Interview with Han Dongfang on CLB’s Work and the Current Labour Situation in China

The following is an excerpt of a lengthy interview with Han that appears in the New Left Review, No. 34, July/August 2005. The full interview is available at:  http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR26803.shtml

After you were returned to Hong Kong, did you begin organizational work fairly quickly?

In March 1994 I started the China Labour Bulletin. The aim was to produce a weekly paper that would talk about what was happening in China, describing the lives of workers, and explaining the idea of trade-union organizing to them. The concept was essentially an educational one. Based in Hong Kong, the Bulletin would face two ways, with one edition published in Chinese and another in English. Because of the amount of work involved, especially in the translations, it gradually turned into a monthly. We would send the English version out to trade union organizations abroad, and the Chinese version to factories in the PRC. You can buy a directory of mainland factories, updated annually, in Hong Kong bookstores, which contains around 100,000 addresses. We would send the Bulletin out in an exploratory sort of way, to different plants selected from it. We would address the Bulletin to the trade union office in the factory, though I knew this meant it would often, if not always, end up in the local police station. But I didn't mind that - police officers need educating most. After 1999 or 2000, we stopped printing the Bulletin and switched to a purely online version, an e-newsletter. We find it's more attractive, and reaches more people. There's also the fact that we can put transcripts of conversations with workers from my radio programme straight online and send them out, together with my commentary on the cases in question. You can check it out: www.china-labour.org.hk.

 
What about your radio programme, Labour Express?

I started doing a programme on Radio Free Asia in March 1997, shortly before the handover of Hong Kong by the British to the PRC. They gave me airtime twice a week to comment on Chinese labour matters; but after a few months of this - at the end of 1997 - I told them I couldn't continue to talk about Chinese workers without talking to them. I was losing touch, my ideas were drying up. I suggested I give out a telephone number so that my audience could call toll-free. Sure enough, people began to call in. I would ask those ringing from home to call again from a public phone, and then I would return the call. Those ringing after office hours would leave messages - when we arrived in the mornings we would find the tape full. My writings really benefited as a result of this dialogue with my radio listeners - my articles became much more down-to-earth and concrete. I then realized that all these conversations should really be brought into the open, and decided we should put them on the air, provided the callers agreed. I began to get more and more phone calls, and people were very willing to talk. To begin with we used software to alter callers' voices so they couldn't be recognized, because I didn't want to get them into trouble. But they increasingly said, 'No, I don't want my voice changed! I want to speak the truth.'

Then we began to cover demonstrations and strikes, not after the fact, but as current news stories. I would produce a report including interviews with workers, government officials, trade unions, management and so on. For example, in 1998 there were a number of disputes over back pay, and the treatment of retired and off-post workers. There were protests in the street, and I would receive a call from a public phone in front of a government building, telling me there were five hundred people there. So I would phone back, and interview people at the other end of the line, asking them about their problems and their lives. It was extraordinary - like having a reporter on the scene, recording the news live. Then I would call local government officials, and ask what they were going to do, and why the situation was getting worse and worse. And I would ask the trade union officials what they were doing for the workers - and they would reply that they were trying to calm them down and send them home, because workers didn't understand the difficulties that management and government faced, and so on.

Were the calls you were getting coming from any regions in particular - for example, were they mainly concentrated along the coast?

No, they came from everywhere - even Tibet and Xinjiang. The distribution of the calls has depended more on the period than on the region, in particular on the timing of the reforms of state enterprises in any given part of the country. Around 1998–99 there were a lot of off-post protests in Heilongjiang, Gansu and Guizhou, for example, and stoppages of trains in the coalmine areas of Sichuan.

Are people able to listen to the programme all over China?

It depends on the area - sometimes the signal is jammed, and people call and complain. They can't believe the Americans, with all their technology, can't get around the jamming, which is done by local radio stations where the army is involved. Basically, they just broadcast alternative programmes over the same frequency, operas and the like.

Has the element of fear diminished since you started this kind of reporting?

Yes, people's fear is disappearing. The reason, in my view, is that anger is growing, and eclipsing fear.

