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II. BACKGROUND

Beginning in the late 1970's, China's leaders turned to radical economic reform to speed the process of China's transformation into a strong, economically viable, and stable state. Centralized planning would eventually be replaced with a "socialist market economy," a mix of heavy reliance on market forces and continued state-ownership of key enterprises. Even as state factories downsized or shut down altogether as the market came to define and clarify labor relations-and as the state no longer decided who should work, where and at what-workers found themselves increasingly vulnerable and without the tools to protect their interests.

In 1978, two years after the death of Chairman Mao Zedong, and almost thirty years after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power, China was experiencing a severe economic and political crisis. Living standards were falling; voices of dissent were on the rise. Former Red Guards sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)-ostensibly to "learn from the peasants" but with the happy coincidence of reducing urban unemployment-were illegally returning to the cities in droves, up to 10,000 in Beijing alone. By 1979, urban unemployment stood at nearly 6 percent, with many returnees living by theft, begging, and prostitution.3 That same year, the Democracy Wall movement (1978-81) exploded onto the streets: people marched for democracy, against corruption, and to demand a decent standard of living.4

Deng Xiaoping, acknowledged as China's paramount leader in 1978, lost no time in setting a new economic direction. Having recognized the need to make state-owned enterprises (SOEs) economically competitive and profitable, planners began dismantling the old model. State factories that had been the engine of remarkable economic growth during the 1950s, especially in the northeast, by the late seventies suffered from poor management, outdated technology, and chronically low productivity. In addition, the need to attract foreign capital led the CCP to experiment with special economic zones; the zones' phenomenal economic success reinforced the new model.

By the mid-1990s the policy of "reform and opening up" had led to a boom in privately funded Chinese enterprises and in the number of foreign multinationals operating in China. But even in this new landscape, the government would not allow labor the same degree of independence it had granted management. SOE workers' rights and representation remained what they had been when the state guaranteed employment and retirement benefits, and when labor in state-owned factories was the subject of "emulation" campaigns.

Breaking the "Iron Rice Bowl"

Until the late 1970s, China's leaders managed to impose a degree of labor stability in the country. Preoccupied with maintaining industrial peace, and fully aware of the central role SOEs played in the post-1949 economy, the government made important concessions to urban workers under a "low wage high welfare" system. The state guaranteed both "lifetime" employment with wages independent of productivity and profits, and a secure retirement.5 Benefits included virtually free housing, health care, subsidized food and fuel, home-leave travel allowances, pensions, and education--what was called the "iron rice bowl."6 Even so Chinese workers refused to repudiate the militancy that had begun in the 1920s and clashes with the CCP occurred periodically. But as the state gradually reneged on its promises of stable work and comprehensive benefits, the strict limits on workers' rights to form independent unions, bargain collectively, or strike left them without effective mechanisms for contesting summary dismissal, enforced early retirement, and cuts in pensions and medical benefits. And as managers and corrupt officials stripped old, bankrupted state factories of their assets or mismanaged privatized factories, workers' sense of grievance intensified.

In July 1994, after more than a decade of trial regulations and pilot projects to facilitate market reforms, the National People's Congress, China's legislature, enacted the country's first labor law.7 It reaffirmed the control individual enterprise directors had over the hiring and firing of workers, their wage scales, and their social welfare benefits, and replaced lifetime employment with a limited-term contract system. A one-party state and restrictions on freedom of association gave Chinese workers no opportunity to play a part in formulating the new law.

In September 1997, the 15th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party formally announced a further restructuring of state-owned enterprises and widespread implementation of gufenzhi, the transfer of enterprise ownership from the state to shareholders; the process of privatizing SOEs accelerated rapidly.

Laid-off, unemployed, retired

A decade ago, the official media routinely hailed Chinese workers in state-owned enterprises as the vanguard of China's workforce, the linchpins of the drive for a strong, modern state. The relatively privileged position of SOE workers led economic analysts and even some Chinese labor dissidents to regard them as a modern-day "labor aristocracy."8 Now these same workers are frequently stereotyped as stuck in an old-fashioned time warp, one that no longer fits China's economic reality. This official discourse, common in contemporary newspaper accounts, urges workers in the former SOEs to "liberate their thinking and grasp reform" (jiefan sixiang zhua gaige).9 Membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), they are told, will bring on more closures and bankruptcies; they must be prepared to pay the price for a transformation that, in the long run, will benefit everyone.

