Corrupt Officials, Foreign Businesses Spell Doom For Chinese Workers

Profit-first Mentality Overlooks Safety Needs

October 05, 1994|By Uli Schmetzer, Tribune Staff Writer.

GUANGZHOU, China — It was easy enough for Wu Xinghui and Li Jianzhou, two government safety inspectors, to overlook the bits of old copper wire that functioned as electric fuses at the Zhili Toy and Craft factory.

And the inspectors had no trouble ignoring the mesh wiring and iron grills that barred the windows of the dormitory where the factory's workers lived, or the exit gates that had been welded shut.

The price for the safety inspectors' leniency was a $389 bribe paid by the toy company.

But the cost was at least 84 workers' lives.

The workers, most of them young women, perished trying to escape an early-morning fire last November. The blaze was caused by a short circuit in one of the jury-rigged fuses, and the deaths resulted when the workers couldn't break through the barred windows and sealed doors.

Last weekend, a Peoples Court in the special economic zone of Shenzhen, across from Hong Kong, found the two inspectors responsible for the deaths.

But the guilt is more broadly spread, for the case exposes not only the callous attitude of Chinese sweatshop owners toward their workers and the corruption of local officials, but also the potential complicity of foreign partners who flock to China to exploit an unregulated labor market.

Much of the Zhili Toy and Craft factory's output was sold in the U.S. by Chicco, a major Italian toy and baby products company.

In the first three months of this year alone, more than 2,000 workers died in Chinese industrial accidents. Half of the country's industrial fires in the first quarter were in Shenzen, a boom town with cheaply constructed skyscrapers, thinly cemented industrial plants, hastily paved roads and warehouses packed with chemicals in the midst of residential zones.

Human rights groups say most of the accidents were due to disregarded safety regulations and a criminal lack of concern for human life.

They also contend that 90 percent of foreign joint ventures in China flout safety rules with the help of corrupt local officials.

Many foreign companies camouflage their sweatshop manufacturing behind the mantle of Hong Kong subcontractors. These firms are known as "submarines" and exist mainly on paper. But the "Made in Hong Kong" labels help manufacturers circumvent U.S. import quotas on goods such as Chinese shoes and garments.

Exploiting workers in Shenzen is easy enough to do.

The Asia Monitor Resource Center in Hong Kong, which researches labor violations, estimates that more than 90 percent of workers at small- and medium-size enterprises in China's booming coastal areas come from impoverished inland provinces and have no residence permits.

"It's like a Damocles sword over their heads," said Chan Kawai, director of the Christian Industrial Committee, which also monitors Chinese labor problems.

"If they rebel, they are sent home as illegal migrants. If they are injured, they are given a pittance and told to go home to their villages or face trouble as illegals. These people can't win."

Zhou Tang, 19, is a classic example. She waited three years for the job, and then found she had to pay room and board and a fee for an electric fan in summer, all deducted from her $55 a month wages.

After a year, she also had to accept the factory's decision to withhold 1,000 yuan ($110) from each worker as a contribution to the plant's expansion.

"For every worker in Guangdong (Canton) province there are 10 migrant workers waiting for his job," said Apo Leong, director of the Asia Resource Center.

Often, companies illegally combine factory, warehouse and dormitory under a single roof. The Zhili toy factory had such an arrangement, and the obvious fire hazard it posed was just another of the violations the safety inspectors were bribed to overlook.

Zhili officials and independent experts testified that the welded exit gates were a necessary and normal security procedure to prevent workers from pilfering goods.

Officials also contended that the dormitories-bunk beds jammed together and strung with laundry and knickknacks-had to be locked to protect workers, 95 percent of them single women under age 25. Some of the women would moonlight as prostitutes, the officials said, or men would enter to rape them.

Many of the fire victims could not be identified because their names were not on factory records.

"I saw three army trucks haul the bodies away, and we survivors believe there were at least 200 dead," said Wang, a 19-year-old girl from Sichuan province who escaped with minor burns.

Investigators eventually found evidence showing that the Italian company Chicco Toys was the corporate force behind Zhili.

While the court promised to "later" sentence government safety inspectors Wu and Li, it made no mention of Zhili factory director Huang Guoguang, who paid the bribe to the inspectors. Nor did it mention Hong Kong businessman Lo Chiu Chun, the plant's owner who has been detained in a residence for nearly a year as he and officials haggle over compensation in the workers' deaths.