable lung disease and fighting for decent compensation from their former employers. We also report on the notorious lack of safety standards and protections in China's fireworks factories and the danger posed to the under-aged workers who often end up in this high-risk industry. Finally, we take an in-depth look at the underlying reasons for the continuing high rate of major coalmine disasters in China, and consider what steps the government urgently needs in order to take to reduce the appalling, and mostly avoidable, loss of life among Chinese miners.
Jewellery Workers in China Dying of Incurable Lung Disease Pursue Bitter Fight for Compensation
Dust fills the air as thousands of workers, most of them from poverty-stricken provinces, are hunched over their workbenches in foreign invested factories in southern China polishing semi-precious stones which will be sold in luxury shops overseas.
Breathing in the suspended dust from the semi-precious stones can lead to fatal lung diseases. Are the workers provided with any protective equipment or is there any ventilation in the factory? In some cases they are not even provided with a face-mask.
At a national conference on occupational disease in Beijing on 16 March, Jiang Zuojun, China's Vice-Minister of Health, reported that more than 440,000 people are suffering from pneumoconiosis in China and that about 10,000 new cases emerge every year. Admitting that the real figures could be much higher, he added that more than 140,000 people had died of pneumoconiosis in China since the 1950s and that the number of people afflicted with the disease over the same period exceeded 580,000. Jiang concluded: "The high frequency of occupational diseases in some places is partly due to poor implementation of occupational health and safety standards and lack of protective equipment."[1]
Over the past few years, about 60 workers in several Hong Kong-invested jewellery factories in Huizhou and Shenzhen have been found to be in the late stages of pneumoconiosis or silicosis (a form of pneumoconiosis), which is also known as "lung dust disease" in China. Many of them have lost the ability to work and the disease is advancing relentlessly. It is incurable. Two of the workers have died and the others have been unable to work and their health conditions are getting worse, according to the Hong Kong-based labour group Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee (HKCIC).
As the following cases vividly highlight, many factory owners are turning a blind eye to occupational health and safety laws in China and their workers' health is being sacrificed on the altar of quick profits.
Afflicted Workers Health Inexorably Declines - Employers Flout the Labour Law with Impunity
China Labour Bulletin recently interviewed several workers from three of the offending factories in southern China: Lucky Gem & Jewellery Co. Ltd, Ko Ngar Gems Factory Ltd and Perfect Gem & Pearl Manufacturing Company.
Li Weizhong, 42, from Liangping County in Chongqing Municipality, and Yang Renping, 40, from Guang'an City, Sichuan Province, both joined the workforce of the Lucky Jewellery factory in Longgang district of Shenzhen Municipality in late 1991. The factory management did not provide them with any introductory occupational health programme or health checks. They also failed to provide any work contracts or social security provision.
Both are now suffering from pneumoconiosis. They said they had consulted doctors in Guangdong and were told that they could die of the illness in a few short years. "Walking up the staircase is a nightmare to me. Even a few steps can make me pant for breath and my chest is very painful," Li told CLB. Yang added that he had to be careful not to catch flu, since it would worsen his condition.
Both Li and Yang left the factory before it was relocated from Shenzhen to Huizhou in 1997. In order to avoid paying any compensation, the company later denied that Li and Yang had worked for the factory in Shenzhen.
Although the Lucky Jewellery workers' plight has received international attention over the last few years – for example, reports have appeared in the New York Times, the Financial Times and the South China Morning Post – the company's owner, Wang Shenghua, has consistently tried to avoid paying compensation. After lawyers were brought in, with China Labour Bulletin's assistance, to represent the sick and dying workers and after lawsuits were threatened, in early March Wang finally agreed, after several years of stalling, to provide three of the worst affected workers with 205,000 Yuan each in compensation and two other affected workers with compensation of 60,000 Yuan each.
Most workers afflicted with silicosis in China receive little or even no compensation from their employers. Factory owners run away from their responsibility. They intentionally ignore the law, and sometimes their response on being approached by workers seeking compensation for occupational illness is simply to relocate their factories; sometimes they even establish new companies, so that the previous entity cannot be sued in court.
