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Workers in China will stand up for their
rights
By James Wang ¤ý´º¥°
Saturday, Jun 19, 2010, Page 8
When people talk about ¡§bearing a cross,¡¨ they usually mean
being oppressed, going to jail and suffering physical torment, so it¡¦s
surprising to hear a Taiwanese tycoon who lives in luxury and flies in a private
plane saying he is ¡§bearing a cross¡¨ because some employees at his factories in
China have killed themselves. Even if he is as upset as he claims, the phrase is
poorly chosen. If those workers could enjoy even 1 percent of the tycoon¡¦s daily
comforts, they probably wouldn¡¦t want to jump off roofs.
Living in luxury and bearing crosses ¡X this strange combination highlights how
businesses investing in China are entangled in a heartless and contradictory
world. On the one hand, these employers provide impoverished Chinese with
employment opportunities, while on the other they rely on the Chinese
government¡¦s repressive policies to help them exploit the workers and amass
great wealth for themselves.
For government and business to connive in bullying workers in a country that
continues to call itself ¡§socialist¡¨ and ¡§communist¡¨ is the scandal of the
century. While China¡¦s so-called reforms under the successive leaderships of
former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (¦¿¿A¥Á) and Chinese President Hu Jintao (JÀAÀÜ)
have been carried out in the name of ¡§socialism,¡¨ they have created a gap
between rich and poor that is wider than that of the US. Whatever social safety
net China once had has been stripped away, leaving no relief from exploitation.
While the path taken under Jiang and Hu is essentially capitalist, China lacks
the freedom, democracy, legal system and other checks and balances needed to
keep an otherwise ruthless capitalist system in check. China lacks independent
labor unions, free and fair media and a social welfare system. China¡¦s reforms
have deregulated the economy, allowing unbridled exploitation of labor, while
the political system remains as rigid as ever. Independent unions are not
allowed and there is no right to strike.
When a free market operates under a developed legal framework, the rules of the
game are set, ideally, through a democratic process. The path to wealth depends
on an individual¡¦s ability, so it is not a sin to be rich. US software tycoon
Bill Gates is wealthier than many nations alone, but he uses his wealth for
philanthropy. There hasn¡¦t been news of any Microsoft employees being abused to
the point that they jump off buildings.
It is different in China, where the law counts for much less. There, you may
only get rich if you have special privileges and the right connections. This is
as true for overseas investors as it is for those Chinese who have made fortunes
through the restructuring of state-owned enterprises.
While the rich get richer, workers live in internment camp-like conditions.
Toiling day and night and selling their labor for low pay, there is no way out
for them. These are the very conditions that Karl Marx predicted would lead to a
workers¡¦ revolution.
The suicides at Foxconn and strikes against low wages at Honda and elsewhere in
China show that Chinese workers have had enough. The Chinese government, for its
part, does not publicly dare to go on suppressing the workers and protecting
employers¡¦ interests. Rather, it is quite happy to shift the blame for
exploiting workers onto overseas investors.
By conceding big wage hikes, Foxconn and Honda may be writing a new page in the
history of China¡¦s reforms. They are bringing to an end the stage in which China
offered ultra-low wages. As these events unfold, Chinese workers are waking up
and are now ready to break out of a contradictory system that thrives, at its
core, at the expense of their rights.
James Wang is a journalist based in Washington.
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