THE ROLE OF INFORMAL LABOR ORGANIZATIONS AND NGO'S

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 024368 SIPDIS SIPDIS LABOR FOR ILAB-LI, SCHOEPFLE, OWEN STATE PASS USTR FOR KARESH, CELICO, ROSENBERG TREASURY FOR OASIA/ISA-CUSHMAN USDOC FOR 4420/ITA/MAC/MCQUEEN GENEVA FOR CHAMBERLIN E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/05/2026 TAGS: ELAB PHUM PGOV CH SUBJECT: THE ROLE OF INFORMAL LABOR ORGANIZATIONS AND NGO'S IN PROTECTING CHINESE WORKERS RIGHTS REF: GUANGZHOU 32364 BEIJING 00024368 001.3 OF 003 Classified By: Econmincouns Robert Luke, reason 1.4(d) ¶1. (C) Summary: Informal labor organizations are behind many of China's frequent strikes, demonstrations and other labor incidents. A growing network of NGOs and legal aid organizations can provide guidance to informal labor organizations and mitigate their tendency toward recklessness. The Government's attitude toward informal labor organizations and the organizations that assist them is conflicted: on one hand it tolerates some degree of activity, and even finances some legal aid groups, because it recognizes the risk widespread violations of workers rights pose to social stability. On the other hand, NGOs and legal aid groups form the backbone of a growing labor rights movement, and the Government does crack down on these organizations when they grow too bold. Local governments in particular, target leaders of informal labor organizations as a means suppressing labor unrest. State security services keep NGOs and legal aid groups under close scrutiny. The fact that so many workers are willing to form into legally unrecognized associations reflects the absence of effective legal channels through which they can protect their rights. China's official trade union, the ACFTU, not only does not play this role, but is seen as assisting the Government in suppressing other labor organizations. End Summary. ¶2. (C) Reports of strikes, petitions, demonstrations and other &mass incidents8 involving workers emerge daily from China. Behind these events are a variety of informal labor organizations, many of which receive assistance and advice from a growing network of labor NGOs. The Chinese Government,s view of informal labor organizations and labor NGOs is conflicted. On one hand, the Government recognizes that poor labor relations and weak labor law enforcement undermine economic justice and social stability, and allows these organizations, to some degree, to help workers help themselves. On the other, the Government is wary of NGOs who challenge local authority, and will crack down on them if they grow too bold. This message describes the phenomena of informal labor organizations and labor NGOs, and some of the challenges they face operating in China. ¶3. (C) Laboff discussed informal labor organizations and NGOs in recent conversations with Wang Kan (protect),a program officer at OXFAM, and labor lawyer Chen Bulei (protect),who has defended several informal labor organization leaders in court. Wang and Chen said that Chinese workers resort to informal organizations because there are no effective legal channels through which to address grievances. Chen said there is a strong tradition of informal labor organization in China, especially in the form of &Home-town Associations8 (Tong Xiang Hui) that serve workers from the province, district, county or town. Aside from Home-town Associations, other forms of informal labor organizations include co-worker associations (Gong You Hui), rights-protection organizations (Wei Quan Hui),and "health and safety committees." Chen said Home-town Associations are the most effective &informal unions8 because the tradition of home-town loyalty is very strong. News of any worker betraying his fellows will travel back to his family, he said, and this is a powerful deterrent. ¶4. (C) Home-town Associations are found wherever migrant workers are prevalent, and not concentrated in any particular industry, Chen said. In some cases, they form spontaneously within enterprises, and members choose their own &workers representatives8 from among their own ranks. In other cases, they function across enterprises in a given geographical area, like informal civic organizations, claiming to serve or represent the interests of all migrants from some specific place of origin. Their role is not always a positive one. Wang Kan described these cross-enterprise BEIJING 00024368 002.3 OF 003 Home-town Associations as &mafia-like.8 Although they do help workers in some cases, Wang said, the leaders promote their own interests and their main business is shaking down employers in exchange for industrial peace. Wang observed that as employers have become more used to working with these cross-enterprise home-town associations, they have been willing to pay more, and the home-town organizations have become more pro-employer. ¶5. (C) Chen said co-worker associations and rights