At their last meeting with the workers and their lawyer in Huizhou on March 12, Wang Shenghua and his lawyers reportedly hinted that Lucky Jewellery had many means and channels for dealing with any attempt by the workers to sue the company for causing their deteriorating health. Wang is a delegate of the People's Political Consultative Committee in Shanwei City. Politically well-connected entrepreneurs in China often enjoy less stringent official supervision of health and safety conditions in their factories, and in practice many operate with virtual impunity in this key area of PRC labour law. Wang's attitude towards outside criticism of his company's occupational health and safety practices can also be seen from the fact that, late last year, he initiated libel action in the Hong Kong courts against a HKCIC staff member for having alerted local and international public opinion about Lucky Jewellery's deplorable treatment of its seriously ill former workers.
Another notable case is that of a worker at the Perfect Gem & Pearl Manufacturing Company in Huizhou. Deng Wenping, 34, from Sichuan Province, is now suffering from Stage III silicosis – the final stage of this incurable illness. He was given only 90,000-Yuan compensation. He is dying and his wife has been fighting for a more reasonable sum.[2]
For a worker dying of silicosis in China, 90,000 Yuan at first sight may seem like a considerable amount of compensation – and 200,005 Yuan even more so. In fact, since the disease kills slowly, many of the fortunate few among the affected workers who end up getting any compensation from their former employers will already have spent comparable amounts of money on medical treatment and periodic hospitalization – usually going heavily into debt in the process. Moreover, they are often their families' sole or main breadwinners, and hence their chief concern is usually to obtain sufficient compensation to provide for their families' needs – especially for their children's education – after they have died. For this reason, the sick and dying Lucky Jewellery workers originally fought for 450,000 Yuan in compensation – but they eventually had to settle for just half of that amount.
(Further information on the issue of silicosis-stricken jewellery workers in China can be found on HKCIC's website: http://www.luckygerms.info/index.htm)
Five Thousand Jewellery Workers in Foshan City Protest against Exposure to Hazardous Dust
Recently, the hazardous working conditions in jewellery factories in Guangdong sparked a large-scale strike action at a Hong Kong-invested jewellery factory in Foshan City. On 15 March, around 5,000 jewellery workers at the Lian Industrial Co. Ltd's factory in the city's Dafu Industrial Zone went on strike in protest against being continually exposed to the risk of contracting pneumoconiosis, according to mainland media reports. According to the workers, they have to work for more than 10 hours each day in a workplace filled with dust. They are only entitled to one day off work every two months.
The workers at Lian Industrial suspected that medical checkups offered last year by the factory, which reported them to be in normal health, had been a sham. Since February, more than 200 workers have sought independent examinations from the Guangdong Provincial Hospital for Occupational Diseases Control and 12 of them have since been diagnosed with pneumoconiosis, with more cases suspected.
The protest strike at Lian Industrial has received wide news media coverage both on the mainland and in Hong Kong. As the strike continued, as of March 22, local police and labour and health officials also became involved. Witnesses say that more than 40 police vehicles arrived at the factory on 17 March and sealed the main entrance. Subsequently, local government officials told the local news media that more than 1,000 workers had been sent to hospitals in Foshan for further medical examination. At the time of writing, however, the workers diagnosed with silicosis had still received no offers of compensation from their employer.
Footnotes
[1] 17 March 2005, Xinhua News Agency
[2] Migrant Worker with Deadly "Dust Lung" Disease, Wife Struggles to Survive
1 April 2005
Official Survey Finds Around Half of China's Fireworks are Sub-Standard and Unsafe On 5 April 2005, the General State Administration of Work Safety announced that 1,113 miners had been killed in the first three months of 2005, an increase of more than 20 percent compared to the same period in 2004. What is the Chinese government currently doing - and what necessary measures is it conspicuously failing to adopt - to address this appalling mine safety record?
