DONGGUAN, China — Liu Pan, a 17-year-old factory worker, was crushed to death last April when the machine he was operating malfunctioned. Somehow Mr. Liu became stuck in the machine, his sister Liu Yan recalled during a tearful interview in a village near the factory. “When we got his body, his whole head was crushed,” Ms. Liu said. “We couldn’t even see his eyes.”
Investigating the accident, inspectors found a series of labor and safety violations at the factory, Yiuwah Stationery, which supplies cards, gift boxes and other paper goods to Disney, the British supermarket chain Tesco and other companies.
The investigators also discovered that Mr. Liu was hired illegally, at 15, below the legal age limit here. Disney has called the situation at the factory “unacceptable.”
In a statement issued Wednesday, Disney said it had instructed its vendors and licensees to “cease new orders of any Disney-branded products in the Yiuwah factory” until conditions were improved. A spokesman for Tesco said that company was also working to improve conditions at the factory.
While the accident at the Yiuwah factory was particularly tragic, working conditions elsewhere are worsening. A year and a half after a landmark labor law took effect in China, experts say conditions have actually deteriorated in southern China’s export-oriented factories, which produce many of America’s less expensive retail goods.
With China’s exports reeling and unemployment rising because of the global slowdown, there is growing evidence that factories are ignoring or evading the new law, and that the government is reluctant to enforce it. Government critics say authorities fear that a crackdown on violators could lead to mass layoffs and even social unrest.
“The economic downturn has given regulators the perfect excuse to ignore the law,” says Zhang Zhiru, director of the Shenzhen Chunfeng Labor Dispute Service, a nonprofit group that supports workers. “I don’t see any fundamental change.”
But workers are fighting back. Earlier this month, the government said Chinese courts were trying to cope with a soaring number of labor disputes, apparently from workers emboldened by the promise of the new contract labor law. The number of labor disputes in China doubled to 693,000 in 2008, the first year the law was in effect, and are rising sharply this year, the government says.
The law requires that all employees have a written contract that complies with minimum wage and safety requirements. It also strengthens the monopoly state-run labor union and makes it more difficult for companies to use temporary workers or to dismiss employees.
Western companies that outsource to China say they have stepped up their monitoring of supplier factories to ensure they comply with the law. But they acknowledge that ensuring compliance is challenging in China. A spokesman for the local Dongguan government here said that they were strictly enforcing the new law. But in interviews, some factory owners acknowledged that they were seeking ways to get around it, complaining that the law’s regulations were too costly and cumbersome.
Lawyers say some local governments have issued their own competing rules or interpretations of the law that weaken it, to aid factory owners. “Many local governments want to develop their own versions of the law,” says Liu Cheng, a professor of law at Shanghai Normal University and one of the law’s authors.
China’s huge and complicated labor market has long thrived on cheap labor and lax regulation. In recent years, labor rights advocates say they have seen incremental gains for workers. But they say there are growing signs of labor abuse. They point to a string of recent cases, like one several weeks ago in which police in southern China’s Anhui province said they had freed 30 mentally handicapped workers from what they called “slave conditions” in a brick kiln.
On the same day, police said a fire in the dormitory of an illegal factory in southern Guangdong province killed 13 female workers and seriously injured four others. A few weeks earlier, 7,000 workers went on strike at a factory that supplies some of the world’s biggest technology companies, saying they were being cheated on overtime wages and fed unsanitary food.
Experts say cheating workers on wages, forcing them to log up to 200 hours of overtime a month and denying them health benefits is commonplace in China. Many factories are violating not just the new contract labor law, but also a 1994 law, which covered a broader set of labor and wage practices, they said.
“The employment contract in many factories here is a mere scrap of paper,” says Liu Kaiming, director of the Institute of Contemporary Observation, a labor rights group in Shenzhen. “Here is a common trick: The factory signs contracts with 1,000 workers but actually they’ve hired 2,000. The factory reports to the government saying they have 100 percent of their workers registered.”
Heather White, a consultant who has inspected factories in China for Tommy Hilfiger, Polo Ralph Lauren and other big companies, says many exporters evade the law by subcontracting to so-called shadow factories, which operate under illegal conditions. “The market is penalizing anyone who complies with the law,” she says, meaning their products are more expensive. “And so many companies are subcontracting” to shadow factories.
