[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
LABOR RIGHTS AND CONDITIONS IN CHINA
=======================================================================
ROUNDTABLE
before the
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 18, 2002
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Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China
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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
Senate House
MAX BAUCUS, Montana, Chairman DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska, Co-
CARL LEVIN, Michigan Chairman
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California JIM LEACH, Iowa
BYRON DORGAN, North Dakota DAVID DREIER, California
EVAN BAYH, Indiana FRANK WOLF, Virginia
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska JOE PITTS, Pennsylvania
BOB SMITH, New Hampshire SANDER LEVIN, Michigan
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
TIM HUTCHINSON, Arkansas NANCY PELOSI, California
JIM DAVIS, Florida
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
PAULA DOBRIANSKY, Department of State
GRANT ALDONAS, Department of Commerce
D. CAMERON FINDLAY, Department of Labor
LORNE CRANER, Department of State
JAMES KELLY, Department of State
Ira Wolf, Staff Director
John Foarde, Deputy Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS
Opening statement of Ira Wolf, Staff Director, Congressional-
Executive Commission on China.................................. 1
Hankin, Mark, Coordinator for Program Development, the American
Center for International Labor Solidarity, AFL-CIO............. 2
Athreya, Bama, Deputy Director, International Labor Rights Fund.. 6
Freeman, Anthony G., Dirctor, Washington Branch Office,
International Labor Organization............................... 11
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements
Hankin, Mark..................................................... 30
Athreya, Bama.................................................... 34
Submissions for the Record
Memorandum of Understanding for Cooperation Between the
International Labour Office and the Ministry of Labour and
Social Security of the People's Republic of China, submitted by
Anthony G. Freeman............................................. 39
Briefing notes prepared by the ILO Washington Branch Office,
submitted by Anthony G. Freeman................................ 47
LABOR RIGHTS AND CONDITIONS IN CHINA
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MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2002
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
The roundtable was convened, pursuant to notice, at 2:30
p.m., in room SD-215, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Mr. Ira
Wolf (staff director of the Commission) presiding.
Also present: Mr. John Foarde, Deputy Staff Director; Ms.
Holly Vineyard, U.S. Department of Commerce; Mr. Melvin Ang,
Office of Senator Feinstein; Mr. Robert Shepard, U.S.
Department of Labor; Ms. Jennifer Goedke, Office of
Congresswoman Kaptur; and Mr. Dave Dettoni, Office of
Congressman Wolf.
OPENING STATEMENT OF IRA WOLF, STAFF DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL-
EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Mr. Wolf. Let us get started. I would like to welcome
everyone to the second staff-led public roundtable of the
Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
These roundtables were created by Senator Baucus and
Congressman Bereuter, our chair and co-chair, in order to delve
into the issues that the Commission is responsible for in
greater depth than in larger hearings. Today, the topic is
labor rights and labor conditions in China.
Next week, in this room, Monday, March 25 at 2:30, we will
hold the third roundtable, which will be on the issue of
religious freedom in China. I just want to note that on April
11, there will be a full Commission hearing chaired by Senator
Baucus and Congressman Bereuter on human rights and legal
reform. You can check our Web site at www.cecc.gov for further
information about hearings and roundtables.
Today, we have three witnesses. First, we have Mark Hankin,
who is program development coordinator for the American Center
for International Labor Solidarity, and who has a long
background in international labor concerns; Bama Athreya, who
is deputy director of the International Labor Rights Fund; and
Tony Freeman, who is director of the Washington office of the
International Labor Organization [ILO].
Originally, we had a fourth witness, Jeff Fiedler, who is
the former president of the Food and Allied Services Trade
Department of the AFL-CIO. But because of a death of a very
close friend and colleague, at the last minute Jeff had to
cancel his appearance today. We hope to have him at another
session to bring his wealth of experience in China labor issues
to the Commission.
The format today will be a 10-minute presentation by each
of the presenters, and then the staff will each engage in 5
minutes of questions, and hopefully some interaction and
discussion. We will continue until we have exhausted ourselves
and exhausted the three of you.
So, Mark, if you do not mind starting. We are going to use
these lights right in front of you, so after 9 minutes you will
see the yellow light, then you will hear the ping at 10. You do
not have to stretch 9 minutes of comments into the 10th minute.
Please, Mark, go ahead.
STATEMENT OF MARK HANKIN, COORDINATOR FOR PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT,
THE AMERICAN CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL LABOR SOLIDARITY, AFL-CIO
Mr. Hankin. Thank you, Ira. I appreciate the opportunity to
present our views on the labor rights situation in China and to
comment on strategies that address labor rights violations
there.
The discussion we are having today is an extremely
important one. It will become more important in the future, not
only to our Nation, but especially developing countries around
the world who compete in the world economy with China now that
China is a member of the World Trade Organization [WTO]. That
is a long and complicated story and deserves a separate session
all by itself.
There is little doubt that China has made amazing economic
progress since 1978 when Deng Xiaoping opened the country to
the outside world, and later initiated the first socialist
market economic reforms.
With all of this good news then, why do many scholars talk
about the possibility of China imploding?
Uniformly, they say that China is a nation where greed and
corruption are endemic and where the rule of law means little
or nothing. They tell us that it is a country where people have
no institutions that represent their interests and which serve
their social welfare needs.
When placed in these situations, people feel powerless.
Suddenly, without warning, they explode. That is what we are
glimpsing in China today.
Many years ago, the first president of the AFL-CIO, George
Meany, uttered a simple truism: ``There is no democracy without
free trade unions and no free trade unions without democracy.''
As the State Department's most recent annual report on
human rights points out, there is neither democracy nor free
trade unions in China. In the place of democratic unions, China
has state-controlled organizations that have a monopoly on
purporting to represent workers.
No one disputes that the Communist Party controls these
unions. The Party dictates their mission, not workers. That is
why the Politburo installed one of their own as the head of the
All China Federation of Trade Unions [ACFTU].
I have referenced the State Department's annual human
rights report because we believe it is generally an accurate
report and a good baseline from which to start a discussion on
labor rights.
