Joseph Kahn, New York Times
Monday, December 29, 2003
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SHENZHEN, China. The hall was set up with all the trappings of a solemn political ceremony in Communist China, a dais with officials and executives in the seats of honor, ballot collectors and ballot counters, and a big red banner that announced a "democratic union election."
Liao Yuanxin, the local chief of the government's All-China Federation of Trade Unions, listed candidates to represent employees of Neil Pryde, a foreign-run sportswear factory. For union committee member, two workers and two company managers. For vice chairman, the human resources director. For chairman, Huang Hongguang, a top factory boss. Left off the dais, and off the list, was Liu Youlin, a dogged 29-year-old clothing cutter who had campaigned, petitioned and agitated until officials agreed to set up the union. But according to his account and those of other workers present, he made himself heard.
"I object to the factory manager being named head of the union," Liu shouted from the floor, interrupting Liao's address. "A boss cannot represent workers."
When the vote proceeded anyway, fellow workers protested by denying the requisite 50 percent majority to all but the two worker candidates, rendering the new union leaderless - and effectively stillborn.
Liu's struggle to unionize workers at Neil Pryde, a leading maker of sailing and windsurfing gear sold globally under its own name and under brands like Quiksilver and Billabong, is emblematic of the battle that workers are waging to earn basic rights in China's fast-growing export industries. China's socialist laws theoretically protect workers even as the country embraces capitalist ways. But the police crush efforts to set up independent unions as threats to the Communist Party. Many workers say the sole legal union, which is government-run, is a charade, a feckless bureaucracy that has only the pretense of representing the proletariat.
"Local authorities sacrifice workers for investors," said Liu, a migrant from rural China who has worked at Neil Pryde for seven years. "They do not respect or enforce the laws."
Liao and other union officials in Bao An, the Shenzhen district where Neil Pryde's factory is situated, declined numerous requests to discuss the issue. Company executives said they planned to establish a union but added that such things move slowly in China. They said that having a factory manager serve as head of the union complied with the law, though workers disputed that. "In China you must take things step by step," said Ringo Li, a senior factory official. "It will not happen overnight, but we are moving in the right direction." Some 20 years after beginning to attract billions of dollars in foreign investment, Shenzhen and the surrounding province of Guangdong have become the world's largest and most dynamic manufacturing center, making everything from shoes to Sony PlayStations.
But the region's success depends on an endless turnover of migrants from the hinterland, who rarely become full local residents and are effectively prohibited from bargaining for a share of the profits.
Although every Chinese and foreign company with more than 100 employees is required by law to open a branch of the national union, company executives acknowledge that they generally ignore that rule. Companies that do set up unions often do so in name only, putting managers in charge and rarely if ever holding meetings that include workers.
Most migrants live behind high factory walls in crowded dormitories. They often work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Local recruitment centers are packed with workers who quit jobs in exhaustion or were fired when an employer had a dip in orders.
Though Guangdong has maintained a double-digit rate of economic growth over the past decade, wages for the migrant workers, adjusted for inflation, have fallen over the same period, according to research by the Institute of Contemporary Observation in Shenzhen. Base pay often falls below legal minimums, and overtime hours often greatly exceed regulated maximums.
Liu's story resembles that of many peasant workers. He dropped out of high school in rural Hubei Province, north of the Yangtze River, and traveled to Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, in the mid-1990's. He needed a job to support his rice-farming family.
Unlike many others, he gained confidence over time, and he began pushing to improve conditions at Neil Pryde, where he became a technical worker and expert cutter on the wet-suit assembly line. Neil Pryde is run by a New Zealander of the same name, a sailing enthusiast whose Hong Kong-based company has made yacht sails and sports gear in China since 1989. The company's two Shenzhen plants employ about 2,000 workers.
Liu and many other workers described the working conditions as comparatively decent. All of them said they had legal contracts, ensuring steady employment during the contract term. The pay generally meets minimum wage.
But workers say some departments operate 100 hours a week with one shift of employees, leading to burnout. Pension benefits and annual bonuses were scaled back recently to cut costs, workers said. Each dorm room houses 10 workers in five bunks, 18 rooms to a floor, 180 workers to a bathroom, leading to long lines - and sometimes to fights - at the end of the evening shift.
Li, the manager assigned to answer questions, said he did not have enough information to respond to specific complaints and added that the company abided by all labor laws and paid wages "above the average in the area."
Liu said his complaints went beyond daily concerns. He asked what the government was doing to defend the interests of its own citizens before those of foreign investors, who to his eye were making big profits off his work.
"I could work at this factory for 20 years and it would be the same," he said. "There's no chance here to rise up and become a manager. I felt like we needed to be treated like a real workers, not like migrants with no rights."
During meal breaks and after 11 p.m., between the end of his nightly overtime and lights out, Liu read. He read local newspapers. He read Marx. He read extensively about Liu Shaoqi, a Chinese labor leader who was Mao's selected successor before being purged in the 1960's. And he began using revolutionary terms like "fan shen," which means to turn the tables against oppressors.
After reading an article in late 2001 about China's revised labor law, requiring foreign companies to set up branches of the national labor union, he walked into the labor union's district office and met Liao. He said he was greeted cordially and handed an armful of legal books, application forms and union promotion materials. Liao assured him, Liu said, that he would negotiate with the company and the union would organize a free election.
Liu started handing out union materials to workers and collected signatures on a formal petition. He adopted an election platform: more hot water, more shower heads, eight workers to a room instead of 10, a karaoke machine.
Months passed with no action toward a union. Liu was treated more and more coolly by Liao's office, and eventually he was told not to call or visit anymore.
Liu appealed to higher authorities in the district and city governments. He enlisted the support of a labor delegate in the Shenzhen branch of the National People's Congress. He wrote lawyerly letters to officials and labor experts that he read about in newspapers.
In September, roughly two years after he raised the issue, the factory posted a notice of a pending union election.
It looked at first like a victory. But when the details emerged, it was clear that union officials and management had skipped the nominating process. When the election was finally held in October, participants had to request time off without pay. Given the preselected slate of candidates and the loss of income, only 109 of the 900 employees at the factory attended. When Liu called out to object to the proceedings he was escorted to a private room and told not to interfere.
Workers said they retaliated the only way they could, by handing in blank ballots or selecting only worker candidates. Huang, though he faced no rival for his post, did not muster a majority.
After a long hiatus, a grim-faced Liao read the results. Huang, sitting next to him on the podium, said nothing and left immediately, workers recalled. Some in the crowd giggled, and many burst into applause. But it was a short-lived celebration.
Two months after the aborted election, the union issue is off the agendas of the factory and the government.
"We defeated their idea of a union," Liu said. "But now we have to begin again."
The New York Times
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