Labor rights groups that specialize in sneaking into Chinese factories and documenting their flaws say exporters’ multinational clients are also responsible for their suppliers’ practices. “They are blatantly violating the labor law,” says Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee, based in Pittsburgh, which last February issued a scathing report on a factory making keyboards for big tech companies. “They’re forcing people to work 12-hour shifts. Their overtime far exceeds the legal limit.”
But factory owners say that labor law enforcement has been weak and selective for years, and changing the rules now could lead to chaos, drive up prices and force many factories out of business. “The government hasn’t given us time to adjust,” says Huang Zhenyuan, vice president of the Taiwan Merchant Association of Dongguan, which represents thousands of factories. “When we came to China there was no legal environment. Now all has changed; it’s too sudden.”
Because of the downturn, 20 million migrant workers have already lost their jobs, Beijing says. The government recently put rules in place restricting factories from making large-scale layoffs without giving the government notice. But on an individual level, the struggle between having a job and economic security, and safety and personal dignity can be wrenching.
Liu Pan, the worker crushed to death, was hired shortly after he had turned 15. He operated a giant machine that turned out boxes in a plant that Disney concedes had recently passed third-party audits. His salary was about $175 a month. Workers found his mutilated body stuck in the machine on the afternoon of April 5.
Michael Li, a senior manager at Yiuwah, says the accident was not a reflection of labor conditions at the factory. He also said a Chinese government official helped manage the factory.
But China Labor Watch, a nonprofit group based in New York, says it investigated conditions at the factory shortly after the death and found widespread violations of the labor law, including the hiring of children as young as 13, forced overtime and the failure of many workers to sign labor contacts.
In a statement, Disney said only about 5 to 15 percent of the goods produced at Yiuwah were made for Disney and that Yiuwah had committed to correcting problems there. “However, if improvement within acceptable and agreed upon time frames is not achieved,” Disney said it would stop doing business with the factory.
Yiuwah offered $22,000 to compensate for Mr. Liu’s death, his family said. Liu Hong, Mr. Liu’s father, does not even know how to begin to measure such compensation. “I’m falling apart,” he said as his wife tried to calm him. “We are in the lowest class. So I still don’t know if it’s the highest compensation. I still wonder, because a life, a young life, is only worth $22,000?” He added, “He was my only son, and he’s the only grandson to my father.”
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/business/global/23labor.html?pagewanted=1&ref=world)
Jun 23, 2009
Despite Law, Job Conditions Worsen in China
May 7, 2009
Somaly Mam by Angelina Jolie
Somaly Mam survived the notorious Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and decided to stand up and deal with problems left behind by the genocide. She wrote books, set up Somaly Mam foundation, and started a non-profit organization called AFESIP to work with local authority to raid brothels and reintegrate the trafficked women into society. Looking into her life, we can see how Cambodians fight for their justice and their right to live freely and happily. To read more, here are the links to Somaly Mam Foundation and Wiki's introduction of Ms. Mam.
Also worth mentioning is that Angelina Jolie discussed about Somaly Mam's story in her column in Time magazine. Read the article here.
Apr 22, 2009
Words for the Earth Day
"We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road - the one "less traveled by" - offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of our earth.
The choice, after all, is ours to make."
- By Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)
Apr 20, 2009
四川之體驗
今天在 HIF 的 workshop 聽了某講者有關他義工經驗的分享，除了那踏單車到西藏為無國畀醫生籌款的創舉外，也為他在四川某村的地震重建工作而嘖嘖稱奇。
數天前筆者才從四川回來，此 "復活團" 是一個名為 "災後心理輔導協會" 的香港 NGO舉辦的，主要目的是到當地作探訪。五天的行程中，本來是要做點 "心理輔導" 的工作，縱使不是專業的，也正是此團的賣點。可是遇到的問題還真不少，為大家留下難忘的回憶，包括預早三小時在上水集合，也竟然趕不上深圳的飛機!!! 第一次趕不上飛機，於是換來第一次坐頭等 ...
第二天一大早出發往映秀鎮，原來一小時左右的車程，竟足足塞了五小時的車才到達!!! 這一種堵車，是久得要熄掉引擎，然後整條車隊的人都走到路上去抖氣。至於為何會出現這樣的堵車 (上一次的 "新春團" 並沒有出現的) ，大概是因為 512 一週年將至，各單位的各大小工程都在趕工，務求在一週年時有一番新面貌去面對世界各地的報導。映秀的房子都是一排排整齊的板房，居民沒有工作，於是有不少 "自救飯店" 之類的住宿或食店的出現，以賺取一點的收入。
數天前筆者才從四川回來，此 "復活團" 是一個名為 "災後心理輔導協會" 的香港 NGO舉辦的，主要目的是到當地作探訪。五天的行程中，本來是要做點 "心理輔導" 的工作，縱使不是專業的，也正是此團的賣點。可是遇到的問題還真不少，為大家留下難忘的回憶，包括預早三小時在上水集合，也竟然趕不上深圳的飛機!!! 第一次趕不上飛機，於是換來第一次坐頭等 ...