Let us be clear. The report is by no means perfect. Part of
the problem with the report, is it reflects a general
misunderstanding of how democratic industrial relations systems
work.
Fundamentally, democracy and democratic industrial
relations are peas in the same pod. One cannot talk about
collective bargaining without free trade unions.
I would urge the staff of this Commission, as it reviews
the human rights report, to keep this in mind and not think
that the thousands of so-called collective agreements that the
Chinese Government now says are in existence are actually
legitimate collective bargaining agreements.
I would also urge the Commission to look at the new trade
union law to see whether it really expands the authority of the
ACFTU to allegedly represent workers' interests in the private
sector.
When you do, you will see it is an instrument that reflects
the government's desire to control workers as much or more than
it does to represent their social welfare interests. In that
revised law, higher-level ACFTU organizations approve
``workplace trade unions.'' These factory-level structures are
also subject to their discipline.
For the record, there is no legal right to strike in China.
The government uses forced labor in prisons. We see a rise in
children working as the country's education system falls apart,
and we know that discrimination against women workers is
increasing, especially in the state enterprise sector.
Let us not forget. Worker leaders have been, and are being,
arrested in China. The International Labor Organization, among
others, has made pleas on their behalf, which are almost always
ignored by the Chinese Government.
A real problem is that outsiders have almost an impossible
time tracking these events, since word of them usually does not
leak out to the outside world.
Any discussion on labor rights and standards in China is
really a discussion of two separate economic sectors: the State
enterprise sector, and for lack of a better term, the non-state
sector.
Discussions of labor relations in the state sector center
on broken promises to workers about the impacts of economic
reform, corrupt managers who steal State assets for personal
profit, and a lack of social safety nets (health, education,
and housing) to replace traditional enterprise benefit
structures that were paid for by the enterprise.
In the State sector, the so-called trade union was and is a
cost of doing business to an enterprise. The trade union's role
is to deliver recreational and some social services to workers.
Workers in the State sector did not expect their union to
be an advocacy organization, and they certainly do not see it
that way now.
The primary role now of the ACFTU in China's rust-belt
cities is to help workers find new jobs. Long lines of workers
seeking day jobs betray the fact that the unions are unable to
fill this function. They do not have the resources, and the
jobs simply do not exist.
The government has also charged the ACFTU with providing
legal services to workers. Few ACFTU unions have taken this
charge seriously. The growing number of street demonstrations
that occur on a daily basis in China testify to this fact.
The non-state sector in China employs workers in joint
enterprises and township enterprises, and solely owned
enterprises. This sector has become the main engine of economic
growth in the country, and the employer of millions of migrant
workers.
With limited resources and no experience, ACFTU branches
have shied away from reaching out to workers in these
enterprises, especially since foreign employers and their local
partners have made it clear they are not wanted.
The employers view these unions as economic rent-seekers
who offer little value. Their workers are already docile. Anita
Chan, a keen observer of Taiwan-and Hong Kong-run and/or-owned
factories, has described these plants as militarized facilities
where there are strict rules and a series of set punishments.
Workers employed in these enterprises have no knowledge of
their rights or the country's labor law. Not surprisingly, they
have no understanding of what a union is.
I will not dwell in detail on the serious labor standards
law violations that exist in these factories. They start with
violations of occupational safety and health codes, include
physical punishment of workers, non-payment of wages, forced
overtime, and forms of bonded labor.
Nor need I tell you that embarrassed United States and
European purchasing companies have been scrambling to find ways
to protect their brand reputations from the charges that they
source from Dickinsonian sweat shops in China.
China's newly revised trade union law has been praised by
some as a step forward because it enhances the ability of the
All China Federation of Trade Unions to enter into private
sector factories.
How far local officials will go to allow ACFTU cadres to
use the provisions of the new law to establish unions in
private sector factories is unknown. Clearly, past practice
indicates that, where local officials have an economic stake in
the enterprise to either through hidden ownership or pay-offs,
the ACFTU will be told to stay away.
While in this testimony I have pointed to the enormous
problems in the labor rights area in China, I have not meant to
imply that we are powerless to assist Chinese worker activists
who are seeking to promote positive change. Indeed, the AFL-CIO
has had a commitment to promote democratic change and labor
rights in China for many years.
Now, let me turn to the opportunities we see for future
work. In late January of this year, the Solidarity Center held
a session with its partners and leading experts on China in
Washington, DC to review strategies on China.
Participants at the meeting recognized that the Chinese
Government has tried to put into place legal systems to ensure
an orderly transition from a state-controlled to a market
economy.
These new legal avenues present important opportunities for
labor rights promotion. Discussions at the meeting pointed to
the need to help educate Chinese workers about their rights
under law.
Participants also agreed that it was vital to test newly
developing spaces in China through these legal mechanisms to
determine if worker rights can be advanced using such issues as
occupational safety and health and gender discrimination as
door-openers.
Meeting participants also acknowledged the continuing need
for research on emerging trends in China related to worker
rights, especially given China's economic reforms and entry
into the WTO.
They also agreed that it was vital to build consensus in
the international trade union community about how to approach
the ACFTU and the Chinese Government concerning labor rights
issues.
In particular, we feel it is essential to support worker
rights advocacy and information dissemination about the labor
rights situation in China. This information can be made more
readily available to workers in the country and to other
interested parties in and outside of China, including foreign
trade unions, in an effort to stimulate creative ways to solve
labor-related disputes.
In that regard, we strongly support the continuation of
Radio Free Asia programming on labor subjects. We also believe
that the use of new Web-based technologies should be expanding
as a means to provide information to workers.
As I indicated earlier, the space that may now be available
in the non-state sector to promote the development of
independent worker organizations should be explored. This can
be done in a variety of ways, including looking at the
possibility of enlisting cooperation of U.S. companies and
other foreign companies.
Also, support should be given to those organizations able
to identify Chinese worker activists in the county, and through
them information on labor rights and strategies to achieve
these rights should be made available to rank-and-file workers.