How would you say your ideas have developed as a result of the radio programme and the Bulletin?

I've learnt a great deal. By talking to so many different people I have been forced to become more realistic, and think in increasingly concrete terms about how to resolve problems. It was very difficult in the beginning, but I developed an ability to get a general picture of a factory by talking to different workers, managers and government officials. Then I realized that though I could comment on these things, I could not provide solutions - firstly because I was unable to, and secondly because no one had voted for me. I did not represent anyone.

To start with, when I put together reports on demonstrations and talked to various officials, I would try to force them to respond to my questions, to which they would give stupid answers that highlighted the sickness of the system. I would get quite excited about our success in doing this. But after a while I realized that activity of this kind doesn't actually help resolve any of the problems in the factory. The question of back pay, for example, is dependent on the budget of the enterprise; if the money isn't there, I could be sitting in the official's chair without any better solution myself. I felt then that workers should try to resolve disputes in a peaceful and rational way, by negotiation. If nine months of back pay are owed, and the government can only pay for three, there's no point standing in the street until the full sum is paid; you negotiate and get them to pay three months, say, and the rest in nine months' time. But then I realized that, without a legal basis for the negotiations, there is nothing to hold the government to its promises.

So we developed a form of struggle which involved encouraging workers to file lawsuits. The law is very clear on the government's responsibility to pay workers' salaries; not only is the Ministry of Labour obliged to disburse back pay, it must also pay a fine for letting arrears build up. Since about two and a half years ago, the Bulletin has been actively intervening in such cases. We no longer observe from the sidelines, we explain the legal procedures to workers, and find lawyers willing to take their cases. Two years ago, some ten workers from a huge textile factory in Suizhou, in the province of Hubei, were arrested after a demonstration. We got them a lawyer from Beijing, whereupon the charges were dropped and the authorities sent them directly to a re-education centre without trial. So we went to the local Public Security Bureau with the lawyer, insisting that this was an illegal administrative decision, and they released the workers. It was a very effective intervention. After this, we developed a 'law case intervention programme', which has been very productive so far. More and more lawyers are willing to work with us directly, they don't feel the need to hide themselves at all - they are making money from it, in professional fashion.

So far you've spoken about state enterprises. What about disputes in the private sector?

The private sector can be divided into two parts: domestic and foreign enterprises. It's much easier to deal with foreign firms than with Chinese. Local companies mostly consist of privatized former state-owned enterprises, whose current owners are former managers or officials, cutting local officials in on their profits. So in cases like these, one is still up against local government functionaries, who are very protected. With foreign factories - including those owned by Taiwanese, Hong Kong and Korean investors - the owners of course pay off local officials, but you can push these officials into a corner by pointing to the labour law and telling them they are protecting foreign investors at the expense of Chinese workers. It's much easier to apply pressure by making this kind of argument.

I've also realized it's easier for workers in foreign factories to launch actions. They often come from the countryside, and have never been taken care of by anybody. In former state-owned enterprises, many workers stayed on after privatization, even at dramatically reduced wages. Yet many of them still feel as if the state should somehow take care of them. The belief is residual, but it's enough to stifle their independence - they don't want to burn their bridges by doing anything drastic on their own. Years ago, for example, the government was going to close down a factory. We encouraged the workers to take legal action and organize, but they didn't want to. Many of them were scared, and willing to accept less favourable terms. Most lost everything, and even those who kept their jobs are working in far worse conditions. Now they're eager to fight, but it's too late. The platform for building solidarity has been lost - where you had, say, five thousand workers before, now you have only three hundred. All this makes organizing in former state-owned enterprises a disheartening experience. We believe that workers in foreign factories should be the main target of organizing for the labour movement in China. Once you get these people organized, they will influence the privatized state-owned enterprises.

 
You mentioned back pay. What are the other main issues that arise? Working conditions? Wages? What about unemployment?

