A leading international labor union has accused China of violating workers' rights in its handling of recent large-scale labor unrest and expressed fears for the safety of labor leaders arrested during protests in the past few weeks.
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Friday March 29, 3:27 PM

Global union accuses China of violating protesting workers' rights

A leading international labor union has accused China of violating workers' rights in its handling of recent large-scale labor unrest and expressed fears for the safety of labor leaders arrested during protests in the past few weeks.

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) said in statement seen here Friday that it in particular feared that workers' representative Yao Fuxin, from northeastern China's Liaoyang city, may have been critically ill or killed in custody.

"The ICFTU believes he has been severely mistreated by public security officials after being detained or that he may actually have been killed while under official custody," said the group, the world's largest umbrella body for national trade union centers.

Yao, a 54-year-old worker, was arrested on March 17 for his role in organizing protests that at their height involved some 20 factories in the city and up to 30,000 workers. Three other workers' leaders were also arrested.

Yao's daughter Yao Dan told AFP Thursday police had informed the family Yao suffered a heart attack and had to be taken to a hospital.

Police said they had sent the hospital 10,000 yuan (1,205 US dollars) for his treatment, but refused to let the family see him, Yao Dan said.
She said her father had never had any heart problems before being detained and she feared he may have been beaten in jail.

The ICFTU said police had told the family Yao was "in a very serious condition at the hospital." The ICFTU said it had verified that Yao Fuxin was in perfect health prior to his detention.

On Friday, 200 to 300 workers from the Liaoyang Ferroalloy Factory -- the main factory involved in the protests -- and relatives of the detained gathered for a second day outside the Liaoyang city government offices to appeal for their release, Yao Dan said.

"Today, our family was mainly asking for a chance to see my father," she said, adding the family has had no additional information about her father.

Police and officials in Liaoyang and Liaoning province, where the city is based, have not responded to repeated requests for comment.
The Liaoyang protests are part of a wave of workers' protests that struck China's rustbelt and other cities earlier this month and are still ongoing. Up to 50,000 disgruntled workers in the northern Chinese city of Daqing have also been demonstrating for the past four weeks.

The Liaoyang and Daqing protests are among the largest labor demonstrations seen in China in recent years.

The ICFTU said it lodged a complaint Wednesday about the Chinese government's repressive measures against protestors in Liaoyang and Daqing with the Committee on Freedom of Association of the International Labour Organization (ILO), based in Geneva.

The detained Liaoyang workers are expected to be formally charged in coming days, the ICFTU said.
Liaoyang's state-controlled television station Thursday announced the detained workers had violated China's laws on demonstrations and that some of them had "colluded with foreign hostile elements," Yao Dan said.

If charged with the latter, they could face severe penalty.

Li Qiang, head of the US-based China Labor Watch, said authorities may have been pointing at his group in the allegations, although the organisation only contacted workers for information about their grievances to help publicize their plight.

"The workers' actions are totally spontaneous. No overseas group told them what to do," Li said.
In its complaint, the ICFTU said it also protested the arrest of a dozen workers at the Guangyuan Textile Factory in Guangyuan city, southwestern Sichuan province, where more than 1,000 workers started a strike on March 13.

Police beat up several strikers at a picket line outside the factory and detained a dozen of them on March 18, ICFTU said. They have since been forced to return to work after being threatened with dismissal.

The protests in Liaoyang were over corruption, non-payment of wages and insufficient severance compensation while the Daqing workers were protesting over an arbitrary increase in the amount laid off workers are required to pay into their retirement pension fund.