Efforts should also be supported to build the capacity of
law schools, lawyers, and legal aid workers, to respond to the
growing demand among private sector workers for legal services
dealing with labor and employment law issues.
This effort would also support training legal workers and
would seek to move from individual to collective cases. It
would also involve the establishment of outreach centers that
offer social services, as well as rights information.
In addition, initial discussions must be broadened
concerning labor and employment issues, occupational safety and
health, and gender with key interlocutors in the State sector
in the specific locations where restructuring State enterprises
is occurring.
This would involve bringing United States experts to China.
Pragmatic approaches would stress mechanisms that empower
workers that take advantage of existing legal options.
Finally, there is a dearth of academics studying labor
relations in China and our knowledge of what is going on inside
the ACFTU is extremely limited.
While the ACFTU is not a trade union, there are people in
the ACFTU that want to increase its advocacy role. Other
individuals within the organization understand that a
prosperous and stable China needs to have free trade unions as
an essential actor in solving labor disputes.
Interested observers should reach out and encourage these
individuals without conferring legitimacy on the overall
organization. Academics and academic institutions are best
suited to play this role. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hankin appears in the
appendix.]
Mr. Wolf. Thanks a lot, Mark.
Bama.
STATEMENT OF BAMA ATHREYA, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL LABOR
RIGHTS FUND
Ms. Athreya. Thank you very much. Thanks very much to the
Commission for the opportunity to present this statement today.
In the race to the bottom, China is the bottom. The most
extreme cases of labor rights repression can be found in China,
thanks to the fact that its enormous and desperate population
of unemployed have no choice but to accept starvation wages and
to suffer abuse.
With well over a billion people, of course China has the
world's largest labor force. In addition, despite the GDP
growth rates that appear on paper, there are nowhere near
enough jobs, so most of these billion-plus people are barely
surviving.
In the countryside, where 900 million of these people live,
the land cannot support the growing population.
Even those peasants who had been getting by are now faced
with competition from foreign agricultural markets, a result of
expanded trade ties and China's recent entry into the WTO. That
will put tens of millions more out of work.
These tens of millions will flee to urban areas to seek
work. However, China's cities are also plagued with vast
numbers of unemployed. Again, as a result of free market
pressures, many of China's state-owned enterprises have gone
out of business in recent years, and many more will be forced
to shut their doors over the next few years.
This has already put an estimated 30 million workers--that
is the Chinese Government's estimate, and very conservative--
out of work, and according to a report by a major United States
investment firm, approximately 40 million more will lose their
jobs over the next 5 years. This may ultimately add up to 100
million or more unemployed and their families.
To make matters worse, these millions are unable to
organize and mobilize for government protection or assistance.
China remains a dictatorship, where any attempt to organize
brings imprisonment, and possibly torture or execution.
What does this mean for those workers who are lucky enough
to have jobs? It means they face every type of labor rights
abuse. Child labor? China has it. Last year, an elementary
school in a rural area exploded, killing and injuring several
children.
The Chinese Government tried to cover up this story,
claiming that a disgruntled former employee had planted a bomb
in the school. Soon, however, the international press was able
to reveal the true story. The school was a fireworks factory,
where young children were forced to work under extremely
hazardous conditions.
Worse yet, it was later exposed that this was far from the
only school that was actually a factory staffed by child
laborers. Shrinking resources for China's school districts had
led to a central government directive to the schools throughout
the country to find creative means of raising their own
budgets.
This apparently had led many schools in China's countryside
to set up their own businesses in recent years. Naturally,
those businesses often turn to the most immediately available
source of labor, the children who are not in any case being
educated.
Although, in the wake of the exposes the Chinese Government
did claim it would be putting a stop to this policy, there may
be hundreds, or even thousands, of such factories still hidden
away in China's countryside.
Prison labor? China has it. Indeed. It is China's official
policy to punish prisoners in reform-through-labor programs.
However, the Chinese Government may be turning a pretty profit
on prison labor, which means there is quite an incentive to
keep people in prison.
In 1998, a Chinese dissident who had been exiled to the
United States revealed that, while he was in a China prison
camp, he had been forced to make soccer balls for Adidas
Corporation. Adidas management apparently had no idea that the
factory from which it was sourcing was, in fact, a prison camp.
They claimed that they not only stopped sourcing in this
particular factory, but also instituted more rigorous policies
to monitor all of their factories in China.
Unfortunately, thorough monitoring may be impossible for
most retailers, as many retailers have hundreds, or even
thousands, of supplier factories and only a handful of
monitoring staff.
Equally unfortunate, other multi-national corporations were
apparently not deterred by the Adidas example and continue to
source products from locations which they do not fully know,
and some of which are prison camps.
Just 2 months ago, a Chinese refuge in Australia, for
example, came forward to reveal that she had been forced to
produce toy rabbits for Nestle Corporation in a Chinese prison.
Nestle's defense was ignorance of the conditions of its
supplier. China's lack of transparency provides a very
convenient shelter for labor exploitation.
One could continue for hours to detail the litany of abuses
routinely suffered by Chinese factory workers. For the moment,
I would only like to note that my organization, the
International Labor Rights Fund, has been in dialog with a
number of multinational corporations that are attempting to
monitor their suppliers in China.
The companies themselves admit that the following chronic
problems exist in their factories: Failure to pay minimum wage,
failure to pay proper overtime, excessive hours of overtime,
missing, blocked, or locked fire exits, improper deductions
from wages, and failure to properly document the age of
workers.
I would like to stress here the fact that these are
apparently common problems among that small handful of
companies that are actually trying to do the right thing and
monitor labor standards.
We can only imagine that even worse abuses are suffered in
factories among the vast majority of companies which are not
trying to institute labor codes of conduct.
That there are problems, is indisputable. Therefore, the
two real questions that this Commission now faces are, why
should we care, and what can we do about it?
The short answer to the former question, is the U.S.
Government should care because the U.S. public cares. The
average United States citizen may benefit from labor repression
in China in two ways. First, they benefit as consumers of cheap
products. Second, they benefit as shareholders in companies
that are invested in China.