Government reemployment agencies and centers inform middle-aged, skilled former SOE workers that only unskilled work is available, and for such jobs "there is no longer an eight-hour day in China."10 Added pressure on the urban labor market and laid-off SOE workers comes from rural migrants willing to settle for lower wages and shorter employment contracts in the low-tech, labor-intensive sector. Han Zhili, who runs a citizens' advice center in Beijing, summed up the problem: The current situation, he said, is "forcing workers to labor long hours for very low wages."11 Nor do these workers receive welfare benefits. The old "low wage, high welfare model" has become "low wage, low welfare."

Between 1996 and 2000 31.4 million SOE workers were laid off, a reduction of 27.9 percent. In urban collectively-owned enterprises, the number of employees fell by 15.2 million or 50.3 percent.12 Figures released by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MOLSS) put these figures in context.

The employees of state and collective enterprises and institutions accounted for 37.3 percent of total urban employees in 2001, down from 99.8 percent in 1978. Meanwhile, the number of employees of private, individually owned and foreign-invested enterprises has increased dramatically.13

Estimates of total urban joblessness vary. According to scholars at the Beijing-based Development Research Center (DRC), a government think tank, it averages around 8-9 percent--the official rate, by contrast, is 3.6 percent.14 However, joblessness in industrial rust belts, such as northeast China is much higher, averaging at least 20 percent.15 Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MOLSS) researchers and academics put the figure at 7 per cent16 but their estimate does not include laid-off (xia gang) workers.17

In March 2002, overall urban and rural unemployment stood at 170 million, with laid-off SOE workers totaling 5.15 million and formally registered unemployed workers, many of them former SOE employees, accounting for another 6.81 million.18 This latter figure is expected to rise dramatically during 2002 as more SOEs shut down in the face of increased competition and in conformity with a government requirement that the laid-off (xia gang) category be phased out and all workers registered as unemployed (shiye). The MOLSS in its April White Paper on Employment and Social Security predicts the number of urban jobless will top 20 million within four years.19 Although the White Paper does not say how many will come from SOEs, Vice-premier Wu Bangguo said on June 8, 2002, that SOE reform, including bankruptcy for unprofitable plants, was vital to economic restructuring.20

Human Rights Watch spoke with seventeen employed and former SOE workers, fourteen men and three women, in three areas during early 2002. Many of them expressed the view that, having given the best years of their lives to constructing modern China, they have now been sacrificed in the name of a different, imposed model of development, one which workers had no voice in designing.21

A typical story is that of Mrs. Liang, a middle-aged textile worker from Harbin city in Heilongjiang province, who said that for most of her working life she regarded her low wages as a trade-off for basic labor insurance including medical care and a pension.22 In the mid-nineties, at age forty-eight, she was forced into early retirement; since March 1999 she has received only 70 percent of her monthly pension.23

A listener from Fujian province explained a similar situation in his hometown during a telephone interview with the host of Radio Free Asia's labor rights program:

I don't feel optimistic. It's especially bad for workers in their fifties and sixties. They have worked hard all their lives, but now that they are retired, there are many who don't get their pensions [entitlements]...We are a small county town down here and many work units owe their retired workers several months in unpaid pensions.24

As one former auto worker said when she and two hundred employees of the former Beijing Automobile and Motorcycle Works blocked traffic in the capital for six hours in March 2002 to protest alleged management corruption, forced retirements, and denial of worker benefits:

When we were young, we endured hardship and exhaustion at the factory, and now we are old and sick. But they don't give any welfare for us to live on, so we get sicker. And then when we buy our medicines they don't reimburse us.25