Widespread disregard of basic safety standards in China's fireworks industry has led to numerous major accidents in fireworks factories across the country over the past few years. Despite repeated government promises to tighten and clamp down on safety standards, hundreds of people are killed each year in these avoidable workplace disasters.
On 4 October 2004, an explosion at the Changliang Firecrackers Factory in Pubei County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, killed no fewer than 37 workers. The blast destroyed three workshops, tore down the roofs of nearby houses and left the surrounding area strewn with bodies and rubble.
Nearly half of all the fireworks produced in China fail to meet basic quality and safety standards, a recent inspection conducted on 120 fireworks manufacturing enterprises from seven provinces in China by the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine has found.
According to Zhang Guanghua, director of the Chemical Safety Supervision and Management Department under the State Administration of Work Safety, "The production and standards of many small and medium-sized fireworks producers in townships and villages do not meet state requirements." Fireworks safety standards are a major concern for the people in China, she added, as it is a traditional Chinese practice to celebrate festive seasons with firework displays.
The official investigation found that only 56.7 per cent of the fireworks checked had met the approved quality standards. And among 120 brands of fireworks assessed, 36.7 per cent were found to have defective blasting fuses, creating a high risk of premature explosion and injury. Another major problem identified in the survey was the widespread use of banned inflammable or explosive chemicals in making the fireworks.
One-fifth of the inspected products were found to have safety defects that could make them explode or detonate too close to the ground. The packaging of 19 of the brands was also found to have defects that could lead to accidents during transportation or storage.
The fireworks industry employs tens of thousands of people, many of them from the poorest parts of China. They do most of the work by hand, often at home or in small village workshops. According to Zhang Guohua, "These workshops are to be phased out or developed into more advanced factories." She added that five new national standards on fireworks' production will come into effect in March, in an effort to ensure better safety and quality standards in the industry.
On 1 February, three of the managers and contractors responsible for the Guangxi fireworks factory disaster of last October were sentenced to terms of up to seven years' imprisonment for employing prohibited materials. Ma Dezhong and Huang Xiujuan were jailed for seven and three years respectively, while another manager, Ma Jing, received a five-year term. The sentences came as factories around the country rushed to fill orders for firecrackers to celebrate the Lunar New Year – the peak period for reports of deaths in fires and explosions.
The explosion at the Changliang Firecrackers Factory was the third accident to have occurred in fireworks factories in Pubei County between May and October 2004. On 20 August 2004, an explosion occurred at a fireworks factory there in which the factory manager was killed by falling rubble. In May 2004, another blast at an illegal fireworks factory in the same town killed two workers and injured about ten others. Two children who were playing in the rubble after the initial blast were also injured when some of the remaining explosives ignited.
Although the death toll of firework accidents in China is much lower than that of coalmine disasters, a total of 322 people died in officially-reported firework explosions alone last year – 67 more fatalities compared with 2003, according to government statistics. The real figure is undoubtedly much higher. Other reported major accidents at fireworks factories in the past few years include the following:
- On 27 and 28 January 2005, three firework explosions took place in Hengshui, Xingtai and Dingzhou cities in Hebei Province killing nine people in total. All three explosions were caused by illegal firework production.
- On 11 January 2005, an explosion occurred at Xianglu Firecracker Factory in Xiangfen County, Shanxi Province, claiming the lives of 25 workers and injuring nine others. Most of the victims were female temporary workers.
- In mid-September 2004, 11 female workers were killed at Hedong Fireworks Factory in Hekou Township, Hunan Province.
- An explosion at the Safe Environment Friendly Fireworks Company Ltd in Changtu County, Liaoning Province, on 30 December 2003 killed 36 workers and left 32 others injured. The company owner, Chen Jicheng, was sentenced to death on 22 December 2004 for illegally producing explosives and causing the explosion, while the factory's general manager, You Tao, was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment for illegally producing explosives.
- In July and August 2003, four separate explosions occurred in several fireworks factories in Hebei, Fujian, Zhejiang and Guizhou provinces within a single week, killing at least 31 workers. The accidents raised concern about the use of child labour in the production of fireworks, since it was found that the youngest worker in one of the factories was a 15-year-old girl.
