Post by RedFlag32 on Jul 3, 2007 10:37:07 GMT
Guangdong: Striking migrant worker murdered
Mon, 2 Jul 2007.
Eleven workers injured, one killed, as company thugs attack 300 strikers
chinaworker.info
Hundreds of hired thugs led by a company security guard mounted a vicious attack on 300 migrant workers out on strike since Friday. The men, employed to construct a hydropower station on the Dongjiang River at Dongyuan County, near the city of Heyuan in Guangdong province, have not been paid for five months.
Lei Mingzhong, a building worker from Kaixian County in Chongqing Municipality was beaten to death according to the Chongqing Morning Post. Two of his workmates were forced to jump from a high wall into the river to escape their attackers. The thugs even threw rocks into the river as they tried to swim to safety, the newspaper said.
”The first batch of about 50 gangsters came with spades in their hands, and the second batch had axes, steel pipes and sabres, and there were more behind them,” the Chongqing Morning Post quoted Liu Gangqing, one of the migrant workers, as saying.
”They didn't stop lashing out at us even when the police arrived,” another worker, Li Chuanbing, said.
200m migrant workers
The construction workers, all migrants from Chongqing Municipality, were employed by the Shenzhen Qiutian Construction Co, which was under contract to another company, Fuyuan Energy, to build the plant. A spokesman for Shenzhen Qiutian Construction Co, Liu Zhongcheng, confirmed the incident, saying the attack on the strikers continued after police arrived on the scene. This strongly suggests local government colluded with the owners of the site, Fuyuan Energy, to break the strike. Several newspaper reports gave similar accounts.
A local government spokesman denied there had been a mass assault, or any outside involvement, saying it was ”a violent conflict” involving migrant workers and other company staff. This ’official’ version is challenged by most reports in Chinese media, which confirm that Fuyuan hired hundreds of thugs to force the strikers back to work.
Likewise, a spokesman for the Public Security Bureau told Associated Press that police ”know nothing of the case”, but the Guangzhou Daily reported four suspects had been arrested by local police.
The attack highlights the systemic abuse, discrimination and often violence faced by China’s 200 million migrant workers, who have left impoverished rural areas in search of work. Due to the household registration system (hukuo), which operates in a way similar to South Africa’s racist pass laws in the apartheid era, China’s rural majority are permanently excluded from urban residence and the legal protection that accompanies it. Less than a fifth of migrants in full-time employment have a written contract. They are not entitled to medical, education, retirement or other forms of social insurance.
Land of slaves and millionaires
The slavery scandal in Shanxi province showed how migrants can fall prey to unspeakable forms of exploitation in today’s China. But this scandal – involving organised human trafficking and slave trading – was just the tip of the iceberg. Millions of migrants working in manufacturing and construction, including those working for well-known international companies, suffer from non-payment of wages, forced overtime and a labour camp regime. Shanxi is among the poorer provinces in China (18th place in terms of per capita GDP), but Guangdong, the scene of this weekend’s brutal strikebreaking attack and murder, is China’s richest province. This dispels any idea that such abuses are peculiar to the country’s ’dark interior’.
The boss of the Fuyuan Energy Company which hired the thugs, Miao Shouliang, is one of China’s richest men (the 48th richest according to the Hurun Report listings). His personal wealth was reported at 470 million US dollars last year. Miao symbolises the greed and cruelty of China’s capitalist class. His company has delayed paying salaries totalling more than 5 million yuan (US$657,000) to the Dongyuan migrant workers. Yet this sum represents just 0.1 percent of Miao’s massive pile of cash.
In an interview with the Chongqing Morning Post, Miao Shouliang denied delaying the payment of money to the contractor but refused to comment on the attack.
On Friday 29 June, the same day the strike in Dongyuan County started, China’s legislature passed a new labour ”reform”. Spokesmen for the Chinese regime claim this law, which has been under discussion for two years and has been softened following objections from foreign corporations, will give workers a fairer deal. The timing of the law (it does not take effect until January 2008) is clearly aimed to take some heat off the government from the Shanxi slave scandal. Yet as the vicious attack on the Dongyuan County strikers shows, laws alone cannot stamp out the rampant abuses suffered by all workers in China, migrants and non-migrants alike. Like all strikes, this strike is ’illegal’. One more worker has paid the ultimate price for the complete lack of independent workers’ organisations and democratic rights in China. Only the creation of mass, democratic, fighting trade unions can begin to turn the tables on slave labour, corruption and anti-working class policies.
chinaworker.info/en/content/news/226/
Mon, 2 Jul 2007.