Corruption

Corruption, which has flourished with privatization, is made easier by workers' inability to organize, monitor management, or protest effectively. In this regard, labor activists face not only the legal limits on workers' rights and the fact that corruption contributes to bankruptcies and lay-offs, but also the government's discomfort with any unsanctioned activity that reflects badly on the new economic model. One veteran anti-corruption campaigner, for example, former Party member Zhou Wei, received a two-year administratively imposed term in a reeducation labor camp--on the bizarre charge of "reporting for the masses"--because he led an effort to expose the corruption of the mayor of Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning province.26 In March 1999, Zhou accused Mayor Mu Suixin of involvement in an illegal pyramid scheme which collapsed, wiping out the life savings of thousands of people. On May 6, 1999, police took Zhou from his home; the next day he was sent to Dragon Mountain Labor Camp, where he served out all but one month of his administrative sentence. Mayor Mu was indicted on corruption charges:

When investigators searched two country houses belonging to Shenyang's mayor, they found U.S.$6 million worth of gold bars hidden in the walls, 150 Rolex watches [and] computer files documenting years of illegal activities.27

The illegal or unsanctioned loss of SOE assets as a result of economic restructuring was the subject of a major conference held May 29-30, 2002 in Wuhan, Hubei province. Conference participants--including delegates from Petrochina (see Daqing section)-- judged systemic corruption to be a major factor underlying the problem:

...a minority of leading cadres from [SOE] enterprises collaborate with directors from unlawful private enterprises or small company bosses for mutual profit, [resulting in] chaotic investments, subcontracting arrangements and loans in which they jointly embezzle and divert state assets and property.28

Labor activists in Liaoyang wrote a letter to Jiang Zemin, China's president, that made similar observations about the director (changzhang) of the Ferroalloy Company:

His close aides, friends and relatives were placed in company positions from which he could directly benefit. At the instigation of Liaoyang's former mayor and party secretary..., [the director] set up a number of independent enterprises--such as the Ya Po Company, Pengejin Factory, and the Sai De Company--and arranged fictitious domestic and foreign links and contacts. These people worked hand in glove as a team to swallow up billions of yuan in national funds resulting in losses of tens of billion of yuan in state property.29

The All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) in the New Economy

The ACFTU, a complex organization with a reported membership of over 120 million workers, is the only legally recognized trade union in China. Its traditional role, as a largely unquestioning conduit from the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to the working class, has been the ACFTU's strength as well as its weakness. Links with the CCP and with SOE management give it some limited authority within factories and other work units, but workers criticize precisely those links as evidence that the ACFTU lacks independence.30 "Why should I go to the trade union?" workers frequently said to Human Rights Watch. "There is no difference between them and the boss."31

Indeed, calls for more trade union autonomy--often fueled by labor unrest--have characterized internal debates in the ACFTU since the 1950s.32 What has changed is the far more complex economic environment in which the ACFTU now operates. In 1982, the apparent convergence of workers' interests with those of the state and the entire nation was used to justify eliminating workers' right to strike from the Chinese constitution. A veteran legal scholar noted in 1982 that workers had no need of the right because "Chinese enterprises belong to the people."33 Now, industrial ownership is far more diverse. In 2000, the private sector contributed more than half of China's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and private firms employ over 130 million workers.34 During the 1990s, SOE contribution to GDP dropped from 65 percent to 42 percent.35

As private entrepreneurship emerged as a crucial component of state policy, the ACFTU lobbied for a Labor Law and a new Trade Union Law to meet the new realities. It trained thousands of cadres in dispute arbitration, and it launched organizing drives in privately owned companies. Such efforts were not particularly successful. In a speech to ACFTU cadres in 2000, the union's chairperson, Wei Jianxing, pointed out that less than half of eligible workers were unionized:

...a considerable number of trade union organizations [and branches] have collapsed and their members washed away. On the other hand, the organization of trade unions in newly established enterprises has simply not happened. At the end of 1999, national trade union membership dropped to eighty-seven million, leaving more than one hundred million workers unorganized. When there is not even a trade union, what is the point of talking about trade unions upholding the legal rights of workers? Or trade unions being the transmission belt between the Party and the masses? Or trade unions being an important social pillar of state power? 36

Although some ACFTU officials would like to be more effective, given the current landscape CCP policy toward the union's role has not changed. It is still aimed at using the ACFTU to help create a stable political and economic environment, a task made more urgent by the need to both attract and compete with foreign capital. Organizing or even supporting collective action for jobs and wages is deemed incompatible with these goals, thus cannot be supported by the ACFTU. In 1998, Vice-Premier Hu Jintao (widely expected to become China's next president and Party leader), articulated the Party's line on trade union independence and the related right to freedom of association:

Chinese trade unions are mass organizations of the working class under the leadership of the Party, act as a bridge linking the Party with staff and workers and play a role as a key social pillar of the state political power... I hope that all levels of trade unions will consciously accept the leadership of the Party while independently carrying out their work...[and] consciously submit to and serve the major tasks of the Party and the state.37

Thus, as one worker explained about the ACFTU's participation in a campaign to keep a factory open, "We [Ferroalloy workers] have been to the ACFTU on a number of occasions, but they've never taken any real notice of us."38 When the families of detained Liaoyang workers approached the ACFTU complaints office in Beijing for help in obtaining the detainees' releases, they were told to send the case details in a letter.39

It is not that all ACFTU cadres and officials, particularly at the shop floor level, are necessarily unsympathetic. An official of the Liaoyang branch of the Federation of Trade Unions, when asked if local people were supporting the Ferroalloy workers' protests, told Radio Free Asia, "Of course they are! The city leaders are in the wrong!"40 But the union's maneuvering room is extremely limited. In April, the government's Central Publicity Department issued a serious critique of the Workers' Daily, ACFTU's official newspaper, warning that the paper was violating the Party line by featuring articles on economic restructuring and worker rights without taking into account the "overall national interest."41 Given the ACFTU's dual mandate, it is hardly surprising that Workers' Daily failed to carry articles about the March-May protests in Daqing, Liaoyang, and in other areas in China's northeast.

Independent Union Organizing and China's International Obligations

The absence of freedom of association remains a critical issue in China, but the dual position of the ACFTU--as upholder of working-class interests and as loyal servant to the Party--makes it impossible for the union to promote free association in accordance with international standards. At no point over the last twenty-five years, despite widespread unemployment, serious labor law violations, and appallingly dangerous working conditions, has the ACFTU attempted to distance itself from the CCP leadership or to question its policies. It has not defended the principle of independent union organizing, and it has never spoken out against laws and regulations routinely employed to justify imprisonment of labor activists who organize outside its aegis.42

In fact, most Chinese laws that address the issue reinforce the Party loyalty side of the duality. The Trade Union Law (TUL) illustrates the point. The ACFTU sought revision of the 1950 law during the late 1980s so as to reinterpret workers' rights in light of the new realities. Although revised versions of the law finally were adopted in April 1992, and again in October 2001, the section on union purposes and goals retained and even strengthened language establishing the union's subservience to Party leadership:

Trade unions shall observe and safeguard the Constitution, take it as the fundamental criterion for their activities, take economic development as the central task, uphold the socialist road, the people's democratic dictatorship, leadership by the Communist Party of China, and Marxist-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory, persevere in reform and the open policy, and conduct their work independently in accordance with the Constitution of trade unions.43

The Trade Union Law goes on to specifically outlaw the formation of trade unions independent of the ACFTU.44

The Chinese government has consistently moved quickly to quash independent labor organizing efforts. For example, active involvement in organizing workers led to charges of subversion, a three-hour trial, and a ten-year prison sentence for one Gansu-based activist, Yue Tianxiang. A former driver, he had undertaken in early 1999 to represent 2,000 workers who like him had lost their jobs and could not collect months of back wages.45 Between August 1998 and June 2002 at least twenty-nine workers were detained or sentenced to terms ranging up to ten years for peaceful labor-related activities.

The Trade Union Law and official practice contravene the principles of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), ratified by China on March 27, 2001. Article 8(1)(a) of the ICESCR provides that states parties to the covenant undertake to ensure "[t]he right of everyone to form trade unions and join the trade union of his choice, subject only to the rules of the organization concerned, for the promotion and protection of his economic and social interests."46 China is also a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states in article 22 that: "Everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests."47

When China ratified the ICESCR, the National People's Congress declared that the application of Article 8(1)(a) must be consistent with the Trade Union Law--precisely the law that denies Chinese workers the right to organize independent unions. It is the view of Human Rights Watch that the declaration is incompatible with the object and purpose of the treaty, and thus China should be held to the full terms of the article. This is consistent with the position of the Human Rights Committee, which monitors the compliance of states parties with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Human Rights Committee, seeking to clarify the standard set in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties,48 stated in its General Comment 24 of 1994 that any statement made at the time of ratification that "purports to exclude or modify the legal effect of a treaty . . . is a reservation."49 Reservations should be regarded as null and void to the extent that they violate the object and purpose of the Covenant.50

China has nonetheless used its reservation to the ICESCR to justify the legality of the ACFTU's on-going legal monopoly on trade union organizing in China and thus continuation of its underlying role as a "transmission belt" for communication between the Party and government on one hand and workers on the other. However, it does nothing to solve the problem of what happens when the interests of Party and workers clash.