第二天一大早出發往映秀鎮，原來一小時左右的車程，竟足足塞了五小時的車才到達!!! 這一種堵車，是久得要熄掉引擎，然後整條車隊的人都走到路上去抖氣。至於為何會出現這樣的堵車 (上一次的 "新春團" 並沒有出現的) ，大概是因為 512 一週年將至，各單位的各大小工程都在趕工，務求在一週年時有一番新面貌去面對世界各地的報導。映秀的房子都是一排排整齊的板房，居民沒有工作，於是有不少 "自救飯店" 之類的住宿或食店的出現，以賺取一點的收入。
第三天往向峨出發，遠遠見識了那些充滿歐陸風格的小房子 (竟與今天 ppt 看到的重建房子差不多!!)，令重建看來是一片好景象，可是 tim 告訴我們，這些都是溫總來視察時趕建的，有些根本還沒有建好，只有一副空殼；有些即使建好了，當地居民仍不願意搬進去，除了是水電費用等問題外，他們很多仍對爬樓梯有恐懼.... 戲肉是遭到當地公安阻止入村作探訪，tim 與他們作馬拉松式交涉，我們唯有寄望第一批成功進村的可多作探訪，於是一直拖下去 ...
後來聽成功入了村的團友說當地的情況，探訪的家庭甚至願意帶我們的團友到家中不幸遇難的死者墓前拜祭，可是由於當地公安的阻攔，在往墓地途中亦要折返。筆者雖然沒有機會入村，聽團友分享時無不感到萬分惋惜無奈，因為我們都相信這是死者家屬釋放情緒的好方法，因為從某些團友以往的探訪經驗得知，有的死者家屬根本面對不了親人遇難的事實，於是就不敢獨自去墓地拜祭，我們都希望可以陪有需要的他們一起走這一小段路...
第四天到了金花小學，跟那裡的老師上了一課 NLP 課程....然後到金花鎮，也同樣遭到公安阻撓，可是當我們拿著之前作探訪時拍下的照片，村民圍攏過來認出照片中村民時，公安態度竟又一百八十度轉變了，最後大家一同鼓掌，浩浩蕩蕩地進村，場面可算感人。雖然每組幾乎都有公安跟著，可是有時他們又幫我們做翻譯，可見在大陸做事，其實還是離不開人情兩字。金花鎮情況比映秀要差，村民住的地方就在沙塵滾滾的路邊，房子是用帆布和木材搭建，雖然居民說沒有漏水，可是看著這樣的居住環境，而他們卻好像已經習慣了，完全沒有投訴，反而有點難過。後來聽 我們的 leader 阿Tim 說，當地居民說房子不會漏水，其實是因為他們不久就要再建過另一個"家" (與其說房子，還不如說 shelter)，所以每次去這地方也會有不同面貌，那根本就不是一個長期的居所。
第五天到了遵道學校，一所花了 so-called 二千萬建成防震達十級的學校。那些連香港也沒見過的高科技螢幕白板、閉路電視，還有那防震技術的展示館，又是一片好景象。可是跟其他學校，例如是昨天才到過的金花小學那些只是用板房建成的課室實在有太大對比了。我們在這裡除了參觀之外，也看著同是香港來的兩名大學生替全校學生拍攝 "感恩的心" 這歌的 mv 並帶回香港讓更多人知道這歌及關注這裡的情況。
可是當聽到現職校長的團友分享時提到這十級防震的遵道學校，她卻看到了希望。因為學生非常自律 (拍完片後很快回課室，連上廁所也很有秩序及迅速)，願意對外接觸 (看到香港來的我們也不怕陌生)，懂得回應 (跟她之前到訪過其他大陸學校相比，那些學生不敢回答她的問題)，校長開明的作風 (合照時有些學生擠過來，校長也沒有嚴厲叫他們走開，當然還少不了讓全校學生跟我們拍片，擾攘了半個上午) ...