Sources: China Daily, Xinhua News Agency
What is the Key to Managing coalmine Safety?
Cai Chongguo
On 20 June 2002, a large gas explosion occurred at the Chengzihe Mine (run by Heilongjiang Province's Jixi Mining Bureau), killing 115 people. During Chinese New Year of 2004, State Council Premier Wen Jiabao visited this mine and shared New Year's dumplings with the workers. On 28 November 2004, the Chenjiashan mine (run by the Tongchuan Mining Bureau in Shaanxi Province) suffered an extremely large gas explosion in which 166 people died. On 1 January 2005, Wen Jiabao went to this mine and tearfully consoled the workers. It was during this time that I began drafting this essay, and I must confess to having been moved. According to conventional wisdom, when a gesture by a high-level official fails to produce any practical result, the official will generally be reticent to appear again in the same setting. Thus, Premier Wen's gesture was meaningful. Even so, sincerity and good intentions cannot solve the problem.
Since the early nineties, large-scale mining tragedies have occurred with alarming frequency. During this time, a number of gradual changes in China could be observed: The capacity of the government was gradually weakening, and with it the people's faith in the government; further, an overall sense of entitlement and selfishness was developing among the Chinese elite. These factors combined to create a sense of cynicism among ordinary Chinese people. For the Premier to go to such lengths to console the grieving families of miners was, in the current cynical atmosphere, a noteworthy show of warmth, and I do not question Wen Jiabao's sincerity. However, in a country where morals and principles are laughed at, and corrupt officials seem to be more intent on serving themselves than serving the people, I do question whether Wen Jiabao's tears will be able to move either the mine owners or government officials in charge of keeping the mines safe. Will Mr. Wen's tears somehow spur measures to reduce future mining accidents? It should be understood that politicians are not philanthropists; when they lack forceful and effective governing strategies, sincerity and good intentions cannot solve the problem. If there is no bread, even God cannot feed the people with love; after all, the Premier is only human.
The frequency of mining accidents creates a dilemma for the Chinese leadership. Understanding neither why mine disasters have only become worse despite years of stricter regulation and management, nor seeing where the solution to the problem resides, their sincerity and good intentions have little bearing in the reality of the situation. When I heard of Wen Jiabao expressing his intention to stand up for workers and promising them that, in his own words, he would "get the safety work done," I felt like asking him why not simply let the workers stand up for themselves? Why not let the workers "get the safety work done?" Listening to him tell the workers that they were "free to tell me about your difficulties by letter or telephone," I could only treat his words with the highest degree of skepticism. These days, with countless people making petitions to agencies at all levels only to be ignored (and even persecuted) who can take this kind of talk seriously?
In the past three years, China Labour Bulletin has published a series of reports and opinion pieces about mining accidents. We long ago predicted the periodic upsurge in mining accidents, discussed the reasons for their occurrence, and outlined solutions. We long ago pointed out and repeatedly stressed that without a fundamental reform of the safety management and monitoring system and direct worker participation in the mining safety management system all the governmental edicts in the world would not solve the problem. Neither the meting out of increasingly severe punishment for mine owners and guilty government officials, nor the closure of mines that fail to meet safety standards, nor an increasing investment in safety funds could possibly achieve results. Sadly, the events of the past three years have completely confirmed our predictions.
The increasing frequency of mining accidents has attracted the Central Government's attention. As early as March of 2004, the central government convened a national coalmine safety working conference unprecedented in scale. The director of the State Administration of Work Safety revealed in November of 2004 that, since the 16th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, central government leaders like Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao, and Huang Ju have issued over 90 important memoranda containing over 120 points concerning mine safety. On 28 November 2004, on the eve of the disaster at Shaanxi's Tongchuan Mining Bureau Chenjiashan mine that killed 166 people, mining disasters were an important topic at the Central Economic Working Conference convened by the CCP Central Committee. Nevertheless, none of this deliberation made a dent in the frequency of mining accidents. Within a month of the Chenjiashan mining accident, at least ten other serious mine disasters took place across the country. And mine disasters are continuing to occur. Clearly, the government's hands are tied.