A number of recent consumer actions and shareholder actions
highlight the reality that the average U.S. citizen is not
merely acting out of pure greed. Consumers do care about the
production conditions connected with the products they buy.
Investors do care about the ethical behavior of the
corporations in which they invest. Both of these groups care
about human rights.
I would like to mention just a few actions targeting major
United States corporations as evidence of why neither United
States companies, nor the United States Government, can afford
to ignore labor rights abuses in China.
A very recent expose of Wal-Mart's factories in China
revealed excessively long working hours, failure to pay a
living wage, and unsafe and unsanitary working conditions. . As
a result of these reports, the Domini 400 Social Index removed
Wal-Mart from its portfolio.
Another case. A Hong Kong-based human rights group
investigated Chinese factories producing for Disney Corporation
and found a similarly long list of labor rights abuses.
To quote from the report, the workers suffered
``excessively long hours of work, poverty wages, unreasonable
fines, workplace hazards, poor food, and dangerously
overcrowded dormitories.''
Now not only have Disney stores been the target of protests
by concerned consumers, but Disney is also facing a shareholder
resolution for its poor labor practices.
Shareholders are also broadly concerned with the actions of
United States companies in supporting the Chinese Government.
In the past several months, for example, AOL Time-Warner has
been the subject of media criticism, and is also facing a
shareholder resolution for its decision to invest in China.
Despite the fact that the company's flagship Time Magazine
has been banned in China, apparently the issue of freedom of
speech is not of concern for AOL Time-Warner.
According to a recent article in the Weekly Standard, ``AOL
is quietly weighing the pros and cons of informing on
dissidents if the Public Security Bureau so requests; the right
decision would clearly speed Chinese approval for AOL to offer
Internet services and perhaps get a foothold in the Chinese
television market.''
There are numerous other examples of company practices in
China that have generated shareholder concern here in the
United States. Time constraints prevent me from describing all
of these in detail, but I do want to call this Commission's
attention to the fact that other U.S. companies in the high-
tech sector, including Sun Microsystems and Cisco Systems are
also facing shareholder actions based on the exposure of those
companies' work to assist the Chinese police to develop
surveillance capacities.
Companies whose very existence can be attributed to an
environment that allows the free flow of ideas vital to
innovation apparently have no difficulty profiting from
suppressing those freedoms elsewhere. Fortunately, although
Chinese workers cannot protest, United States shareholders can.
This is a panel about labor rights, so I do not want to
venture too far into the overall themes of human rights and
corporate responsibility. However, I bring up these latter
cases because I want to stress the importance of ensuring that
U.S. official rhetoric conforms with actual U.S. policy, and
that is something this Commission is empowered to do.
The United States Government has claimed repeatedly in
recent years that, by opening up China to United States
business, we would be opening up China to democratic values as
well.
President Clinton made this point in a number of speeches
related to the promotion of normalized trade relations with
China. Just last year, Secretary of State Colin Powell made a
similar statement on the eve of a visit to China. Powell's
statement claimed that United States businesses were bringing
management and worker relations concepts, including improved
health and safety practices, to China. As the above examples
illustrate, this is a somewhat controversial claim.
There are several things the United States Government might
do to truly promote better respect for labor rights in China.
First of all, the United States Congress should revise the
long-standing idea of a binding set of human rights principles
for United States business in China.
The United States business community claims it is already
promoting better workplace conditions and standards in China.
As I have just noted, many U.S. officials are eager to be able
to echo those claims.
Therefore, there should be no objection on any side to
articulating clearly the labor rights standards which should be
operational among all United States businesses in China, and
United States companies should not have anything to fear from
public scrutiny on these matters.
The idea of a legislative set of principles for United
States business in China is not new. Many of you may be
familiar with the ``Miller Principles,'' first articulated by
Congressman John Miller in 1991, also introduced in the Senate
in the early 1990's by Senator Ted Kennedy.
The Miller principles won both House and Senate
ratification in the early 1990's, although they never passed
both Houses at once. It is time to update and reintroduce those
principles and to ensure that they contain a public review
component similar to those contained in the OPIC legislation.
Also on the subject of the United States Government
rhetoric versus reality, I note that a number of United States
officials publicly claimed that China's entry into the WTO
would inevitably lead to better respect for rule of law in
China. I am going to abbreviate my comments somewhat, since I
see that my time is limited.
But I do want to note that that has not been the case in
other countries. We have not seen that expanded trade ties
necessarily lead to better implementation of labor rights
protections, for example, in Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia,
and the list goes on. Quite the opposite, they seem to have
undermined labor standards.
Therefore, we should not assume that the WTO entry will
automatically lead to better enforcement of Chinese labor
protections. The U.S. Government can be a positive force for
change in this area by advocating proactively for legal reform
rather than simply waiting for the WTO to solve all ills.
The Chinese Government has recently passed a new trade
union act, as my colleague Mark Hankin has mentioned, and a new
occupational safety and health law. The United States
Government should engage relevant Chinese Government officials
to encourage further labor code revisions and that those labor
code revisions be conducted with the input of international
labor experts to ensure that reforms bring China into full
conformity with ILO standards.
The United States Government can also encourage China to
fully implement its commitments to the ILO's Declaration of
Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. While in many
aspects China's labor laws already do conform to ILO standards,
in two important areas, freedom of association and forced
labor, they do not.
Rather than ignoring ILO recommendations, as it has done
for several years, the Chinese Government should be encouraged
to engage in a productive dialog with the ILO on the subject of
legal reforms to bring its laws into full compliance with these
international standards.
If I may be permitted, Ira, I would like to just continue
with a few recommendations. It will take about another minute.
Mr. Wolf. All right.
Ms. Athreya. Thank you.
The United States Government should also independently
support rule of law initiatives in China, not only the new
Trade Union Act, but also China's basic labor code are in need
of clarification in several areas, as, again, my colleague Mark
Hankin has mentioned.