Eleven workers injured, one killed, as company thugs attack 300 strikers
chinaworker.info
Hundreds of hired thugs led by a company security guard mounted a vicious attack on 300 migrant workers out on strike since Friday. The men, employed to construct a hydropower station on the Dongjiang River at Dongyuan County, near the city of Heyuan in Guangdong province, have not been paid for five months.
Lei Mingzhong, a building worker from Kaixian County in Chongqing Municipality was beaten to death according to the Chongqing Morning Post. Two of his workmates were forced to jump from a high wall into the river to escape their attackers. The thugs even threw rocks into the river as they tried to swim to safety, the newspaper said.
”The first batch of about 50 gangsters came with spades in their hands, and the second batch had axes, steel pipes and sabres, and there were more behind them,” the Chongqing Morning Post quoted Liu Gangqing, one of the migrant workers, as saying.
”They didn't stop lashing out at us even when the police arrived,” another worker, Li Chuanbing, said.
200m migrant workers
The construction workers, all migrants from Chongqing Municipality, were employed by the Shenzhen Qiutian Construction Co, which was under contract to another company, Fuyuan Energy, to build the plant. A spokesman for Shenzhen Qiutian Construction Co, Liu Zhongcheng, confirmed the incident, saying the attack on the strikers continued after police arrived on the scene. This strongly suggests local government colluded with the owners of the site, Fuyuan Energy, to break the strike. Several newspaper reports gave similar accounts.
A local government spokesman denied there had been a mass assault, or any outside involvement, saying it was ”a violent conflict” involving migrant workers and other company staff. This ’official’ version is challenged by most reports in Chinese media, which confirm that Fuyuan hired hundreds of thugs to force the strikers back to work.
Likewise, a spokesman for the Public Security Bureau told Associated Press that police ”know nothing of the case”, but the Guangzhou Daily reported four suspects had been arrested by local police.
The attack highlights the systemic abuse, discrimination and often violence faced by China’s 200 million migrant workers, who have left impoverished rural areas in search of work. Due to the household registration system (hukuo), which operates in a way similar to South Africa’s racist pass laws in the apartheid era, China’s rural majority are permanently excluded from urban residence and the legal protection that accompanies it. Less than a fifth of migrants in full-time employment have a written contract. They are not entitled to medical, education, retirement or other forms of social insurance.
Land of slaves and millionaires
The slavery scandal in Shanxi province showed how migrants can fall prey to unspeakable forms of exploitation in today’s China. But this scandal – involving organised human trafficking and slave trading – was just the tip of the iceberg. Millions of migrants working in manufacturing and construction, including those working for well-known international companies, suffer from non-payment of wages, forced overtime and a labour camp regime. Shanxi is among the poorer provinces in China (18th place in terms of per capita GDP), but Guangdong, the scene of this weekend’s brutal strikebreaking attack and murder, is China’s richest province. This dispels any idea that such abuses are peculiar to the country’s ’dark interior’.
The boss of the Fuyuan Energy Company which hired the thugs, Miao Shouliang, is one of China’s richest men (the 48th richest according to the Hurun Report listings). His personal wealth was reported at 470 million US dollars last year. Miao symbolises the greed and cruelty of China’s capitalist class. His company has delayed paying salaries totalling more than 5 million yuan (US$657,000) to the Dongyuan migrant workers. Yet this sum represents just 0.1 percent of Miao’s massive pile of cash.
In an interview with the Chongqing Morning Post, Miao Shouliang denied delaying the payment of money to the contractor but refused to comment on the attack.
On Friday 29 June, the same day the strike in Dongyuan County started, China’s legislature passed a new labour ”reform”. Spokesmen for the Chinese regime claim this law, which has been under discussion for two years and has been softened following objections from foreign corporations, will give workers a fairer deal. The timing of the law (it does not take effect until January 2008) is clearly aimed to take some heat off the government from the Shanxi slave scandal. Yet as the vicious attack on the Dongyuan County strikers shows, laws alone cannot stamp out the rampant abuses suffered by all workers in China, migrants and non-migrants alike. Like all strikes, this strike is ’illegal’. One more worker has paid the ultimate price for the complete lack of independent workers’ organisations and democratic rights in China. Only the creation of mass, democratic, fighting trade unions can begin to turn the tables on slave labour, corruption and anti-working class policies.
chinaworker.info/en/content/news/226/