Whenever an extremely large mining accident occurs, the entire national safety monitoring system (as well as those at local levels) mobilises personnel in response. These national mobilisations have demonstrated time and again that the government's hands are tied with regard to mine disasters. On 13 December 2004, following a series of extremely large mining accidents, a State Administration of Work Safety's video conference was held; the impression given by the director of the State Administration of Work Safety was that the government was clueless. In addition to touting the useless "rectification measures" undertaken again and again, the director further displayed a general unwillingness to be forthright regarding the present state of affairs by making comments such as "the accident and death rate has stabilized and is declining" and "the death rate per million tonnes of coal extracted has reached its best record in history." In actuality, the director knows better than anyone that such statistics and figures might as well have been pulled from a hat; the number of mining accidents that local governments and mine owners have worked together to cover up exceeds such made up figures.
The leaders of the central government also feel that their hands are tied with regard to these frequent mining accidents. On 9 December 2004, 11 days after the Chenjiashan mine disaster, another gas explosion occurred at the Daxian mine in Yu County, Shanxi Province, killing 33. Perhaps this caused a collective emergence of repressed guilt or sudden realization of impotence in the face of a massive challenge. Even President Hu Jintao made it a point to confess that in light of the recent series of gas explosions the safety situation was indeed dire, and that comprehensive examination would need to be made and a system of responsibility implemented in each locality. Further, President Hu stated that any mines not meeting safety standards would face suspension of production pending rectification. These "instructions" are themselves nothing new; however, hearing them come from the penultimate Chinese leader is indicative of the level of official frustration with the unending series of coalmine tragedies.
What Hu Jintao's "instructions" reiterated was the Chinese government's basic strategy for governing the coalmine safety environment. On the basis of this strategy lie the basic management measures that have been implemented for years. The grim facts have proven, however, that this set of measures is fundamentally ineffective. According to the National Survey Report on the Safety Capacity of State-Owned coalmines (published by the State Administration of Work Safety on 27 December 2004), China's coal production was budgeted to reach 1.95 billion tonnes in 2004; China's coalmines, however, only had the capacity to ensure the safe production of 1.2 billion tonnes. This implies that implementation of Hu Jintao's "instructions" would actually reduce China's coal production by 700 million tonnes. In an era of tight supply, high demand and increasing price, the results would be predictable: a supply gap of 700 million tonnes would lead to the inflation of the market price of coal. At the same time production of large- and medium-sized state-owned coalmines (which have better safety conditions) would be decreasing, causing an increase in the illegal mining of small shafts. Reckless small mine owners would multiply, increasing numbers of local government officials would be bribed, and more mine workers pushed towards death. The only result of this set of management measures will be perpetuation of the vicious cycle of China's coal-mining disasters. This cycle can be summed up as an increase in mining disasters leading to strict rectification and mine closures leading to reduced coal production and higher coal prices leading to an increase in illegal mines leading to an increase in mining disasters...
It's a vicious cycle begun long ago, one in which the central government has played an active role. Besides offering yet more proof that the leadership's hands are tied with regard to coal mining accidents, this cycle also offers a window into the minds of the establishment. Clearly, they are still trapped in the morass of planned economy thinking despite the reality that China is no longer in that age; with each level of government pursuing rapid economic growth, energy supply and demand is no longer something the central government can control. This is something that they should be well aware of; after all, it was on their orders that, a few years back, the government completely contracted out medium and small state-owned and collectively-owned coalmines to private individuals in the name of "unburdening" the central government. By relinquishing control of so many mines, the central government lost the ability to control either coal production or market price.