China also has continued to ignore its responsibilities as a member of the International Labor Organization (ILO), which include respecting and promoting the principles of free association and collective bargaining. The ILO declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work recognizes freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining as "fundamental rights."51 As an ILO member, China is bound by this obligation even though it has not ratified the ILO conventions governing these rights.52 In 1998, the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association concluded that China's Trade Union Law "prevented the establishment of trade union organizations that are independent of the public authorities and of the ruling party, and whose mission should be to defend and promote interests of their constituents and not to reinforce the country's political and economic system."53 The same criticisms apply to the current version of the law.

China's unwillingness to respect its obligations under international law also led the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) to submit a complaint, focusing on arrests and repression of workers and on blatant denial of freedom of association in the northeast, to the ILO's Committee on Freedom of Association on March 15.54 The text of the complaint includes, as an example, a declaration by a local branch of the ACFTU commenting on the emergence of an independent association of laid-off workers. The declaration emphasizes that "[T]he ACFTU will not tolerate workers organizing in this way."55

3 Charlie Hore, China: Whose Revolution (London: Socialist Workers Party, 1987), p.15.

4 Tim Pringle, "Class Conflict in the People's Republic - Chinese Workers and the Struggle to Organize," Paper presented at Eighth International Conference on Alternative Futures and Popular Protest, Manchester, April 2-4, 2002 (copy on file at Human Rights Watch).

5 "Workers in a State of Disunion," South China Morning Post, March 23, 2002.

6 Workers in smaller SOEs outside the main industrial centers received much less comprehensive benefits.

7 Labor Law of the People's Republic of China, adopted at the Eighth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Eighth National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China on July 5, 1994, entered into force January 1, 1995, http://www.acftu.org.cn/labourlaw.htm (accessed on April 9, 2002).

8 A term originally coined by Engels to describe the better-off segment of the English working class in the 19th century. During a radio interview in the fall of 1998 with reporter Li Wanfang on Radio Free Asia (RFA) "Eyewitness Report," labor activist Zhang Shanguang used it to describe the pre-reform status of SOE workers in China. He was later imprisoned on charges of "illegally providing intelligence to overseas organizations" in part for the RFA interview.

9 See, for example, "Jiefang sixiang zhua gaizhi, qiu zhen wushi zhu huihuang" ("Liberate Ideas and Grasp Restructuring, Go for Glory but Maintain Pragmatism"), Datong Daily (Shanxi province) January 10, 2001, http://www.dtzc.gov.cn/xingyun/newpage6.htm (accessed on April 12, 2002).

10 Interview quoted in Tim Pringle, "Industrial Unrest in China - A Labor Movement in the Making," Asian Labour Update, Issue 40 (July-September 2001), p. 10.

11 Wu Zhenguang, "Laozi chongtu shengji weiji shehui wending" ("Rising labor disputes threaten social stability,") Xinwen Zhoukan (published by China's Department of Labor and Social Security, Guangzhou, China), September 9, 2001.

12 Qiao Jian "Wei danxing jiuye yingzao geng hao de fazhan huanjing - yi 2001 nian zhongguo Liaoning Anshan shi danxing jiuye diaocha wei li" ("Flexible Employment in China - An Example from a Survey on Flexible Employment in Anshan City 2001"), paper given at Forum on Industrial Relations and Labor Policies in a Globalizing World, January 9-11, 2000 (copy on file at Human Rights Watch).

13 Ministry of Labor and Social Security, "White Paper on Employment and Social Security," issued by the Information Office of the State Council, April 29, 2002.

