August 2001

Rethink Health and Safety Issues in China

According to government statistics, the number of deaths in China due to industrial accidents has reached 110,000 each year. Of them, 80% are peasant workers in private sector enterprises, joint ventures, village and township enterprises, and individual ownership companies. Since the Shenzhen Occupational Injury Insurance Regulation was enforced in 1994, the Social Insurance Bureau in Shenzhen has dealt with more than 50,000 serious industrial accidents. As recently as 1998, the Shenzhen Government certified 12,189 workers as industrial accident victims. 90% of the victims had lost fingers, arms or legs at work and more than 80 workers were killed. On average, 31 workers become disabled every day due to occupational accidents, and one worker dies every 4.5 days. Perhaps worse things are instances of chemical poisoning. According to the Shenzhen Quarantine Station, there are now 9,589 enterprises in Shenzhen in which 1.33 million workers are employed. 4,031 (42.7%) enterprises have hazardous or even poisonous conditions; that is, enterprises which employ a total of 116,000 workers (8.69%) are listed as having conditions hazardous enough to constitute a threat to workers' lives.

The Occupational Diseases Diagnosis Section (ODDS) in Shenzhen has conducted research which shows that 371 workers have been poisoned by 69 different kinds of chemicals. 23 of those workers died. 95% of the poisonings happened in firms with foreign investment. Among the cases investigated by ODDS, organic solvent poisoning was rated the most dangerous. Further, most victims of chemical poisoning were peasant workers from rural areas. However, because the turnover of peasant workers is high, it is difficult for them to identify health problems which result from chemical exposure in the factories in which they have worked. Thus, we expect the true number of chemical poisoning cases to be much higher. Moreover, enterprises also try to cover-up such cases. It is estimated that around 70% of occupational diseases are not reported due to these and other reasons.

On April 5, 1999, Mr. Wei Jianxing (尉建行), the President of the All-China Confederation of Trade Unions (the official trade union in China) received a document outlining the scale of occupational injuries in Shenzhen. His comments are telling:

In April 2000, the State Council, through the Xinhua News Agency, issued a directive about the regulations of administrative responsibility regarding severe accidents. For severe cases, the provincial governors and the heads of the concerned government bureaus may be punished. In May 2000, the State Council set up the Safe Production Committee under the leadership of the Deputy Premier, Wu Bangguo (吳邦國), to coordinate all concerned government departments and parties for the following tasks:

1. to analyze the existing health and safety problems and to implement safe production policies;

2. to study, coordinate and solve the main problems of health and safety;

3. to coordinate all concerned government bodies to participate in rescue work when severe accidents occur; and

4. to implement the directives of the State Council regarding health and safety issues.

Exploitation by local governments for their own profit

Some Mainland scholars point out that such serious health and safety problems are the result of an exploitative structure. In this structure, poor peasant workers are at the bottom and three powerful groups with vested interest exploit them. The three groups are: local powers (including local government); central government (e.g., the Public Security Bureau has a vested interest in policing and maintaining the existing residency policies); and capitalists. In this structure, workers are not only exploited but are also marginalized. Thus, workers not only have little knowledge about their rights, but there is no organization which truly speaks for or represents them.

For instance, Occupational Injury Regulations in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (1993) state that social security institutions should adjust the bases for both the payments for safety insurance and compensation for accidents every year according to the average monthly wages as derived from the previous year's statistics issued by the Shenzhen Statistics Bureau. However, to protect foreign investors, the Shenzhen Government failed to do so during the period from 1993 to 1999. Thus, all compensations for employees injured at work were based on the 1993 figures (which stated that the average monthly wage was Rmb. 679). Using these figures, workers would be compensated Rmb. 33,101 if they lost an arm at work. However, the average monthly wages in Shenzhen in 1998 reached Rmb. 1,532. If data from 1998 had been used, the compensation for losing an arm would obviously be much greater. The freezing of official statistics is bad enough. (2) But as Mr. Zhou Litai (周立太), a well known occupational injury claims lawyer in China, points out, the precedence of safeguarding foreign capital investment over worker rights is another insidious problem:

Loopholes in the existing legislation

In the interview by a local press, Zhou points out how management makes use of the loopholes in the existing labour arbitration system which serves to delay or to avoid completely the payment of compensation to injured workers (4).

Perhaps most important of all, Labour Law is not well respected because it was not passed by the People's Congress itself, but rather by its Standing Committee. In other words, it originates from a lower level legislature. According to Zhou Litai, this lack of respect for the law is demonstrated by the fact that 90% of workers who were injured whilst working in Shenzhen were expelled from their factories after the accident. In such a climate of disrespect for the law, workers cannot enjoy their basic rights (6).

Different discourses on peasant workers

Peasant workers are almost always portrayed in negative ways. They are often described as young, transient, poorly educated, and inferior in almost every respect to others. These negative perceptions are not confined to non-peasant workers. As Zhou has observed:

However, some scholars look at the good side of peasant workers. They claim workers are the backbone of the economic miracle in Shenzhen. Shenzhen, like Shanghai and Beijing, is a prosperous city. On the basis of its Gross Domestic Production per capita (now standing at US$8,320), Shenzhen has been classified as a middle-income or even high-income city. Peasant workers' contribution cannot and should not be ignored (8).

In her research, Tan Shen (譚深) puts forward the view that most peasant workers are elites in their hometowns. They have relatively higher education standards than their peers. Even when compared with rural residents in Guangdong in secondary and tertiary industries, they are not less educated. They are often regarded as pillars of their families. Peasant workers also broaden their horizons while working in the South, and can be construed as yet another strength. In short, peasant workers are intelligent and relatively well educated, and are well respected in their hometowns. This is a far cry from the negative portrayals of migrants that dominate discourses on peasant workers (9).

The Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee is going to publish a storybook which relates the life stories of industrial accident victims (10). The dignity of workers is evident in each story. For instance, in one case a young man was badly injured. His two brothers rallied together with him to help him face and overcome overwhelming difficulties. With family support, the injured man has successfully struggled to stave off starvation. The assistance of the two brothers, for whom the provision of such help was difficult and without reward, is evidence of strong bonds and a dignity that goes beyond simple help.

In another case, a worker injured in Shenzhen tells how he now promotes labour laws and rights in villages; informing those who may one day decide to do as he did and travel to Shenzhen. Such stories belie the myth that peasant workers do not respect the rule of law or that they have little knowledge about their legal rights. Moreover, some of them take care of others who were injured. As the following extract shows, injured peasant workers demonstrate compassion and courage:

The image of peasant workers is highly distorted. Perhaps they are misrepresented by so many as being somehow inferior so that nobody is forced to think to deeply about their role in occupational health and safety issues. It seems that the safety and health of workers has simply become a technical issue. Or to put it another way, it involves professionals and management and excludes workers. However, without workers’ involvement, health and safety cannot be guaranteed. Health and safety installations are only hardware, but labour involvement is software and thus perhaps more important. Workers are in the factory every day and they know very well the problems and issues that confront them there. Workers themselves are experts of labour issues. They are indispensable in the monitoring of the working conditions and the health and safety of factories and take a key role to enhance communication and sharing and to build up trust among their fellow workers. For health and safety to improve, workers must be central to any program of action, as must be their rights.

By Shek Ping Kwan (石炳坤) Trans.: Chan Ka Wai (陳家偉)

Executive Secretary