[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E168-E169]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

REMEMBER CHINA'S WORKING CLASS

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HON. JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY

of illinois

in the house of representatives

Wednesday, February 13, 2002

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, President Bush will be traveling to the
People's Republic of China on Saturday, February 16, 2002 to meet with
the leaders of that country. He will be discussing issues ranging from
the war on terrorism to improving trade relations between our two
nations.
I view this trip as an important and positive part of the ongoing
U.S.-China dialogue. However, I believe it is imperative that we do not
ignore the suffering of the working class in China. I recently read an
article in the Washington Post about the Shuangfeng Textile Factory
located in Dafeng, China. According to the Washington Post, corruption
has engulfed the firm, leaving thousands of workers with little pay and
little hope. Top executives of the firm have forced workers to buy over
priced company stock and to accept pay cuts of up to 50%, which amounts
to $25 to $40 a month. Reportedly, resistance to those demands has
resulted in some employees losing their jobs.
The workers attempted to acquire the attention of local and federal
officials by signing petitions and staging strikes. They sat in the
factory for days and nights, not even returning home to see their loved
ones. During those nights, police stormed into the factory and used
force to drag them outside. The police also made dozens of arrests to
try and put an end to the employee uprising. In spite of all this, the
government apparently took no action to investigate the case.
Eventually, the workers were defeated and had to accept the terms of
management and return to their jobs with broken spirits. I hope all of
my colleagues take the time to read the portion of the Washington Post
article that I have submitted for the Record.

[[Page E169]]

Instances, such as the one at the Shuangfeng Textile Factory, are
cause for great concern. People in China are crying out for justice and
they must not be ignored. I urge President Bush to raise this issue
with the leadership of China and work with them to help improve the
situation. More over, the President should press China to improve its
labor, environment, and human rights record in general. It is important
for us to take advantage of our dialogue with China to help put an end
to the suffering of so many people.

[From the Washington Post, Jan. 21, 2002]

``High Tide'' of Labor Unrest in China

Striking Workers Risk Arrest to Protest Pay Cuts, Corruption

(By Philip P. Pan)

Dafeng, China.--On the fourth night of the strike,
management cut off the heat. The 2,000 workers occupying the
Shuangfeng Textile Factory responded by huddling together and
wrapping themselves in thick blankets and surplus military
coats. Even as the temperature neared freezing, they refused
to leave.
Not long ago, banners on the factory walls reminded workers
they were ``masters'' of the Communist state. Now, the same
workers were camped on a cold floor between rows of rusty
spinning machines, nursing their grievances over boiled water
and biscuits.
Mostly middle-aged women, they spoke quietly of pay cuts
and worthless stock shares, of corrupt officials and missing
pension funds, of being cheated in China's rough-and-tumble
transition from socialism to capitalism.
They spoke, too, of the risks they were taking by fighting
back.
Three times, police had tried to expel them from the
factory, dragging women out by the hair, jabbing others with
electric batons. Three times, the workers had managed to hold
on. Now, there were rumors a military police unit had been
summoned to this small city 150 miles north of Shanghai.
``We know this is dangerous,'' said one young woman sitting
in a corner of the vast factory floor near large spools of
white cotton yarn. ``But it's too late to be scared now.''
Then, glancing out a window, she added nervously: ``The
police should be here soon.''
The battle in Dafeng, which began Dec. 16 and ended less
than two weeks later in defeat for the workers, is part of a
larger story playing out across China's fast-changing
industrial landscape. Two decades after the ruling Communist
Party adopted capitalist economic reforms while continuing to
restrict political freedom, growing numbers of Chinese
workers are risking arrest to stage strikes, sit-downs and
other demonstrations.
In many ways, these protests are acts of desperation by
people struggling to survive without the help of effective
labor unions, courts or other institutions that provide
checks and balances in a market economy.
As thousands of state factories are closed or sold, workers
who once were promised lifetime job security and benefits now
face mass layoffs and, sometimes, the loss of their savings
to corrupt managers. Their willingness to fight back presents
a thorny political problem for a party that has always staked
its legitimacy on providing a better life for the working
class.
It is difficult to estimate how often these protests occur,
in part because local officials often try to conceal them
from their superiors.
But one recent government report acknowledges the country
is in the midst of a ``high tide'' of labor unrest, with the
number of workers participating in strikes more than doubling
in the first half of the 1990s alone. Another report in an
internal party publication said there were 30,000 protests of
significant size in 2000, or more than 80 incidents per day.
The authorities often respond to these protests by trying
to appease the workers; at other times they react with force,
sending in police and jailing the most outspoken
demonstrators.
``We have no idea what's going to happen next,'' the young
woman in the factory here said that night as the strike wore
on. Like many interviewed for this report, she asked not to
be identified out of fear she would be arrested. ``The
government doesn't want to back down, and neither do we.''