Assisting local labor advocates to bring test cases is one
way in which the United States Government could help bring
about clarification in this area, and also strengthen the
network of lawyers and legal advocates who are capable of
taking on such cases in China.
The United States Government should also advocate on behalf
of those who are imprisoned each year for attempting to
exercise their basic rights. There are a number of cases each
year. Amnesty International has excellent documentation on
these, as does John Kamm's Dui Hua Foundation, of labor leaders
who are jailed for attempting to organize or attempting to
otherwise speak out on the problem of labor rights abuses.
What is important here, is that United States officials not
only bring up on a case-by-case basis the names of those
jailed, but in their dialog with Chinese officials make clear
the basis on which we understand these cases to be violations
of fundamental internationally recognized labor rights, that
these are not criminals, these are individuals who are
attempting to organize rights which are recognized
internationally.
Finally, I would like to note that the 2008 Olympic Games
in Beijing will present another opportunity to influence the
Chinese Government. It should not be a given that, under any
circumstances, the United States will participate in the 2008
Games.
I do want to note that we expect to have to keep an eye on
things as the construction for the facilities of the Olympic
Games continues, and it would be helpful if the U.S. Government
did so as well.
Thank you very much to the Commission for accepting this
statement.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Athreya appears in the
appendix.]
Mr. Wolf. Thanks. Since we are keeping an official record,
your statement will be printed and posted as well. We will put
in whatever written statements you have, and other back-up
documents as well.
Tony Freeman, please. Tony.
STATEMENT OF ANTHONY G. FREEMAN, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON BRANCH
OFFICE, INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION
Mr. Freeman. I want to express my appreciation also to the
Commission for the opportunity to discuss ILO programs in
China. I am not going to talk much about the conditions in
China, but rather what our objectives are in China. Bama
Athreya has already laid out the ILO's mandate. A good part of
what we seek to do is what she has suggested.
I want to start, first, on the standards side because that
is the oldest function of the ILO, standards setting, getting
countries to ratify the standards, and then encouraging
countries to comply with those standards in law and practice.
China has ratified a total of 23 conventions so far, of
which 19 are still in force. Two of them are fundamental human
rights conventions, one on equal pay for equal work, and the
other a minimum age convention. The other ratified conventions
are what we would call technical or social welfare conventions.
Hong Kong and Macao have a greater number of conventions
that the People's Republic of China has accepted. Hong Kong is
bound by 40 conventions, Macao by 30.
I have prepared more detailed background notes, which are
available in the back of the room. I am going to just touch on
highlights here in the 10 minutes that are available to me.
When a country ratifies an ILO convention, it is obliged to
submit periodic reports to the Organization on how its law and
practice meet the terms of the convention. There are various
supervisory bodies in the ILO which regularly review these
ratifications to see whether the commitment is actually being
met.
Since China has not ratified either the core freedom of
association conventions or the core forced labor conventions,
we have other ways of trying to get at that. An important
mechanism is the Committee on Freedom of Association which
receives complaints, whether a country has ratified the
conventions or not. There have been a number of China cases
which I have sought to summarize in the background notes.
Basically, there has been sharp criticism from the
Committee on Freedom of Association for the failure of Chinese
law and practice to meet the requirements of the Freedom of
Association Principles.
The committee has sharply criticized the arrests of workers
who have tried to organize outside the official trade union
movement, which is illegal in China. And there have been
detentions or arrests, under the Education through Labor
system, which the Committee on Freedom of Association finds to
be a form of forced labor and unacceptable.
So, our principal problems, as Bama has laid out already,
in the standards area in China are freedom of association and
forced labor.
Nevertheless, China has accepted--in fact, voted for--and
is bound by the 1998 Declaration of Fundamental Principles and
Rights at Work, which declares it to be an obligation of
membership in the ILO to respect, promote, and realize in good
faith, in accordance with the constitution, the principles that
lie behind the eight conventions that have been identified as
fundamental conventions.
These principles are listed in the Declaration as being
freedom of association and effective recognition of the right
to collective bargaining; elimination of all forms of forced or
compulsory labor; the effective abolition of child labor; and
elimination of discrimination in respect to employment and
occupation.
We have been engaged with China now for about 10 years or
so in promoting increased ratification and application by China
of ILO conventions. There are eight conventions that have been
ratified since the PRC took over the China seat in 1983.
Along with the Declaration principles comes a complicated
set of so-called ``follow-up'' procedures which require new
reporting by member states on all four of the principles that I
have mentioned, whether the countries are able to ratify the
relevant conventions or not.
The countries submit an annual report. It is a self-
assessment, alongside of which however, trade unions and
business organizations may submit their own critiques. That is
to say, such organizations within the country and also
international trade union and business organizations.
So, we are beginning to get a rich amount of information
from and about China and we are also getting increased
ratifications. China has been providing a fairly comprehensive
amount of reporting and there has been a certain amount of
labor law reform as China has proceeded with its notification
of ILO conventions.
A good part of the advice that has been provided by the ILO
over the last 10 years has to do with changing of law, and then
monitoring implementation of those laws.
There has been an ILO technical cooperation program in
China since the early 1980s. There was a pull-back after the
Tiananmen Square events in 1989, but since 1996 there has been
a renewal of assistance.
There were a number of projects between 1996 and 2001 in
the area of urban employment promotion, rural employment
promotion, small enterprise development, and a greater Mekong
multi-country program for elimination of trafficking in women
and in children.
In May of last year, our director general, for the first
time, visited China, or at least the first time since the
Tiananmen Square events, and inaugurated a new era in China-ILO
relations with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding
[MOU] on a broad front of labor issues.
I do not want to say it was all peaches and cream during
this visit. The director general and the Minister of Labor of
China agreed to disagree on whether China was or was not in
conformity with freedom of association and forced labor
principles.
The ILO requested further information from China on the
detention cases that had been raised in the freedom of
association complaints that had been examined previously,
including the whereabouts of trade union detainees and
requesting that they be released.
