(Broadcast on 13 February, 2003)

On February 10, a strike of 400 workers from the Luyuan Timber Company Limited [LTCL] broke out in the Suichang County, Zhejiang Province. The strike was still not settled when China Labour Bulletin broadcast the following interviews on February 13 and an officer from the county’s Complaints Office confirmed the news of the strike over the phone.

Officer from the Complaints Office [Officer]:

They [the workers] came to complain yesterday and our government, our County Magistrate has been meeting them. At around two o’clock, a work group was set up and went to them.

Han Dongfang [Han]:

Oh, which departments joined the work group? Any idea?

Officer:

It is organized by the country magistrate, who has been taking care of the industrial issues in the county.

Han:

Is there any trade union included?

Officer:

Yes, for sure.

Chairman Shi from the Suichang County’s Federation of Trade Unions [FTU] told CLB that all the workers were gathering in front of the factory and nobody could get through and that production and administration of LTCL were paralyzed.

FTU:

It is difficult to contact the factory [the factory officers].

Han:

Why so?

FTU:

No one is inside. The workers basically…blocked the factory entrance and they didn’t allow anyone to get in. The workers forbid anyone getting in, because they are waiting for the people from the County Government, such as accountants and auditors to clarify and solve the problem.

Han:

Is it the reason that my call couldn’t get through earlier today?

FTU:

I guess so. I visited there 2 days ago and there was nobody at the office. The production has been stopped, hasn’t it?

Chairman Shi told CLB that he had visited the workers and asked them to write down their demands and hand them in to FTU, but so far nobody came to him.

FTU:

When they [the workers] started the strike, I told them that they should first figure out the whole picture. [The workers] raised 7 or 8 points but it was simply too messy. I told them to write it [workers’ demands] down, put it in order and send it to me this morning, but so far nothing has been delivered.

Chairman Shi believed that the factory’s trade union would not be too effective in asserting the workers’ rights, for the chairman of the trade union was in fact the vice-director of the factory.

FTU:

The trade union of the factory won’t be too effective [laugh].

Han:

Why not?

FTU:

The chairman of the trade union, you know, is at the same time the vice-director, the head of the company. His sense of democracy…those workers’ representatives and shareholders’ meetings [he organized] seemed to be strange.

A worker back home from the company entrance described the strike to CLB. The factory’s trade union was, instead of asserting the workers’ rights, persuading the workers to drop the strike. However, under the pressure of the strike, the County Government finally agreed to have the involvement from the [relevant] judicial departments into the investigation of LTCL’s financial situation.

Worker:

The work group was originally formed by the County Magistrate, the Women’s Federation, the county’s FTU and Labour Department, etc. In the meeting this morning, we demanded to also have judicial involvement. They [County Government] discussed for a while and added in 4 more units to the work group. They are the Commercial Crime Bureau from the Public Security Bureau, Provincial Discipline Bureau, Commission for Inspecting Discipline and Tax Bureau. We are reporting our director’s offenses to the work group. You know, his private properties might be more than 10 millions [RMB]. He is the director; the supervisor…all in all he is in charge of everything and lots of things he did have contravened the Company Act. The workers have reported to them [the work group] and appointed tomorrow morning at 8.30 for further report.

Han:

What did the first work group, especially the trade union do in the last few days?

Worker:

That trade union was in fact doing nothing.

Han:

Didn’t it speak for the workers?

Worker:

Spoke for us? No way! But it was working on us, asking us not to make troubles.

CLB spoke to another LTCL worker who explained the details of the whole strike over the phone.

Worker:

The factory used to have 3 production lines. Starting from this month [February 2003], the third production line was removed and the machines disassembled, as the board of directors decided. It just so happened that the workers realized the machines were being disassembled and we stopped it. The workers started the strike and forbade the disassembly of the machines; today is the fourth day of the strike. We [workers] also set off to search for some missing machines.

Han:

Did it start on 10th?

Worker:

Yes. On the first day, we surrounded the director and didn’t let him go till he would fix the incident. It’s not to say that we wouldn’t let him go but we needed an answer for the case before we could let him go, but he simply refused to do it. So we kept him as long as he didn’t give us an answer. That night the Public Security Bureau sent about 40 policemen. The County Magistrate and the Assistant Country Magistrate, a new one, promised that they would fix the case the next morning at 8.30. We workers have never been unreasonable, so we let him go. The next day, our dear County Magistrate didn’t keep his word and we, 400 workers were waiting outside the factory like fools. Fine, nobody came! On the third day, we gathered to wait by the factory entrance and we went to the County Committee Office at 10am. We asked the County Magistrate to let us meet Xu Bing [the director], so that we could talk to him. He [County Magistrate] let us wait till afternoon and told us to meet at the Timber Bureau and he would ask Xu Bing to go there.

Han:

And? Any result?

Worker:

No, nothing happened then, so we went back to gather at the factory entrance.

Han:

Has the production been resumed in the factory?

Worker:

No.

Han:

Not at all? Has the whole production been stopped?

Worker:

The factory stopped production and the factory entrance has been blocked, we are on strike.

Han:

How do you block the factory entrance while you are on strike?

Worker:

Well, our factory has got loads of wood.

Han:

So you heaped the wood by the entrance?

Worker:

Indeed.

Han:

To block the entrance?

Worker:

Right and workers guarded the entrance too.

This worker told CLB the workers’ 2 demands. First, the County Government and the company should publicize the financial situation, to explain to the workers why their shares became worthless. Second, the government should assure them the basic living allowance after they lost their jobs. In the meantime, the workers are employing a lawyer to take legal action against the company manager, for taking the workers’ shares for investments arbitrarily.

Worker:

The money we paid for the shares…was for LTCL. We all invested in the LTCL. Later our director built a new construction material factory in Dexing [Transliteration] and transferred all our shares there. They were in LTCL…and now that factory is shut down and he has no more money, he could not pay anymore. The shares of LTCL, our shares are no longer existing and we have no idea how they [the board of directors] transferred them to that goddamn construction material factory. It wasn’t until yesterday that we realized our shares were not in LTCL, but in that [other] company.

Han:

Didn’t you realize the whole situation earlier?

Worker:

No, it was very clever of our director. Whenever a county governmental department wants to regulate our factory, it [the governmental department] is one of the shareholders of LTCL [therefore they would not try to do further investigation as they have already got the shares of the most profitable company].

Han:

[The shares] of the most profitable company?

Worker:

Hmm…so we workers are the one to suffer. All our shares are gone. Now we are asking them to clear up our shares. We didn’t know what had happened, they never asked for our approval, neither notified nor held meeting with us.

Han:

Besides claiming the shares back, what other demands do the workers have?

Worker:

If we go jobless, we won’t have any income, so we ask for the living allowance.

Han:

Didn’t you ask for continuous employment from the factory?

Worker:

No, we don’t want to work there anymore.

Han:

I heard that the workers were raising fund for employing a lawyer, in order to take legal action, right?

Worker:

Ah…yes, but not enough yet. We will probably go to the city to find a lawyer, as we couldn’t employ lawyers from the towns of our district.