14 Matthew Forney, "Workers Wasteline," Time Magazine, June 17, 2002, http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020617/cover.html, (accessed on June 20, 2002).

15 David Hsieh, "China jobless figures enter danger zone, Experts agree the red line of 7 percent unemployed has been crossed. Now the debate is about social unrest to follow," Straits Times, June 15, 2002.

16 Mo Rong, "Dangqian zhongguo jiuye xingshi yu jiaru WTO hou de zhengce jianyi" ("Employment Situation and Policy Advice After China Accedes to WTO"), paper presented at Forum on Industrial Relations and Labor Policies in a Globalizing World, Beijing, January 9-11, 2002 (copy on file at Human Rights Watch). See also Deng Ke, "China's actual unemployment rate has reached a critical point," Nanfang Zhoumo (Southern Weekend), June 13, 2002, wysiwyg://502/ http://www.sinopolis...Archives.TOPSTORY/ts_020621_01.htm (accessed on April 8, 2002).

17 Laid-off (xia gang): applies to SOE workers sent home but formally kept on the company books. Where this usage of "laid-off" is intended, this report includes xia gang in parentheses afterward. All other uses of "laid-off" in this report (i.e., those without the Chinese term in parentheses) carry the usual English language meaning of "out of a job" and do not imply anything about whether the worker does or does not remain formally on the company books. Legally, xia gang workers are entitled to monthly stipends, medical cost re-imbursement, and job re-training. In practice, stipends have been paid irregularly and medical expenses reimbursed sporadically. The xia gang policy began to be phased out in May 2001 and affected workers became formally unemployed. They could then apply for unemployment benefits paid from monies contributed to a labor insurance fund by employers and employees. A major problem has been the failure of employers to make required contributions.

18 ICFTU-APRO Labour Flash, Issue 1047, February 15, 2002, http://www.icftu-apro.org/flash/flash1047.html (accessed on June 12, 2002).

19 Ministry of Labor and Social Security, "White Paper..."

20 "China Vows to Continue SOE Reform," People's Daily Online, June 8, 2002, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200206/08/print20020608_97438.html (accessed on July 24, 2002).

21 Human Rights Watch interviews, February 2002.

22 Human Rights Watch interview, Harbin, March 2, 2002. The interviewee's full name has been withheld to protect her anonymity.

23 Ibid.

24 Renmin Ribao de kuazhang, Radio Free Asia, China Labor program broadcast in December 1998; transcribed in "Gaige yu geming weiji," published by China Labour Bulletin (May 2000), p. 109.

25 Jonathan Ansfield, "Beijing retirees cry foul, protest outside plant," Reuters, March 27, 2002.

26 Zhou first led an anti-corruption delegation in 1997 when retired workers and senior cadres went to Beijing to expose the practice of asset-stripping in Shenyang; he received a fifteen-day administrative sentence. James Kynge, "China's jailed corruption campaigner tells his tale," Financial Times, July 6, 2001.

27 Ronald Hilton, "Corruption in China: Shenyang," quoting correspondence from John Pomfret, WAIS Forum on China, March 6, 2002, http://www.stanford.edu/group/wais/china_corruptioninchinashenyang3602.html (accessed on July 24, 2002).

28 "Yanjiu shentao yufang duice, qiye guyou zichan liushi wenti yinqi guanzhu" ("Research is required to discuss countermeasures and prevention of SOE capital and asset loss which is causing concern"), Xinhua (Online), May 30, 2002, http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2002-05/30/content_416469.htm (accessed on July 24, 2002).

29 "Appeal to the Leadership after a Fruitless Four Year Struggle Against Corruption. The workers are being persecuted and need your support," Open Letter to Jiang Zemin posted by "The unemployed former workers of the bankrupt Liaoning, Liaoyang Ferroalloy Factory" on walls in the vicinity of the Liaoyang Ferroalloy Factory and government buildings in Liaoyang, March 5, 2002.

30 Until recently SOE workers in urban areas belonged to work units (danwei). These units were usually organized according to industrial sectors; thus one danwei covered several SOEs. By and large, the union's responsibility within an individual SOE was confined to administering welfare benefits and organizing labor competitions and entertainment.