The important thing about this new Memorandum of
Understanding, is that China has agreed to the four principal
objectives of what we call the ILO's Decent Work Agenda. Those
four basic aims are: Promotion of the ILO Declaration on worker
rights and principles and international labor standards;
employment creation; social protection and improvement of
social network; the promotion of tripartism and worker/
employer/government cooperation.
So, these four things form an integrated package. There is
a commitment on the part of the government to work on all four
objectives, including, most importantly for us, the first
objective, which is the fundamental rights and principles of
work.
The program as I have already tried to illustrate, includes
advice, consultations, and visits and the promotion of
ratification and implementation of ILO conventions is part of
that program.
Let me just read very quickly what the mutually agreed
priorities in the MOU are under the first objective of
promoting international labor standards and the ILO
Declaration.
They are: (1) Activities to promote and realize the ILO
Declaration; (2) to provide technical advice and assistance for
ratification and application of ILO conventions, including the
fundamental and priority conventions; (3) to provide assistance
in the implementation of ratified ILO conventions; (4) to
conduct information and educational activities to promote
greater awareness of international labor standards; and (5) to
strengthen the institutional capacity of labor inspections to
promote the effective application of ILO conventions, taking
into account the relevant conventions on labor inspection.
We have seen two new ratifications this year and we have
two or three that China is working on which we expect to come
to fruition shortly.
I have a statement that I have received from my
headquarters today which states the following with regard to
fundamental workers' rights.
China is in the process of ratifying Convention 182.
That is a convention on the worst forms of child labor.
It has already ratified Convention 100 and 138. Convention
100, as I said, is on equal work for equal pay, and 138 is on
minimum age.
It is foreseen that work on discrimination will continue,
leading in due time to the ratification of the corresponding
instrument, Convention 111.
Given that there is a growing interest, in knowledge, and
experience in collective bargaining for which workshops have
been organized, it is possible to think that in China the road
to an eventual recognition of the principles of freedom of
association may lead to an increased practice of collective
bargaining as the economy is restructured.
At this stage the ILO is pursuing this approach, which may
in due time lead to ratification of Convention 98 on collective
bargaining.
In the short run, no breakthrough on forced labor would
seem to be imminent. The position of the ILO, as stated by the
director general when the MOU was signed, is identical to that
of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The ILO has underlined that it is ready to help the
government to implement the principles of abolition of forced
labor, including help with ratification of the relevant
conventions.
In the area of employment promotion, a major initiative
will be a major employment forum that will take place in
October of this year, which will bring international experts
together with China to discuss all aspects of the global
employment agenda in China and develop a comprehensive plan of
action.
We are also working on a comprehensive social security
program which is vitally needed because of all of the layoffs
that have begun as part of the structural reforms, massive
layoffs which are going to get worse, not better, in the
interim period of 18 months or so. There needs to be put in
place an effective social security system, which they do not
have.
Last, I want to touch on what is probably a critical issue,
and that is the question of whether or not, and how, you deal
with the official so-called trade unions in China, the ACFTU.
It is a decision of the ILO to work with the official trade
union movement. There is no doubt that there is no freedom of
association currently in China. There is an official trade
union monopoly established by law. Until such time as that
official monopoly is removed we have violation of freedom of
association.
Nevertheless, there is a statement of intent on the part of
this institution, which at the current time is a part of the
government system like any other government institution in
China, to cease playing the role of transmission belt for the
party and for the government and to become a more independent
body. So, they are committed, this institution, to acting more
in defense of the worker interests.
It remains to be seen to what degree they will fulfill
that, but we are prepared to work with them. Our workers'
activities branch, which is an independent or semi-independent
branch of the ILO, which is run by the workers, of the workers,
for the workers, has agreed to do this and has entered into an
MOU directly with the ACFTU.
We have programs and projects which are aimed at working at
the enterprise level, trying to get collective bargaining
started there aimed at reforming the plant-level worker
organizations into genuinely representative bodies more along
the lines of the worker committees in European countries.
My time is up, so I will stop there. Thank you.
[The information submitted for the record by Mr. Freeman
appears in the appendix.]
Mr. Wolf. Thanks. I am sorry, Mark, that you did not get a
chance to squeeze out an extra 2 minutes, but you live and
learn.
Mr. Hankin. Well, we have plenty of time now.
Mr. Wolf. My first question is for you, Mark. In terms of
AFL-CIO goals for labor inside China, are you looking at this
from a perspective of American-based labor standards or from a
perspective of internationally based labor standards?
Mr. Hankin. Well, that is a simple one. We always look at
it on the basis of international labor standards. We have never
thought that our minimum wage should be adopted by China.
The ILO has basic, minimal standards. Those are always the
ones that we look toward, especially in a developing country
context. Now, obviously we would like people to be paid more
than those minimal standards, but that is not where we are at.
Mr. Wolf. What about in areas other than pay?
Mr. Hankin. Sure. The same thing goes with occupational
safety and health, child labor. For example, the child labor
standard that the ILO has is less than the U.S. standard, so
that is the standard that we would go by. That is what we have
always talked about. It cuts across all of the labor standards.
Mr. Wolf. This is a question for all three of you. I think
everyone has read over the last week about the problems in the
Daqing oil fields. Clearly, this type of problem about what to
do with retrenched labor is going to continue.
Is there any indication that senior elements in the Chinese
Government who are concerned about this have begun a planning
process to deal with similar types of unrest and potential
instability in ways other than to crack down? In other words,
do you see the beginning of any long-term planning on how to
deal with the issue.
Ms. Athreya. I will start. Yes, I do think that we have
some indication, just in looking at those statements that
appear publicly, that there are senior China officials who
would like to find a way to let the system let off steam.
The one thing that some of our friends in China tell us is
happening, is there a real black-out on information on protests
in a lot of different areas. The reason for that, we are told,
is senior level officials are worried that if information
starts to freely flow between one area and another, for
example, with this recent Daqing oil field strike, that if
workers in other areas found out too much about how workers
were dealing in one place, that the problem might become too
widespread to contain.
So, right now the containment strategy, the dealing-with-
the-crisis strategy, is just to only isolate incidents and deal
with one incident at a time.
