Joe McDonald
Associated Press
21 April 2005
Police have released 20 labor activists who were detained for several months after leading 7,000 female textile workers in one of China's longest strikes since its 1949 communist revolution, a Hong Kong-based labor rights group said Thursday.
Mill employees in the northwestern city of Xianyang went on strike in September after new owners announced layoffs and pay cuts, the China Labor Bulletin said. It said the strike lasted seven weeks before being broken up by police, and was "one of the longest known industrial strikes in post-1949 history and possibly the longest."
China's government is struggling to cope with a wave of labor protests throughout China as state companies lay off millions of workers and cut pay in an effort to become profitable. Most protests last only a few days, but some have included tens of thousands of workers.
Communist leaders allow only state-supervised unions, and independent labor activists are frequently jailed and harassed.
Leaders of the strike in Xianyang were detained in October, the China Labor Bulletin said. It said they were released without charge in batches over several months beginning in December. The group said it withheld their names for their safety.
An officer who answered the phone at police headquarters in Xianyang confirmed that 7,000 workers went on strike and that about 20 of their leaders were detained and later released. The officer wouldn't give his name or other details.
Employees who answered phone calls at the factory on Thursday wouldn't give any information about changes in wages or the work force. They refused to give their names.
Officials in Xianyang "opted for a policy of repression over one of constructive dialogue with the workers," China Labor Bulletin's director, Han Dongfang, said in a statement.
Han is a former Chinese railway worker who was imprisoned and then expelled from China's mainland in 1989 after trying to form an independent union.
Han called for an end to "traditional repressive tactics" and said Chinese workers should be "allowed to have an organized and independent voice of their own in society."
The strike in Xianyang began after control of the textile factory was transferred to a Hong Kong-based Chinese government company, China Resources, the China Labor Bulletin said. It said the new owners imposed "harsh labor contracts and working conditions."
The new owners announced that the entire work force would be laid off and then some rehired under temporary contracts, in an apparent violation of laws that give longtime employees the right to permanent contracts, China Labor Bulletin said.
It said pay for those rehired under temporary contracts would be much lower than their previous wages.
Local authorities also tried to block the workers from forming their own union under a law that allowed them to establish their own group and then seek affiliation with the government-authorized All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the group said.