31 Human Rights Watch interview with a migrant worker from Sichuan province, Guangzhou, February 2, 2002.

32 See Tim Pringle, "The Chinese Working Class-Fiction and Reality," China Human Rights Forum (published by Human Rights in China), No.1 (2002), p. 12.

33 Zhang Youyu, "Guanyu xiugai xuanfa de ji ge wenti" ("Questions Regarding the revision of the Constitution"), Xuang lunwen ji (Theses on the Constitution), (Beijing: Qunzhong Publishing House, 1982).

34 "Private Entrepreneurs Win Socialist Prizes," Xinhua, April 30, 2002, http://202.84.17.73:7777/Detail.wct?RecID=65&SelectID=1&ChannelID=6034&Page=4 (accessed on June 8, 2002). According to official figures, some 80 million workers do not belong to trade unions although they are not counted as working for private firms. Two factors help explain this seeming anomaly. Many firms still exist in a kind of limbo between private ownership and what are called township and village enterprises (TVEs). In reality, these are largely privately owned. However the government designates them as "collectively owned" without ever precisely explaining what this entails. In 1997, over 120 million people, almost entirely non-unionized, were employed in TVEs. In addition, beginning in the 1980s, many ACFTU branches collapsed, often a result of management reforms.

35 "Guo qi zhan gongye chanzhi jiang zhi" ("SOE share of GDP drops to forty-two percent"), Ming Pao, May 10, 2002.

36 Wei Jianxing, "Renzhen xuexi guanche dang de shiwu ju wu zhong quan hui jingshen. Jin yi bu jia kuai xin jian qiye gonghui zu jian bufa" ("Conscientiously implement the spirit of the fifth plenary session of the 15th Central Committee and increase the pace of organizing and establishing trade unions in new enterprises"), speech delivered at a national conference on organizing in new enterprises, November 12, 2000, http://www.bjzgh.gov.cn/jianghua/5_jianghua_13.php (accessed on June 5, 2002).

37 All China Federation of Trade Unions, "Zhongguo gonghui shisan da wenjian huibian" ("Documents from the 13th Congress of the ACFTU"), (Beijing: China Workers' Press, 1998), p. 11.

38 Radio Free Asia interview with Liaoyang Ferroalloy Company worker representative Xiao Yunliang, March, 19, 2002; English translation of the transcript, http://iso.china-labour.org.hk/iso/article.adp?article_id=2146 (accessed on April 12, 2002).

39 "Liaoyang organizer released," China Labor Bulletin Press Release, April 23, 2002, http://iso.china-labour.org.hk/iso/article.adp?article_id=2386 (accessed on April 24, 2002).

40 Radio Free Asia, March 21, 2002. English translation of transcript, http://iso.china-labour.org.hk/iso/article.adp?article_id=2316 (accessed on March 30, 2002).

41 Vivien Pik-Kwan Chan, "Reports on plight of workers earn rebuke," South China Morning Post, May 4, 2002. So far as can be determined, no specific article was singled out.

42 This is not to imply that serious disagreement with the current Party leadership does not exist within the senior ranks of the ACFTU. On July 15, 2001, Han Yaxi, former Alternate General Secretary, Head of Propaganda and Education Department of the ACFTU co-authored a critique of Jiang Zemin's July 1, 2001 "Three Represents" speech welcoming entrepreneurs into CCP ranks. In a letter to Jiang and the Party's Central Committee, Han took issue with the president's claim that the status of China's working class had not changed:

Your comments are incomplete... In reality, however, what remains in the relations between the workers and businesses is a contract relationship between employees and employers.... Workers enjoy extremely little of democratic rights in enterprises, and even that little they have is not guaranteed at all.... Workers leave their work posts, and their seniority benefits are bought out, all as they are ordered. Nowadays masses of workers have lost their jobs; they can resort to no means to halt the process.... The conditions of the workers in private businesses of either domestic or foreign investment are even worse, insufferable, and without any guarantee [sic] (Ma Bin and Han Yaxi, "A Letter to Comrade Jiang Zemin and the Party's Central Committee," Monthly Review, May 2002, http://www.monthlyreview.org/0502cpc3.htm [accessed on June 19, 2002]).

43 Trade Union Law of the People's Republic of China, Article 4, adopted at the 24th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress on October 27, 2001, http://www.acftu.org.cn/unionlaw.htm (accessed on May 1, 2002).