On the other hand, I do think that, for example, senior
labor ministry officials are floundering on, what do we do to
deal with this? I think this is one reason why they are so
interested in working with the ILO on a larger safety net
program.
I also think that passage of the new Trade Union Act, which
does contain some slightly more space, at least on the subject
of bargaining and a little bit on the subject of organizing
than the previous trade union law, that that is an attempt to
vent off this steam.
Mr. Freeman. I would endorse that. Certainly there have
been some changes in the law. We see signs of increased
mediation/arbitration structures being put in place.
The government has recognized that the massive layoffs that
are taking place which are creating a potential for social
disruption in China, that there is a need to put in place a
health insurance and social security insurance system that they
do not have now.
The law is permitting more space, as Bama just said, for
defending worker interests. There is something in the new law,
the amendments of last year, about accepting which recognizes
that there could be strikes or could be disruptions, and in
which case it is the role of the trade unions to defend the
workers' interests in trying to reach resolution.
Mr. Hankin. Let me agree with much of what has been said
and see if I can expand a little bit. First of all, I think
there are two major problems in China. One, is what is
happening in rural areas now where workers and peasants are in
open revolt against excess taxes.
In the urban areas, in the State enterprise sector, clearly
the authorities are very, very worried about these protests and
do not have very many simple answers. That is why they are
doing what Bama said, which is to take one at a time and buy
off workers, and at the same time they are often arresting
worker leaders.
In fact, we are seeing reports out of China all the time in
which workers are now saying, we do not want to identify our
leaders because we are afraid they will be arrested. So, that
is one of the problems.
Now, this is a very poor country and it does not have a lot
of resources to throw into social safety nets. That is a major
issue for the Chinese, how they are going to deal with that.
Now, our friends, people that think about this a lot who
are Chinese, tell us that one way to deal with that is to have
negotiations between workers and authorities when these
enterprises go out of business--to open up the process so
workers see what is happening to the assets of these
enterprises when they go out of business.
That is where the problem is. The Chinese Government is
having a hard time, because of the nature of the government,
because of the nature of the system, because of the lack of
rule of law, of opening up the process.
Until they do that, Ira and the rest of you, I think there
are going to continue to be these problems in China. I do not
see any easy solutions.
As I alluded to in my testimony, the trade union is
supposed to play a role in defending these workers' interests
and helping them get new jobs. They do not have the resources
to do that either. The trade unions were financed by these
State enterprises. Those trade unions are going out of business
right now.
Mr. Wolf. Thanks.
Next, is John Foarde, Deputy Staff Director of the
Commission.
Mr. Foarde. First of all, thank all three of you for
sharing your expertise with us this afternoon. It is really
interesting.
I have got a question that really any of you, or all of
you, might want to address. That is, picking up on the labor
unrest. I take it we do not have a good sense of the total
number of incidents of labor unrest, say, in calendar year
2000. Do we have a sense of their geographic distribution? Are
they more prevalent in part of the country or another?
Mr. Hankin. Do you want me to take a crack at that?
Certainly, as I tried to say in my testimony, there are really
two Chinas. There is the old state enterprise sector, then
there is the newer private sector.
Clearly, labor unrest is taking place most in the rust-belt
cities where the State enterprises are going out of business.
So, where you find those old enterprises going out of business,
you are going to see a lot of unrest.
Now, people tell us that go to China that almost every day
you can see a labor demonstration in a city. Oftentimes, it is
from retired workers.
In the private sector, where you see a lot of the joint
ventures, you see much less labor unrest or big demonstrations.
There are several reasons for that. For one thing, most of
the workers in those enterprises are migrant workers. They are
not a part of the communities, so it is harder for them to get
out on the streets and demonstrate. In those rust-belt cities,
you actually have the community supporting the workers.
So, that is where we see it. It is really hard to know how
many of these disputes happen. It is funny. In the last several
days, I have seen reports about demonstrations in China, three
reports in the last week. That may be because of the major
demonstrations we heard about in the oil fields, and the press
is just picking up on it. So, it is really hard to know, but
there is no doubt that they are increasing.
Mr. Freeman. I would just note official government
statistics on that, for what they are worth. The Ministry of
Labor reported for 2000 that there were 135,000 labor disputes,
which, according to their statistics, was a 12.5 percent
increase over the previous year.
Mr. Foarde. I am going to shift gears just slightly with
the time remaining and pick up on something, Bama, that you
mentioned, and that is the Olympics.
We are very interested in the whole question of the Olympic
Games in Beijing and the possible positive effect that they
could have on human rights practices if everybody does some
heavy lifting between now and 2008.
Do you have some specific things that you think ought to be
done, just in the area of labor rights, that this Commission
should do or that the U.S. Government should do that you would
share with us?
Ms. Athreya. Thank you, John, for the opportunity to expand
actually on what was sort of a footnote to my comments earlier.
Yes, I think this is a tremendous opportunity.
We all, I think, are well aware of the political resources
China put into winning this Olympic bid. This is an
opportunity, from the point of view of the government, to step
onto the world stage. They are interested in looking good, to
sort of wrap it up very quickly.
We know that if we just look overall at the context for
labor rights and construction facilities throughout China,
there will undoubtedly be a migrant workforce that is largely
involved with constructing the Olympic sites.
It is going to be a monumental project. There already have
been forced displacements of villagers who lived on the sites
that will now become the Olympic facilities. So we think it is
very important to keep an eye on this.
The point here is not to create a sort of labor paradise
for this very small handful of workers who happen to be working
on the Olympic facilities, but the point is really to use this
as an opportunity to raise an issue in the context of the
Olympics, which we know China will be paying attention to, and
to then broaden, from looking at that one small subset, to
saying, these sorts of problems plague workers through China
and we hope that the standards that you apply to production and
construction of these facilities will apply elsewhere as well
to big public works projects.
Mr. Foarde. Anybody else want to step up to that one,
either of the other two of you?
