November 12, 2002

At a press conference during the recent 16th Party Congress on November 11, All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) Deputy Chairman Zhang Junjiu stated that Liaoyang workers' representative Yao Fuxin "had been detained because he had broken Chinese law by carrying out car-bombings and not because he had organised a workers' campaign."

CLB expresses outrage that no sooner has the ACFTU won a seat on the ILO Governing Body in Geneva as a worker deputy member than it began to unscrupulously slander Chinese workers engaged in peaceful organising to struggle for their legal rights.

Yao Fuxin and three other workers' representatives (Xiao Yunliang, Wang Zhaoming and Pang Qingxiang) from the Liaoyang Ferroalloy Factory have been in detention since March this year. Since then, CLB has conducted numerous interviews with the relatives of the detainees and local workers in Liaoyang. No one has ever mentioned a car-bombing incident. We have also been in regular contact with the Liaoyang government, procuratorate and Public Security Bureau to make inquiries about the reasons for the arrest of the Liaoyang Four. Although all these organisations have been keen to shift responsibility to each other, none have at any point accused the Ferroalloy workers of violent behaviour during their petitioning campaign and no one claimed that Yao Fuxin and other representatives had been "charged with the criminal act of car-bombing". In fact the formal notice of arrest issued by the Liaoyang Procuratorate at the end of March this year stated that they had been arrested on charges of "illegal assembly, marches and protests".

As soon as CLB heard Zhang Junjiu's remarks we again contacted the Liaoyang government General Office, the Liaoyang Federation of Trade Unions (LFTU) as well as Ferroalloy Factory workers and relatives of the detained workers' representatives. An official at the government office confirmed that at no point during the petitioning and protests had the workers engaged in any violent activity. LFTU chairman Su was even more candid and said, "That is sheer rumour. There is no way that Yao Fuxin was involved in such activities." A retired Ferroalloy worker told CLB that workers at the Ferroalloy plant and relatives of the detained representatives had heard ACFTU Deputy Chairman Zhang Junjiu's remarks and were extremely angry. They condemned his slanderous remarks as an attempt to smear the workers' reputation.

Far from the Great Hall of the People in Beijing where Zhang made his remarks, officials of the Liaoyang government are in the frontline of workers' petitions. Local LFTU cadres face the daily embarrassment of being unable to genuinely represent workers and struggle for their legal rights. As such, there is a genuine sympathy in their response to the accusations against Yao Fuxin.

China's Trade Union Law awards the national federation a complete monopoly on organising. In the elections to the ILO Governing Body held in June this year, the ACFTU candidate was elected as a worker deputy member. Yet this same organisation, when faced with Chinese workers - its own members even - struggling to win their legal rights, not only refuses to speak out on their behalf and protect persecuted organisers, but it actually stands further away from workers than the public security authorities, judicial organisations and local governments. It is difficult to imagine an organisation more ruthless in trampling on workers' rights than this "trade union".

We believe that the international workers movement should not ignore this open slander against workers' representatives by a deputy chairman of an organisation just recently elected to the ILO Governing Body. Zhang Junjiu's behaviour is nothing more than that of a "scab". We appeal to trade union organisations in all countries, GUFs and international trade union federations to forward protest letters to ACFTU condemning a "scab" who has persecuted workers' representatives in China.

China Labour Bulletin

November 12, 2002