當初只著眼這所學校建造費太貴，如果可以攤分來多建幾所學校更實際。才發覺自己看事物太片面了， 一間學校最重要的並不是硬件，而是學生及教職員本身的素質。其實遵道學校的學生很多也是很貧困的，給他們一個較好的校園沒甚麼不好，如果不是這些 "門面功夫"，他們就沒有這額外的大禮；再者如果這二千萬不用來建這學校，真的會有更好的用途嗎?
還記得海星的故事，幫得一個就一個，這些孩子已經得到他們應得的，我們應該為這而感欣慰，而餘下需要幫助的就讓大家一起努力吧!
整個行程最感動的是聽著當地孩子唱 "感恩的心"，歌詞和動作都很有意思，回來後這首歌也不斷在腦海中播著。
一年了，他們大都不希望再被看成是"災民"，life goes on.
後來聽成功入了村的團友說當地的情況，探訪的家庭甚至願意帶我們的團友到家中不幸遇難的死者墓前拜祭，可是由於當地公安的阻攔，在往墓地途中亦要折返。筆者雖然沒有機會入村，聽團友分享時無不感到萬分惋惜無奈，因為我們都相信這是死者家屬釋放情緒的好方法，因為從某些團友以往的探訪經驗得知，有的死者家屬根本面對不了親人遇難的事實，於是就不敢獨自去墓地拜祭，我們都希望可以陪有需要的他們一起走這一小段路...
第四天到了金花小學，跟那裡的老師上了一課 NLP 課程....然後到金花鎮，也同樣遭到公安阻撓，可是當我們拿著之前作探訪時拍下的照片，村民圍攏過來認出照片中村民時，公安態度竟又一百八十度轉變了，最後大家一同鼓掌，浩浩蕩蕩地進村，場面可算感人。雖然每組幾乎都有公安跟著，可是有時他們又幫我們做翻譯，可見在大陸做事，其實還是離不開人情兩字。金花鎮情況比映秀要差，村民住的地方就在沙塵滾滾的路邊，房子是用帆布和木材搭建，雖然居民說沒有漏水，可是看著這樣的居住環境，而他們卻好像已經習慣了，完全沒有投訴，反而有點難過。後來聽 我們的 leader 阿Tim 說，當地居民說房子不會漏水，其實是因為他們不久就要再建過另一個"家" (與其說房子，還不如說 shelter)，所以每次去這地方也會有不同面貌，那根本就不是一個長期的居所。
第五天到了遵道學校，一所花了 so-called 二千萬建成防震達十級的學校。那些連香港也沒見過的高科技螢幕白板、閉路電視，還有那防震技術的展示館，又是一片好景象。可是跟其他學校，例如是昨天才到過的金花小學那些只是用板房建成的課室實在有太大對比了。我們在這裡除了參觀之外，也看著同是香港來的兩名大學生替全校學生拍攝 "感恩的心" 這歌的 mv 並帶回香港讓更多人知道這歌及關注這裡的情況。
可是當聽到現職校長的團友分享時提到這十級防震的遵道學校，她卻看到了希望。因為學生非常自律 (拍完片後很快回課室，連上廁所也很有秩序及迅速)，願意對外接觸 (看到香港來的我們也不怕陌生)，懂得回應 (跟她之前到訪過其他大陸學校相比，那些學生不敢回答她的問題)，校長開明的作風 (合照時有些學生擠過來，校長也沒有嚴厲叫他們走開，當然還少不了讓全校學生跟我們拍片，擾攘了半個上午) ...
當初只著眼這所學校建造費太貴，如果可以攤分來多建幾所學校更實際。才發覺自己看事物太片面了， 一間學校最重要的並不是硬件，而是學生及教職員本身的素質。其實遵道學校的學生很多也是很貧困的，給他們一個較好的校園沒甚麼不好，如果不是這些 "門面功夫"，他們就沒有這額外的大禮；再者如果這二千萬不用來建這學校，真的會有更好的用途嗎?
還記得海星的故事，幫得一個就一個，這些孩子已經得到他們應得的，我們應該為這而感欣慰，而餘下需要幫助的就讓大家一起努力吧!
整個行程最感動的是聽著當地孩子唱 "感恩的心"，歌詞和動作都很有意思，回來後這首歌也不斷在腦海中播著。
一年了，他們大都不希望再被看成是"災民"，life goes on.
Mar 31, 2009
African Bloggers Conference This August
What impacts can blogs make on a society? Can bloggers improve social development in places like Africa? Here is a chance to find out: the African Bloggers Conference will take place in Nairobi this August. And they are looking for donors.
(Source from Private Sector Development Blog under IFC)
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