Alas, we cannot hope to organize the unemployed. Often workers contact me complaining in advance about an unfair dismissal. I encourage them time and again to file a lawsuit, but they refuse, preferring to petition the authorities - again and again, until they formally lose their job. By that time it is too late, because there is no legal record to show that they did not consent to their dismissal. This sort of thing is especially upsetting, because these people are the poorest of all, those who need help most. Against our will, we are forced to choose particular points of entry, if we hope to build a movement. We don't see China Labour Bulletin as a service centre - though we will of course help with individual cases where we can. We see ourselves as creators of a labour movement, and believe that workers' protection in future depends on whether we can successfully create a strong one. So we have to make painful choices - to drop one case and continue with another, if the second looks as if it could develop into a collective issue, in which workers might select representatives who could eventually develop into trade union leaders. For it is through these legal struggles that they can be encouraged to form a union in their factory. Once there are elected union representatives, we are one step further towards reforming the official trade union, which we do not want to get rid of, since we see it as a useful shell. It has to be changed internally, with increased worker participation. At factory level, once you have members pushing for elections, impeaching irresponsible officials, bringing lawsuits, so many things become possible. We offer legal education to workers, telling them how to organize a union, helping them with election procedure, producing membership cards, keeping contact with people.

At the same time, because we do everything on a solid legal basis, the local Public Security Police can't do much to these workers. We explain to the workers that we are helping them because of their labour disputes, and that we wish to solve them for the good of everyone. So if the police ask them if we have a hidden agenda, there's nothing anyone can say against us. Recently, there was a 49-day strike in a textile factory in Xianyang in Shaanxi. Most of the workers were women. I drafted election procedures for them, highlights of the trade union and labour laws, and offered to find a lawyer for them in Beijing. Then the leaders were arrested. On the one hand, I was reasonably sure they would not be treated like the workers in Liaoyang. On the other hand I thought, my God, I have effectively sent these people to prison. Three months later, they were released. After this, we learnt to stay focused on the most down-to-earth labour disputes and concrete issues. The Xianyang factory was bought by a Hong Kong-listed company, with a state background, called China Resources. They promised the workers nothing would change, and that everyone would get long-term contracts. But as soon as the deal was done, the workers were told that the longest contract available would be for three years, and that everyone was on six months' probation. Extremely skilled workers who had been in the same job for 20 years were now on probation, and receiving only 60 per cent of their previous salary. That's why they began to protest - they locked the factory gates and completely stopped production. Today, they are still working. They have not been laid off.

Just recently I received an email from a primary school teacher employed at a coal mine in Jilin, writing on behalf of thousands of miners. He said he had read one of my articles on the internet, and absolutely agreed about the need to organize the workers, so he had downloaded the article, printed it out and circulated it among the miners. They were very excited about the idea of getting organized legally, but wanted my help because they didn't know the correct procedure. These are the sorts of cases I want to focus on, which need to be dealt with extremely carefully. People in China experienced the Cultural Revolution, June 4th, and then after June 4th came darkness; they are very afraid, but cannot explain why they are afraid. I believe the worst fear is felt when you can't understand it or find a reason for it. Once you know the reason, you can deal with it. By giving legal assistance to the workers, we're making it very clear that there is no reason to be scared, that for everything they are asking for there is hope.

 
Would it be accurate to say that all branches, wherever one looks, of the official trade union are acting on behalf of the management, rather than for the workers?

Yes, this is absolutely true, and it applies everywhere. In most cases, the trade-union functionaries themselves are also part of the management.

Is your strategy to get workers to be sufficiently self-confident to vote these people out of office, and insist on having real representatives?

I used to think that, but I view it as impossible so long as people are afraid. Also, I don't know the technical procedure. Furthermore, even when I've talked to workers about labour law, trade union law and so on, they would still rather concentrate on specific cases than on trade union elections. I have to convince them that a union election is closely connected to their case, to make it more legitimate. But we do believe that if there are more workers in the factory organizing elections, there will be real pressure on this trade union system - if you don't represent these workers, they will kick you out of office. Even the best people in the present machinery, who have genuine sympathy for the fate of their workers, have never been trained to organize anything. They have no idea how to represent the workers. So far as lawsuits go, on the other hand, the most important thing is that they build self-confidence. If you have collective self-confidence, it's fine to make mistakes with procedure, you can correct them, learn and move on. But if you don't have self-confidence, you won't even begin. This is why providing legal guidance and lawyers is so helpful to these workers - they've finally found solid ground to walk on.

