2 May 2002

Daqing: Folk Singing Competition Gives Lie to Social Peace

Protests by retrenched Daqing oil workers opposed to the policy of mass redundancy are still continuing. On 26 April, over ten thousand workers assembled in Daqing's Iron Man Square. A retrenched woman worker told CLB that the Daqing Petroleum Administration Bureau (DPAB) had recently begun to send large numbers of company officials into the square to carry out “ideological work” among workers gathered there. At the same time, an increasing number of leaders appeared to have “disappeared” and it is believed that they have been secretly arrested.

On the eve of May Day, the Daqing government held a Folk Singing Competition in Iron Man Square in response to the workers’ protests. Oil workers from the city told CLB that to undiscerning passers-by, the protesting workers looked as if they were part of the competition’s audience.

Shengli Oilfield: Workers and Bosses to Fight it Out in Court

Sixty thousand retired and laid off oil workers and their families from the East China Shengli Oil Field are being forced to survive without pensions or livelihood stipends. Over a year ago, the workers attempted to file a lawsuit against the Shengli Petroleum Administration Board (SPAB) at a local court. The court refused to accept the case.

However, the recent two-month struggle by Daqing's retrenched oil workers have inspired the Shengli workers and their families to send representatives to collectively petition the local court on numerous occasions. Finally the court accepted the case. The SPAB Information and Complaints Office confirmed this information following enquiries from CLB. To date, such legal actions filed by retired or sacked workers against their former employer has been very rare in China.

Lanzhou Chemicals Company: Protesting Workers Win Initial Victory

For two weeks retrenched women workers from the Lanzhou City Chemicals Company, in the north western province of Gansu, have been demonstrating on the streets against a government decree that raised the minimum age for women workers to start drawing pensions from 50 to 55. The demonstrations have included the tactic of blocking up public roads. According to the so-called "New Policy" women workers will not only miss out on five years of pension payments but will also have to pay an extra five years of pension premiums. On 26 April, the workers issued an ultimatum of a two-day deadline for the company to respond to their demands and temporarily called off their demonstrations. Under the pressure from the workers, the Gansu Labour Bureau came to a decision on 27 April, a day before the workers' deadline and temporarily suspend implementation of the new policy that had aroused the women's indignation.

A cadre from the Lanzhou City Chemicals Company told CLB that he could not understand why neither "the workers nor the company had abided by regular channels to solve their dispute. Why did [the workers] have to demonstrate and block up the streets before a solution was put forward?" He also pointed out that although the problem of women workers' pensions appeared to be solved for the time being, there remained deep dissatisfaction over the issue that retrenched workers who had signed redundancy deals were not able to draw unemployment relief.