Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06BEIJING24368
2006-12-07 06:57:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Beijing
Cable title:  

THE ROLE OF INFORMAL LABOR ORGANIZATIONS AND NGO'S

Tags:  ELAB PHUM PGOV CH 
pdf how-to read a cable
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RR RUEHCN RUEHGH
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ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 070657Z DEC 06 ZDK
FM AMEMBASSY BEIJING
TO RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC
RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2826
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC
INFO RUEHUL/AMEMBASSY SEOUL 9723
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 1063
RUEHCN/AMCONSUL CHENGDU 7602
RUEHGZ/AMCONSUL GUANGZHOU 1974
RUEHHK/AMCONSUL HONG KONG 8563
RUEHGH/AMCONSUL SHANGHAI 6579
RUEHSH/AMCONSUL SHENYANG 7264
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 1485
RUEHIN/AIT TAIPEI 6136
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)

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