protection associations are most prevalent in urban manufacturing enterprises, and weaker than home-town associations. Wang described these non-geographical associations as loose networks between migrant workers who communicate via text messaging, often across more than one enterprise. Wang said these organizations can be reckless, and described one strike in Dongguan City (Guangdong Province) in the summer of 2006, which began with an altercation between a single worker and a security guard at one factory. With the help of text messaging (plus a few typos) the situation rapidly degenerated into a strike that spread to five factories. In the end, Wang said, factory management called in the local Henan Home-town Association to settle the strike because many of the workers involved were from Henan Province. ¶6. (C) Chen said leaders of informal labor organizations put themselves at risk. He has represented three workers, representatives in court in three different provinces. In each case, he said, local governments brought charges against the worker representatives under article 201 of the Criminal Code, &Assembling to Disturb Public Order.8 He said these cases involved collective petitions, not violence, but that local governments which exert strong influence over the local police and courts, chose to interpret the law broadly. Chen said only one of his defense cases was successful, and even then, the workers, representative was found guilty but given no sentence. Chen said local governments go after leaders of informal labor organizations deliberately to intimidate the rank and file. ¶7. (C) Through a number of programs, including some funded by the Chinese Ministry of Justice, a growing number of law firms and NGOs across China provide advice and legal aid to workers. These NGOs and legal aid groups provide some direction to China,s various informal labor organizations, helping bring order to their activities, but also form the backbone of China,s labor rights movement. Therefore, they are under close government scrutiny. Wang Kan told Laboff that NGOs (including OXFAM) and legal aid organizations are under growing pressure. He said NGOs and legal aid organizations receive regular visits from security services (the Ministries of Public Security (MPS) and State Security (MSS)),who inquire into their activities, sources of funding, and connections to foreign individuals and organizations. The MPS and MSS can also track NGO funding through bank supervision authorities. Based on his own experience, Wang said the MPS and MSS are not necessarily unfriendly, and sometimes even supportive of what NGOs and legal aid organizations are doing, but they provide no guidance on what may constitute illegal activity, and work to ensure that NGOs know they are being watched. The overall effect is intimidating. ¶8. (C) In some cases, the Government has cracked down on labor organizations which have grown too bold. In November 2006, for example, city authorities in Shenzhen investigated five labor NGOs, confiscated some of their computers, and shut two of the organizations down. The triggering event was their involvement in a large-scale petition drive to eliminate a RMB 500 (USD 60) minimum fee for labor arbitration cases (ref). Connections to a US-based Labor NGO, China Labor Watch (CLW),may also have contributed to the crackdown. CLW alleges that the All China Federation of BEIJING 00024368 003.3 OF 003 Trade Unions (ACFTU) participated in the Shenzhen investigation, which is consistent with the views of Chen Bulei and Wang Kan, who both told Laboff that ACFTU uses its political influence to suppress other forms of labor organization. Wang reported once seeing a letter from the Guangdong Province ACFTU to the Guangdong Provincial government describing labor NGOs as &adversarial organizations.8 Chen said he believed ACFTU,s national leadership was behind the forced reorganization of a migrant workers association in Haikou (Hainan Province) in 2004. ¶9. (C) Comment: The fact that workers go to extraordinary, even risky lengths, to pursue their rights through legally-unrecognized associations only serves to underscore the irrelevance of the ACFTU in protecting workers rights. ACFTU unions are widely regarded as pro-management where they exist, and are largely absent from private enterprises and the migrant worker community, the fastest growing sectors of the economy and labor force. In October 2006, the National Bureau of Statistics published a survey of migrant worker living conditions. When asked whom they would turn to if their rights were violated, the three largest groups of survey respondents said, respectively, that they would directly approach their employer, seek legal aid, or seek help from family and friends. Only a small percentage said they would seek help from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security. ACFTU was not even mentioned. Randt