[Broadcast on 17 October 2005]
More than 200 workers at the Yongxiang Shoe Factory in Baiyun District of Guangzhou City blocked the highway, State Route 106, in front of the factory for about an hour on Saturday, October 15, after discovering that the Taiwan owner of the plant had mysteriously left the area without paying three months' back wages. The workers blocked the highway to bring the matter to the attention of government and get them to help get their pay. I called the Baiyun District government early on October 17 to inquire about the situation.
District Government officer: This is due to the boss holding back paying their wages, that is, he's not giving them their wages. Would you please call the Petition Office about this issue?
Han Dongfang: Does the Petition Office also take care of this kind of thing?
District Government officer: Right! Of course, they do.
Baiyun District Petition Office said that without the permission of the Publicity Department of the Party Committee of the district, they were not allowed to talk to reporters.
Petition Office: Have you contacted our Publicity Department? We can only talk to you about this problem after the Publicity Department have given their permission.
Han: The office that is directly in charge of this gave me your telephone number and said you in the Petition Office know about this situation, right?
Petition Office: We cannot take charge of this. We cannot talk to just anyone in the press about how this is developing. We can't do that!
The Publicity Department of the Baiyun District Party Committee also said that they would have to speak to someone in charge before they could answer any questions.
Publicity Department: It is possible that another department in this district has already handled this matter. The government has many different departments sharing this work. As for me, I personally have no knowledge of this matter. I will have to make a report to the head and get an understanding of this matter before I can answer your questions.
A worker at a South Korean-invested shoe factory said that two days earlier several hundred people had blockaded the road and that anti-riot police had been sent to the scene:
Worker: The factory that you are talking about is just a short distance from our factory. They are on one side of the highway and we are on the other side. Two days ago there were lots of people…three to four hundred people blocking the road. They said that the boss of the factory had run out and hadn't paid anybody. It was like that and the anti-riot squad came out.
Mr Xu, head of the Baiyun District Labour Inspection Team, explained that on the morning of the 15th about 200 workers blockaded the highway. Later the police forcibly cleared the road.
Inspection Team: It happened on the Saturday morning. They blocked all the traffic.
Han: Is that a main highway?
Inspection Team: State Route 106 is certainly a major road, because the entrance to the factory is on State Route 106.
Han: That's to say right at the entrance to the factory.
Inspection Team: Yeah.
Han: How long was it blockaded?
Inspection Team: Probably less than an hour. The exact number of workers in that factory is 294. I think there were about 200 people blocking the road. But it is difficult to say exactly. Some people may not have gone out.
Han: Did the Public Security people come?
Inspection Team: They came out. Usually when the Public Security Bureau comes out it is to advise them against their action, or to forcibly open the road again. If that road is blockaded, that would be a big mess!
A cadre in the Baiyun District Office of the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) said she did not know much about this incident in which workers had blockaded the road. But she said that in an incident that occurred about two weeks ago, several workers from a shoe factory in Zhonglaotan Town were arrested after blockading a road.
ACFTU: Is this another one? I really don't know anything about this. Is this another dispute about wages? I don't know anything about that.
Han: What incident are you talking about?
ACFTU: I'm probably thinking of the earlier incident. On Tuesday, about two weeks ago, just before National Day (Note: October 1). The wages, which had been held back, had been already been paid to them in accordance with the actual remuneration they were entitled to. Those troublemakers who broke the law were arrested and everybody was happy.
Han: Who was arrested?
ACFTU: Those ringleaders who caused all the trouble. They hit the police and damaged one of the police cars.
Han: How many people were arrested in all?
ACFTU: That is a matter for the Public Security Bureau. I don't know anything about that. So there was another labour dispute like that after National Day, where the traffic was blocked?
Han: Yes, just last Saturday!
ACFTU: I don't know anything about that.
A staff member in the Communist Party's political unit in the Jiahe Neighbourhood Administrative Office which is in the same area as the Yongxiang Shoe Factory certified that the Wanggang Village Committee, which had rented the factory to the shoe factory boss, had agreed to handle the money and pay the workers the wages that had been withheld. The committee had started to issue those back wages on the Monday morning, the 17th.
Neighbourhood Office: That Yungxiang Shoe factory, the workers demanded that their wages be paid because the Taiwan boss had absconded. The way they are going to solve this now is to let the Wanggang Economic Cooperative pay out the workers' wages. They have taken out funds this morning and they returned to the factory and paid the wages at the Yungxiang Shoe Factory. They were paid out this morning. I'm not sure whether or not they have all been paid at this time.
Han: So you don't know whether they have all been paid yet?
Neighbourhood Office: Yes.
As regards this illegal practice of withholding workers' wages by foreign investors, Mr Xu, head of the Baiyun District Labour Inspection Team, believes that the key problem is that the existing laws are not being implemented.
Inspection Unit: I am still at their place paying out the wages, in the factory. We started this morning at 10 am. (We are only paying) 80 percent of the total of that which is owed.
Han: In all, how many months' wages were owed?
Inspection Unit: July, August and September
Han: July, August and September, three months in all?
Inspection Unit: Yes. This kind of thing happens and it produces a radical response from the workers. Once the main business figure has run out, the staff are all over the place, carrying on like a chicken with its head cut off, and really out of control! But we have regulations governing the payment of wages in Guangdong province, don't we? Skipping out without paying wages has a very serious impact on society and the heads of these corporations should take responsibility for this. They should be subject to the full penalty that the law demands!
Han: How are you going to put the law into practice?
Inspection Team: That is the big question!