Local government officials, anxious to for a piece of the coal-profit pie, provide protection to mine owners looking to skirt government regulation. Moreover, despite appalling conditions, finding workers is never a problem, as bankrupt farmers provide coalmine owners with an inexhaustible supply of labour. It can be said that the seeds of these failed measures were planted on the day that the Chinese government relinquished partial control of coal energy resources. In the face of this reality, the actual result of Hu Jintao's instructions can only be that a finite number of large accidents in state-owned mines will become a countless number of smaller accidents in privately-held mines, and the true death rate from accidents will not only fail to decrease but, in all possibility, increase.
Facts have already proven that under current conditions of rising prices and demand combined with tight supply, the government's measures of issuing safe production licenses, closing small mines that do not meet safety criteria, and forbidding additional production over the mines' projected capacity have completely failed. These measures are not merely impossible to fully implement, but actually seriously impact the balance of supply and demand on the energy market, leading to the inflation of coal prices and further spurring illegal coal mining and blind over-production, the result of which is an increase in the occurrence and severity of mine disasters. At the same time, lip service paid over the past few years about implementing "responsibility systems for officials" and "measures to severely punish mine owners" have proven useless. On one hand, the exorbitant profits in the coal market lead wave after wave of mine owners to engage in illegal production; on the other hand, the two systems have brought government officials, and officials and mine owners, closer together in a profit relationship, which makes perfunctory inspections and covering up accidents a common phenomenon. We believe that the solution lies with a "Lesser of Two Evils" policy. First, we must squarely face this cycle, again summarized thusly:
- Coal production increases to meet market demand (the only real way to bring down market prices);
- Increased production leads to more mining accidents;
- In reaction to increased mining accidents, mines not meet safety standards or producing beyond safety capacity are closed;
- Coal prices rise, spurring mine owners to increase production levels;
- Increased production leads to more mining accidents.
- First, banks would make low-interest loan funds available to large and medium sized mines still under government control, with this money earmarked for safety equipment; further, in order to enhance safety, the salaries and benefits of mine workers must be raised. This will stabilise the ranks of mine workers. Labour unions must be reformed and strengthened, their capacities increased to include the inclusion of the workers themselves mine safety management and safety-related training. These mines meeting safety criteria would be permitted to expand their production scale and be encouraged to merge with mines and explore other forms of ownership.
- Second, a rigorous safety rating assessment would be performed on medium- and small-sized mines not under government ownership, and the current method of addressing the problem through reactionary measures, i.e. suspending production for a hundred days at a hundred mines following a disaster in one mine needs to be changed so that production is only suspended in those mines rated low for safety.
- Third, the current method, in which local governments are only concerned with suspending production and rectification, and not with re-starting production would be changed, because this "one size fits all" kind of management and rectification often comes with no re-start date. This is the main reason for local mines covering up accidents and starting work without permission. When the suspension of production and rectification of a mine is seen to have actual results, the mine should be allowed to resume production.
It is not possible to have a perfectly sound policy all at once if at all, but it is a goal that can be worked towards. In order for China to begin down that road, a completely new mentality and system for managing safety needs to be adapted, namely worker participation.
China Labour Bulletin has consistently called for the government to allow worker participation in the safety monitoring and management systems of the enterprises for which they work. We restate our opinion here that the government should:
- Immediately allow workers to organise and participate in the safety monitoring and management systems of large- and medium-sized state-owned mines;
- Create and maintain a systematised relationship between organised mine workers and government safety monitoring and management agencies, local unions, and media, and provide legal and enforcement guarantees for these relationships.
Of course, such a safety monitoring and management system built upon worker participation is not intended to replace those management measures already adopted by the government. Measures such as mine inspection, rectification or closure of unsafe mines, increased investment in safety equipment and facilities, penalization of mine owners and relevant officials engaged in practices detrimental to workers and continued safety training of miners and management are all vital. However, these measures can only work if the workers themselves are allowed to take control of their own safety and interests.
