Report on China finds workers' rights violations, but also signs of hope

By Linda Myers

A Cornell research team's report that measures workers' rights in China against international labor standards finds such serious violations as forced labor, child labor, discrimination against women and rural workers and virtually no freedom of association -- but also small pockets where change is beginning to happen.

Compa

Published by the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), "Justice for All: The Struggle for Worker Rights in China" is the first comprehensive report on workers' rights in China under the "core labor standards" of the International Labor Organization: freedom of association, nondiscrimination and prohibitions of child labor and forced labor. It was conducted by Lance Compa, an expert on international human rights and senior lecturer at Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and a team of Cornell graduate students, including some from the People's Republic of China. ACILS is the global labor assistance program of the AFL-CIO.

China has nearly one fourth of the world's labor force, with 800 million workers, notes the report. Indeed, it's difficult to find a store anywhere these days that does not sell clothing, and myriad other items, made in China. But while the country once declared itself a workers' state, China's ruling authorities now promote the slogan: "To get rich is glorious," noted Compa. "Instead of building socialism," he added, "China's government has reverted to some of the worst excesses of the 'Robber Baron' era in the West."

Filled with case studies and other documented examples of workers' rights violations, the 100-page report finds that China's government tightly controls the official labor movement and that independent trade union organizers are often arrested and jailed for their activities. Discrimination against women workers in pay, job promotions and forced retirement is common, the researchers find. Chinese migrant workers move by the millions from the rural interior of the country to export processing zone factories in coastal cities. There they are victimized by second-class treatment under the government's "household registration" system, which denies rights to workers from agricultural regions even after they have been living and working in cities for years, the report states.

Child labor remains a serious problem in China, with horrific cases of children killed by explosions and fires in their own schools, where they manufactured fireworks for local businesses, noted the researchers. Forced labor marks the experience of prisoners in China's prison system, and the products made by prisoners are often exported to the United States and other Western countries.

Despite those findings, the ILR team's report cautions that it is a mistake to see China as "one vast sweatshop" where workers are always repressed. "The reality is more subtle and complex," it notes, with "reason for hope" that respect for workers' rights will improve.

Reform advocates within China's official labor unions are searching for ways to become more independent of the government and to advocate more openly for better wages and working conditions. New civil society organizations help workers gain rights through the legal system and media exposés. While some multinational firms take advantage of Chinese workers' lack of rights to further exploit them, others' corporate codes of conduct require better conditions for workers.

"Will China's growing power be a force for advancing democracy, human rights and social and economic well-being?" asks the report in its conclusion, or will it instead "lead a global 'race to the bottom' based on political exploitation and worker exploitation?"

Compa hopes the report will lead to greater respect for workers' rights in China through improved practices of U.S.-based firms, new international rules linking trade and labor standards, and greater awareness and activism among consumers using their purchasing power to press for workers' rights. He also noted: "Having students on the team who could work with original Chinese language materials and scrutinize press reports and other new information online was critical for the success of this project. I could not be admitted into China to carry out interviews and other research, so the students became my eyes and ears."

The Cornell research team included Annie L. Hsu, a 2001 ILR graduate who lived in China for two years following graduation and is now a student at Columbia Law School; ILR graduate students Jing Wang, Bess Po-Chun Chen, Xiaoming (Melody) Zhang, Lin-Yuan Wang and Robert Glase; and Christopher Ahn of Cornell Law School. Other Cornell graduate and law students who worked on the project chose to remain anonymous.

"Justice for All: The Struggle for Worker Rights in China" is available online at the Web site of the American Center for International Labor Solidarity at http://www.solidaritycenter.org. Compa also is the author of two earlier reports in the center's Justice for All series, on workers' rights in Mexico and in Sri Lanka, also available at that site.