In this Issue:

1. Editor's Note
2. News Update on Protests in Liaoyang and Guangyuan
- Crackdown on Labour Organizing in Liaoyang and Guangyuan
3. Highlight
- Over 30,000 Liaoyang Workers Demonstrate to Demand Yao's Release
4. Special Appeals
- ICFTU lodges complaint with ILO against China
5. Workers Speak
- Workers' Voices in Sichuan and Liaoyang

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Editor's Note

The month of March began with the annual sessions of the National People's Congress (NPC) (the Chinese parliament) and the National People's Political Consultative Conference (NPPCC). It also began with the mass demonstrations waged by tens of thousands of workers, first in Daqing (http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/4564 [2]) and then in Liaoyang in the impoverished north eastern provinces. While delegates and government leaders talked about the dire straits of retrenched and retired workers and the threat of social instability, several thousand workers in Liaoyang called for government action to deliver provisions for basic subsistence for the retrenched workers and the removal of corrupt and incompetent local government leaders.

Nevertheless, the pledge by the party-state leaders to care for and improve the situation of marginalized workers did not translate into acts of concern and support to the demonstrating workers. On the contrary, police moved in to detain the leaders and organizers. The government crackdown led to the swelling of the demonstration from several thousand to over 30,000 workers in Liaoyang. The mass demonstration was met by a further crackdown.

Over 1,000 workers in a textile plant in Guangyuan city, Sichuan, staged a strike in mid-March to protest against the management failure to pay their pension insurance premium for seven years. Their action was also answered with detentions and arrests by the government.

The government has also enforced a news blackout of the demonstrations within the country.

The only visible acts of support for the organizing actions of the workers in Liaoyang and Guangyuan have come from various international union movements abroad. Most significantly, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) lodged a prompt complaint with the International Labour Organization (ILO) against the arrests of workers' leaders. Such acts of solidarity are badly needed by the workers in China.

This special bulletin brings you the latest news update about the crackdown on the demonstrations. It also includes unique interviews with workers and organizers of the protests at the height of the actions.

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News Update on Protests in Liaoyang and Guangyuan

Crackdown on Labour Organizing in Liaoyang and Guangyuan



http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/1690 [3]

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Highlight

Over 30,000 Liaoyang Workers Demonstrate to Demand Yao's Release

Words of desperation from protesting workers in Liaoyang

"They can’t arrest all the workers. The people who have demonstrated are on the edge of existence with nothing to lose. There’re too many for them to arrest them all. These people haven’t committed crimes. We are simply asking for our wages so we can carry on living – what’s wrong with that? I want to live and eat. I don’t want to eat fancy food; just enough to get by."

"One of us has already been taken away and if others are arrested then who is going stick their necks out and speak up? Especially with this terror going on, we have to rely on the pressure of public opinion at your end. Being just workers, there is no way we can talk to them [the authorities]. The only other way is to lie across the railway tracks. There’s not much else we can do."

http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/1666 [4]

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Special Appeals

ICFTU lodges complaint with ILO against China

The ICFTU filed a complaint with the ILO against the government crackdown on 27 March, 2002. Letters of appeal have also been sent by the ICFTU and various international union bodies to the president, Jiang Zeming, to stop the arrests and victimization.

For details, please visit the updates on the website of the ICFTU/ITS/HKCTU/HKTUC Hong Kong Liaison Office (IHLO) at http://www.ihlo.org/item2/item2.htm [5]

http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/1702 [6]

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Workers Speak

Workers' Voices in Sichuan and Liaoyang

Workers and organizers of the Liaoyang and Guangyang demonstrations talked about why they took to protests and what happened to them afterwards.

Union and other government officials were asked about their course of actions on the spot.

http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/1678 [7]