An important problem here is that the Chinese government does not currently allow workers to independently organise and participate in mine safety monitoring; thus, in any case where management's wishes contravene those of workers, management wins out. Yet people are increasingly realizing that management, especially in illegal mines, are responsible for putting workers in hazardous situations. Recently in Hebei, Shandong and Henan, a few large state-owned mines held discussions on the topic of who really had the highest stake in mine safety. The unanimous conclusion was that the workers who had the most to lose, and thus the highest stake. This demonstrates that both local government officials and mine management personnel have recognized the important role that workers play in safety monitoring and management. However, allowing workers to organise is still such a thorny political issue that without backing from the central government, no decision makers at the local level dare to bring it up.
China's economic structure and social relationships have changed radically since the days of central economic planning; thus, allowing workers to independently organise and participate in safety monitoring and management should be a safety issue, not a political one. The countless mining accidents in China have proven that a major cause of tragedy is that often workers are forced to work in situations they know to be dangerous. An organized and empowered workforce would be able to stop working when dangerous conditions arose and would be able to refuse illegal work orders. The frequency of mine disasters reflects lack of training among miners, the majority of whom lack both experience, safety training, and in many cases even basic training. The workers themselves are not at fault; highly dangerous and offering back-breaking work, coalmines have a high turnover rate, virtually ensuring that workers entering the mines are ill trained. If workers organise, there will be an improvement in their rights and benefits; only at that time will the ranks of mine workers have a basic guarantee of stability and will workers be able to obtain safety-related technical training. Allowing workers to organise also brings up the issue of mutual care. That is to say, in mines with highly dangerous conditions, organised workers will create a "watch out for yourself and for others" safety mentality, which adds safety as an aspect of work responsibilities. Clearly, a stable work force, one able to train and monitor its own workers and who's safety recommendations are respected by the mine owners will be lead to a reduction in accidents. This is something that even the most expensive safety equipment can't provide.
There are two keys crucial to having workers participate in coalmine safety monitoring and management: one is a clear mandate by the government which not only legalises worker organization, but also stipulates that workers have the right to refuse to enter an unsafe mine without fear of dismissal. The other is that workers themselves must be able to choose their own workers. If these two conditions exist, it does not matter what the organisation is called. In view of current realities in China, it could be the lowest level of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions in the mines and maintain close connections with the unions at the Federation's county, city, and provincial levels. Not surprisingly, the idea of permitting mine workers to form their own organisation and participate in safety monitoring and management coincides with two matters that the Federation has promoted in recent years; holding democratic elections at the basic union committee level, and establishing unions in industries in which rural workers are concentrated. Therefore, this idea not only shouldn't create a threat to the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, it could also provide it with a turning point for true reform and allow the Federation to more effectively protect the rights of the workers they serve.
At this point, I must reiterate that allowing workers to independently organise and participate in mine safety monitoring and management is the most important technical means of solving China's mine safety problem. This thinking is indeed in line with the concept of "establishing independent unions" that China Labour Bulletin has been promoting for many years. But any attempt to use labour-related tragedies in the service of the interests of a ruling party or group is despicable. The convergence of these ideas and concepts simply demonstrates that our thinking is rooted in the reality of China, and therefore that this idea is technically feasible. Why does the Chinese government not see this? Or if they do see it, why are they not promoting it? We feel on this point that Chinese government figures may have be displaying a kind of political hypochondria, manifested by a display of timidity, selfishness, and hypocrisy regarding independent workers. Perhaps they fear that should such an organisation be established, it might develop quickly and threaten their rule. Perhaps they believe that, because this issue is being addressed by "anti-government" figures like us, it may be a kind of Trojan horse.
In conclusion, continued refusal by the Chinese government to allow workers to organise and participate in mine safety and management shows that Chinese leaders are far more concerned with their own positions than with the lives of workers. Failure to protect the lives of Chinese miners through implementation of real and workable strategies paints an ever-clearer picture of the Chinese government's basic "ability to govern" and fundamental moral bottom line. Thus, promises made to the people are little more than cynical, selfish, and timid pretenses. Their tears, however heartfelt, are merely wasted expressions of pity attempting to cover up their true inability to control the results of their reforms.