44 Ibid., Article 10.

45 Yue and two other unemployed workers took the Tianshui City Auto Transport Company to arbitration, set up the newsletter Chinese Workers' Monitor, and wrote an open letter to Jiang Zemin denouncing corrupt management practices. Within one week they were arrested and charged with "subverting the government." Yue was sentenced on July 5, 1999. That same year, Hunan labor activist Zhang Shanguang was sentenced to a ten-year term on subversion charges for organizing the Shupu County Association for Laid-Off Workers and telling foreign reporters about it.

46 "International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights," adopted and open for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 2200 A (XXI) of December 16, 1966, entry into force: January 3, 1976, in accordance with article 27.

47 International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights, adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI) of December 16, 1966; entry into force: March 23, 1976, in accordance with article 49. China became a signatory to the ICCPR in 1998.

48 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331, entered into force January 27, 1980.

49 Human Rights Committee, "General Comment 24 (52), General comment on issues relating to reservations made upon ratification or accession to the Covenant or the Optional Protocols thereto, or in relation to declarations under article 41 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.6 (1994).1.

50 Human Rights Committee, "General Comment 24" ("The normal consequence of an unacceptable reservation is not that the Covenant will not be in effect at all for a reserving party. Rather, such a reservation will generally be severable, in the sense that the Covenant will be operative for the reserving party without benefit of the reservation"). For a fuller discussion of this issue, see Appendix 4.

51 "Convention No. 87, Convention concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize" (Date of Coming into force: July 4, 1950) and "Convention No. 98, Convention concerning the Application of the Principles of the Right to Organize and to Bargain Collectively," (Date of coming into force, July 18, 1951), both reprinted in International Labour Conventions and Recommendations 1919-1991, Volume 1, (1919-1962) (Geneva: International Labor Organization, 1992). Convention No. 87 protects the rights of workers "subject only to the rules of the organization concerned, to join organizations of their own choosing without previous authorization." It further states that: "Workers and employers' organizations have the right to draw up their constitutions and rules, to elect their representatives in full freedom, to organize their administration and activities and to formulate their programs... The public authorities shall refrain from any interference which would restrict this right or impede lawful exercise thereof." Article 98 protects workers' and employers' organizations against: "any acts of interference by each other or each other's agents or members... In particular, acts which are designed to promote the establishment of workers' organizations under the domination of employers or employers' organizations, or to support workers' organizations by financial or other means, with the object of placing such organizations under the control of employers or employers' organizations, shall be deemed to constitute acts of interference within the meaning of this article."

See also "Declaration concerning the aims and purposes of the International Labor Organization," http://www.ilo.org/public/english/about/iloconst.htm#a19p5 (accessed on July 24, 2002):

The General Conference of the International Labor Organization meeting in its Twenty-sixth Session in Philadelphia, hereby adopts this tenth day of May in the year nineteen hundred and forty-four the present Declaration of the aims and purposes of the International Labor Organization and of the principles which should inspire the policy of its Members. The Conference reaffirms the fundamental principles on which the Organization is based and, in particular, that: (a) labor is not a commodity; (b) freedom of expression and of association are essential to sustained progress; (c) poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere; (d) the war against want requires to be carried on with unrelenting vigor within each nation, and by continuous and concerted international effort in which the representatives of workers and employers, enjoying equal status with those of governments, join with them in free discussion and democratic decision with a view to the promotion of the common welfare.

52 "[A]ll Members, even if they have not ratified the Conventions in question, have an obligation arising from the very fact of membership in the Organization to respect, to promote and to realize, in good faith and in accordance with the Constitution, the principles concerning the fundamental rights which are the subject of those Conventions." International Labor Conference, ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, 86th Session, Geneva, June 18, 1998.

53 International Labour Office, "310th Report of the Committee on Freedom of Association," Official Bulletin, vol. 81, Series B, no. 2 (1998).

54 International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, "Letter to ILO Director-General Juan Somavia concerning Freedom of Association: Case No. 2189 (People's Republic of China)," June 2, 2002, http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991215393&Language=EN (accessed on June 17, 2002).

55 Ibid.

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