The implication of what you're saying is that the workers can have confidence in the courts.

If you have enough workers together, you make it more difficult for the courts to make decisions that go against the country's own laws - which of course they are fully capable of doing.

Are there cases in which workers try to strike for higher wages? This would be a normal thing elsewhere.

It is happening more and more now. There are virtually daily strikes in the Shenzhen area. These are strikes for shorter working hours, higher wages, better working conditions. But this is the nature of the working class - they will wake up by themselves, whether or not the China Labour Bulletin is there. All we can do is to make the journey to collective self-confidence shorter, and one for which workers will pay less of a price, avoiding desperate struggles that they can only lose.

 
Are the people who get in touch with you mostly elderly or younger workers?

A mixture. It depends on where they work. In former state-owned enterprises, it's mostly older people, who are not yet retired - around 40 or 50 years old. They still need their jobs, and now want to fight, but don't know how. At the moment we are focusing on foreign factories, especially in the Shenzhen and Guangdong areas, on cases of work-related disease. In struggles over wages, it can sound like you're asking for more than the basic; but here, where people have contracted diseases because of bad working conditions, you're asking for well below the basic. For this reason, when we hold the local labour bureau to account, we get a lot of sympathy from reporters, lawyers, judges, even government officials responsible for other areas. It's through cases like these that we can explain everything - freedom of association, collective bargaining, labour and trade union law, respect for basic human rights - analysing everything in concrete terms. It's because we go through the legal system that no one can be against these workers. If we can persist, we could make ourselves indestructible.

Your strategy wagers everything on legal actions, of a defensive character, to build collective self-confidence. But don't ordinary people in China, both workers and peasants, employed and unemployed, feel passionately about issues of social justice, just as strongly as about legal justice, if not more so? There is massively growing economic inequality, seizures of peasant land, huge enrichment of corrupt officials, businessmen and yuppies. How can one realistically expect the anger this causes not to lead to popular explosions outside, and against, the highly repressive laws of the land? Would you tell people they must keep quiet and suffer the status quo, when their indignation boils over?

It is correct that ordinary people in China now feel no less strongly about social justice than about legal justice. However, our approach does not mean that our understanding of the one precludes the other. In China's modern history, efforts to solve social problems by social means have occurred again and again, in a cyclical pattern. This is not just something that has happened in the past - it is very much present at the moment. In other words, it does not require anyone to push or to mobilize for it to take place. It happens all the time without special mobilization. The contribution that we can make at the China Labour Bulletin is to offer another line of thinking, that differs from the tradition of uprisings, armed struggles, revolutions.

Our approach is to offer more options to ordinary Chinese people when there is an explosive social problem. Will you put your trust in gathering tens of thousands of people onto the streets, or in seeking legal help from a lawyer? Most Chinese people believe in the former rather than the latter. It's not just part of our modern history. It's very much in the blood of our reality today or even tomorrow. So there is no need for us to work on it. What China has historically lacked is a fair legal system and the rule of law. Efforts to create these have never yet succeeded. This is what we are trying to do - to solve existing social problems through existing legal systems. In a sense, you could call it a cultural project: encouraging people to trust in peaceful negotiations. That kind of confidence is needed for a healthier development of the country in the future. When people speak of 'sustainable development', it must also mean a society where the government is restricted by laws, and cannot abuse its power with impunity. Meanwhile, citizens have to learn the skills to negotiate for their own benefit, as well as to use legal leverage to fight for their civil rights.

These are all means that lie outside the 'old' modern Chinese conception of social revolution. Unfortunately, they have not yet taken root in contemporary China. But we have to try to develop them. To speak pessimistically, this is to work when you know it is almost unworkable. It's to make an effort. To be sure, I will never criticize or try to stop ordinary people in China when they take to the streets to protest against social injustice. I have no objection to mass protests and no obligation to defend the CCP's version of 'social stability'. However, I will not encourage people to take to the streets, either. Whenever there is an opportunity, I try to point out the other options.