On Tuesday mornings, Xiao Yu steps onto the bus, which takes her to meet her father at the Liaoyang Municipal Detention Centre. The journey takes half an hour. She can only visit her father on Tuesdays and since his trial on 15 January, the Xiao family have been going to this detention centre on this same bus for months. Before this, she and her mother traveled to visit Xiao in detention centres in Tieling, Anshan and Sujiatun - 45 km was the shortest distance they had to travel. Each time, she brings her father some food, or some clothes to make his life a bit better and from time to time she credits a few hundred dollars [RMB] into her father’s prison account.

Since the sentence was announced, Xiao Yu has been worrying about when her father will be sent away - she has no idea how her father will be able to survive the four coming years in jail with his deteriorating health.

On 9 May, at the hearing, holding the bars tightly, his weak and trembling body about to collapse at any moment, Xiao turned to the judge in outrage and shouted out “Shame on you! You never sentence the corrupt people but instead turn the accuser into the defendant!” Having seen this, Xiao Yu cannot picture how he can survive the four years imprisonment. She adds, “He might not be able to survive till the end of the year let alone another four years!”

When she recalls the scene, she cries, “It is really awful! My father used to be a strong man, he always stood upright… and now he is ruined. When he said that to the judge, it was like he was saying it with his last reserve of strength. He tried to cry out against their viciousness… oh my god!” One can still hear the fear in her voice

In a visit to the doctor on 17 April, the doctor diagnosed that one of Xiao Yunliang’s eyes was blind with cataracts and the other one was seriously affected by floaters. Xiao’s wife, Su Anhua was forbidden by the police to talk to the doctor and she blames herself saying, “of course that doctor didn’t want to talk to me, I am just not educated enough.” Self effacing and perhaps uneducated she may be, but who knows how much effort it took for her to get permission to accompany her husband to the hospital?

Su Anhua herself has been ill, but since Xiao’s eye problem, she has been continuously visiting the public security bureau, the detention centre, any and all departments concerned. All she wants is better and urgent medical care for her husband. “You know every time I visit those departments, I have to lay down for at least half a day, I can hardly move afterwards… it is always like this, I feel so fed up and out of spirits and I only feel better the next day.”

After the sentencing, Su Anhua told CLB her belief that the injustice done to her husband will one day be redressed is now the only “reason, which makes life bearable”. “I couldn’t live if I could see nothing but darkness… but I still believe one day it will be bright again…” she sighs.

Su Anhua is only 56 years old but Xiao Yu already describes her as an “old lady”. In the past 12 months, her mother’s hair has turned white and she has lost her comfortable roundness. Even their neighbours have noticed that her mother has been losing weight. Recently Xiao Yu bought her a radio – Su Anhua seems to get some small pleasure from it and her life is not totally dull anymore. She takes the little radio everywhere, “It is amazing! The radio seems to bring her some comfort. We used to think we were the most desperate people but lately, through the radio, we have discovered that we are not in that bad a situation, a lot worse things are happening everyday.” Xiao Yu said.

Another family, that of the workers’ representative Yao Fuxin was also devastated by the hearing on 9 May 2002.

“Oh goodness, it is really bad! If they [the government] really want to punish him, what can we do to fight it? We are simply helpless!” said Guo Xiujing. “If you want to help, then please publicize the case, get the attention of the central government and then they might send somebody to investigate… oh…it is really an injustice… you know they [government officials] want to guard their interests and they would do anything for that…even now they want to mark as us the ‘enemy’ – which is fateful…you can’t really talk reasonably with them” she continues.

Guo Xiujing retired from the Ferro-Alloy Factory in 1996. With 400 Yuan [RMB] pension a month, she and her husband Yao Fuxin, a Steel Rolling Mill worker led a poor but stable life running a small store in the workers’ residential area. She would never have imagined that her family would get involved in this now infamous labour movement, nor indeed that her husband would be charged with “subverting state power”. Not only was Guo Xiujing surprised at the turn of events, but also old neighbours ask themselves “how can Yao be capable or willing to subvert the state? What nonsense!”

Since 1998, Ferro-Alloy workers have been negotiating with the municipal government for the payment of their long term wages arrears, welfare benefits and the declining profits of the factory caused by the corruption of the factory leaders. The workers’ representatives even went three times to complain in Beijing. In November 2001, the factory was forced to go bankrupt and with this terrible disappointment, the workers finally realized that their peaceful attempts to stop the corruption and protect their basic rights and interests was only leading to their own unemployment. After the bankruptcy, there was no possibility of retrieving the huge wage arrears owed to the workers [Xiao Yunliang himself had not been paid for two full years] nor has there been any new employment provided for the thousands of workers. Brought to the brink by poverty and injustice, the workers finally drafted an open letter and began their massive protests. They could not bear to see the corrupt officials getting away with the money they, the workers, had earned through their hard work and they wanted them punished. That was when and how Yao Fuxin was elected as a workers’ representative.

“We don’t mean to be confrontational or difficult towards the municipal or central government, we do understand that it is a tough job to solve the Ferro-Alloy workers’ problems. But initially we workers believed that if we revealed the corrupt officials and made them return the money they embezzled from us and owed to us, then our problems would be solved…. our idea was that simple…but then it got worse and worse and now they [the government] are blaming us for all this.” Guo Xiujing says.

Her sorrow is a far cry from her reaction to the news that one of the factory’s former leaders, Fan Yicheng, the man most believe to be responsible for the bankruptcy was sentenced to 13 years for smuggling and dereliction of duty. Although the charges were nothing compared to the worker’s accusations, on hearing the news Guo Xiujing said, “I believe that evil can never prevail over good and…in the end we will win the battle.”

When Guo learned that Yao had torn up the appeal documents in anger at the injustice of the criminal sentence she too felt the same rage but add that; “we must appeal – even if we lose everything there is no return to where we came from. You know my husband has already suffered so much in the past year and now he faces another seven years of suffering.” His 24 year old daughter, Yao Dan, is also deeply disappointed at the judgment.

Since the arrest of her father, struggling she has started to share the families burden. She visited her father’s lawyer, Mo Shaoping in Beijing several times and each time the police made things difficult for her. In March 2003 she was forced back from Beijing by the police and when she arrived in Liaoyang she was taken by them for eight hours of intensive questioning in an unknown place. Yao Dan says, “I could only afford to buy a hard-seat [third class] ticket to Beijing and after 4 hours in the train, my legs would become badly swollen. Even after so much effort, my papa still has to face that heavy sentence. You know I was so desperate at the hearing, I felt that I was not helping enough.”

Still life goes on and she is pulling herself together, she tries to answer everything with “it is not that bad”. “Well, it is not that bad, at least it is not a life-imprisonment… there is nothing we can do besides being positive” she concludes. When her mother gets fierce or depressed at times, she can only tell her, “there are only two of us at home and I don’t want to see you in this shape… it upsets me so much! I beg you to carry on.”

It is almost as if she had been an innocent youth forced to join in an army campaign unwillingly at the very beginning but now she has become a valiant warrior for her father. “There is a Chinese saying; ‘you are whom you are close to - you become bright if you get near to the colour of red and dull with the colour of black - and I think it is quite true. I understand and accept what my papa has done and now I think and act like him… I am doing what I think should be done.”

*Translated from the Chinese by China Labour Bulletin - >Original article [2]

Taken from CLB Publication The Liaoyang Worker's Struggle:Portrait of a Movement