A Secret Bankruptcy

The Shuangfeng Textile Factory lies on the outskirts of
Dafeng, a quick drive from the city's glittering downtown
into a dreary neighborhood of run-down buildings and dirt
alleyways. Off the main roadway, past a row of ramshackle
shops, a large crowd of workers gathers in front of the
factory's creaky metal gate.
There is no picket line, just a group of men and women in
heavy coats milling about restlessly in the middle of the
road, stamping their feet to keep warm under a pale yellow
street lamp. Their faces are lined from years of squinting
while operating spinning machines and, more recently, from
lack of sleep. Some of the workers are smoking; others have
been drinking. Every time a car drives by, the crowd gets
jittery.
Past the gate is the factory itself, a deteriorating
complex built in 1931, before the Communist revolution. It is
the city's oldest and largest textile mill, one of several in
this cotton-growing region that produces yarn and cloth for
the nation's garment factories.
In the mid-1990s, Beijing began pushing local officials to
either get rid of small, money-losing state firms like the
mill or make them profitable. What followed was a disorderly
process in which the government often sold stock in factories
to the workers, but retained control as the majority
shareholder. China's Communist rulers had not yet embraced
full privatization.
``Some people invested willingly. Others didn't think it
was a good idea. But in the end, we all handed over the
money,'' said one worker in the spinning division. ``If we
didn't give them the money, we would lose our jobs.''
Last November, the company suddenly and secretly filed for
bankruptcy. The factory boss and several other managers
emerged as the firm's new owners. The workers discovered what
had happened only weeks later, when a local newspaper
published a short item about the transaction.
They immediately suspected they had been victim of a ``fake
bankruptcy,'' a common phenomenon in China in which corrupt
managers hide a factory's assets, declare bankruptcy and then
purchase the firm themselves at a reduced price, often with
money they have embezzled.
The man who gained the most in the bankruptcy was Shi
Yongsheng, the mill's manager and now its largest
shareholder, according to workers and local officials. Shi
was appointed to run the mill only three years ago after a
career managing several smaller state factories in Dafeng,
including a tannery and a fur plant.
Residents describe him as a close friend of one of the
city's deputy party secretaries. Workers said he bragged to
other managers about his plan to slash salaries. Shi did not
return telephone calls, and a government spokesman said Shi
was too busy to speak to reporters.
But a company document obtained by workers showed that the
factory owed them $14 million, including $2 million for the
shares they had purchased and $3 million they had paid toward
their pensions. In addition, the document said, the
government had provided the factory with nearly $8 million to
help it cover its debts to workers and provide those laid off
with welfare payments.
A government official in Dafeng confirmed the figures were
accurate. Where all that money went, though, remains a
mystery.
``What happened to our money? How did we go bankrupt?''
asked one longtime employee, who asked that he be identified
only by his surname, Zhang. ``We had a lot of questions. No
one gave us any answers.''

Strike Without Slogans

Instead of an explanation, the workers got a pay cut. On
Dec 13, managers began calling in employees and demanding
they sign new contracts slashing their salaries by half, to
between $25 and $40 a month.
The workers revolted. In a meeting, an employee tore up the
contract in front of her supervisors, workers said. In
another, a worker denounced factory managers, saying,
``Officials live off the labor of the workers!''
With resistance rising, the company tried to make an
example of two outspoken employees in the spinning division,
young mothers named Chen Feng and Liu Landing. On the morning
of Dec. 16, the factory hung a large poster on the front gate
declaring that ``the two comrades have separated from their
posts and from the factory.''
``I had worked in the mill for seven or eight years, and I
have an 11-year-old child to support,'' said Chen, 29, by
telephone several weeks later. ``So, of course, I was
depressed.'' Chen declined to discuss why she was fired, but
she confirmed what happened next: ``The workers went on
strike, and they asked the company to let me go back to
work.''
A strike is a sensitive undertaking in China. The Communist
Party has always portrayed itself as a workers' party, and it
still teaches schoolchildren how Mao Zedong launched his
career by organizing strikes among miners and railway
workers. But the government has also absorbed the lesson of
how strikes helped bring down Communist regimes in Eastern
Europe and the Soviet Union.

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