Mr. Hankin. Well, just very briefly, clearly, I think we
have to look at those workers and others who are in prison and
use meetings to raise those issues every time there is a
meeting on the Olympics. Why can we not talk about prisoners,
or what has happened to them, and seek access? I think those
are the sorts of practical things we can do.
Mr. Foarde. We have a number of other people who want to
ask questions, so let us go on.
Mr. Wolf. Next, is Bob Shepard from the Labor Department.
Mr. Shepard. A number of you had discussed the need for
outsiders to work on worker rights issues in China.
Who should outsiders be working with, specifically? Any of
you.
Mr. Hankin. Well, I mentioned in my testimony a couple of
things. Let me just give you a little bit more detail. First of
all, we talk about rule of law approaches in China. We know now
that there are lawyers and law schools that are interested in
taking up cases of workers.
They have little or no experience with labor and employment
law. There is much that we could do to help them, and it is my
impression that they are interested in getting that help. So,
that is certainly one thing we can do.
I think there are authorities that are dealing with safety
net areas that we have to look at seriously. We have to do it
cautiously, but we should look at it and see what we can do in
that area. The same thing goes for occupational safety and
health. There are appalling problems in the coal mine industry.
I think we have to look at it again.
I do not think it should simply be a transfer of technical
assistance to agencies, but a way to empower workers to protect
their health, because we all know who work in the labor area
that the best way to protect a worker's health is to make the
worker an advocate for his or her health in the workplace. So,
those are some of the ideas that we have.
Let me add there are people inside China who would welcome
information on labor rights and assistance. There are ways to
do that, and I would be pleased to talk about that in a more
private session with some of you. But I think that is possible.
It has to be done cautiously.
Mr. Shepard. Bama or Tony.
Ms. Athreya. Sure. I would essentially agree with Mark's
assessment. We know that there are lawyers' associations in
China and those could be potential partners. We do know there
is a dearth of trained labor lawyers in China, so one thing
that could be done is to work with existing lawyers and legal
associations to provide training that would enable a core of
labor lawyers to exist.
We also know that there are informal labor advocates,
something that I would call barefoot lawyers, along the same
lines as barefoot doctors, which are advocates that are
springing up, particularly from what we understand in south
China, to assist workers who are not really sure if they have a
problem or not. They are not sure if their rights have been
violated or if the law protects them in a particular case or
not.
So, there are informal advisors who are providing, for a
fee, services to such workers just answering questions. I think
we could direct resources to strengthen those sorts of advocacy
services as well, and do it in a way that would not conflict
with formal policy priorities within China.
Mr. Freeman. Just to add to that. If the former Soviet
Union is any guide, I would say it is important to keep an eye
on the human resources that are in the official system, the
think tanks. My recollection of the Soviet evolution was that a
good part of the leaders of the independent trade unions came
out of the think tanks of the official institutes. So, there is
something there to keep an eye on.
Also, as I suggested earlier, work down at the grassroots
level, if you can, with enterprises. Start at the enterprise
level. This is where democracy hits the road. Under an emerging
market situation, management needs to talk to worker
representatives about conditions of labor. There are statements
on the part of the official system that they want to work in
this area, so we intend to work there.
Mr. Shepard. Bama, you stressed the importance of working
with the U.S. companies. Do you think there are demonstration
effect that will overflow to other companies, or do you think
we will just end up by doing that bolstering worker rights
within the U.S. companies and foreign investment companies?
Ms. Athreya. That is an important question. I do think
there is a demonstration effect. But I think the trick is, what
we have now, the current situation in which you have a half-
dozen companies, United States companies that are trying to do
the right thing, and the vast majority of United States
companies are sort of free riders on the examples set by a few
that end up freely feeding into this rhetoric that United
States businesses are bringing good values to China.
I think one thing this Commission could do, one thing the
United States Government could do, is effectively engage United
States business in China in a much broader way. Capture more
U.S. companies in the net, and you will find there is a
significant demonstration effect on other companies as well.
Mr. Shepard. Tony, I have a question for you. You have been
on both sides of this. I am curious as to your opinion on the
relative advantages of working on worker rights issues, core
labor standards, from a bilateral perspective versus working
through multinational organizations. Which would be more
effective and which would be more advantageous for us?
Mr. Freeman. Well, given the fact that I am currently
representing the ILO, I obviously favor a multilateral
approach. There was an earlier question about whether you
wanted to impose U.S. standards or international standards. The
answer to that is obvious.
You need to speak in terms of international standards, and
there are international bodies that have jurisdiction over
those standards that are an obvious vehicle for this.
Let me just go back to a question you asked Bama earlier. I
am told that, while there is enormous resistance from China and
other developing countries regarding the whole question of
linkage of trade and labor standards, that there is a
recognition of another side of the issue, which is that if
these countries, including China, want to develop the United
States as a market for their products, they need to be
concerned about consumer attitudes. This is where you get into
demonstration effects.
There is concern and interest in official Chinese circles
in promoting the positive side of things because of their
interests in promoting their products to the United States. I
think it is worth reflecting further on that.
Mr. Shepard. Thank you.
Mr. Wolf. Thanks, Bob.
Jennifer Goedke, with Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur.
Ms. Goedke. Representing Congresswoman Kaptur, the
Congresswoman is not only on the Commission, but she is also a
member of the Appropriations Committee.
As we are looking to funding projects for the next fiscal
year, we are looking at projects like NED and other government
programs that support democracy and internationally recognized
labor rights.
What do you think the priorities should be for domestic
versus possibly China-based programs, either working with NGO's
or working with ILO?
Mr. Hankin. Just for the record, the Solidarity Center gets
resources from NED. I must tell you that those monies have been
especially helpful for organizations that want to work in or
around China. I think each individual program has to be looked
at on its merits. But I can tell you that, without those NED
resources, there would not have been a major push on labor
rights in China.
Han Dongfang is a leading workers rights advocate on China
and has been supported throughout the years by the National
Endowment. I think his work has been enormously important. To
the extent that those programs can continue to be supported, I
think it is very worthwhile.
Now, it is a difficult place to work, for sur