Women Workers in Chinese Sweatshops

By Ting Yong

A blossom rose, Before it could enjoy the warmth of the sun, Before it could feel the touch of a breeze, Was mercilessly broken off from its branch, Got mixed with mud in the ground, shattered. Its sweet scent was still in the air, Its color still red. Maybe some affectionate young man Once wished to offer this rose to his beloved bride?

This is a poem written by a male worker to mourn the death of two women workers who undertook treatment in the same hospital where he was staying.

The women were both 18 and worked in different factories in the EPZ (Export Processing Zone) of the Pearl River Delta in southern China, and both were victims of chemical poisoning.

On Nov. 2, 2003, one jumped out of the balcony of a hospital and killed herself. The main causes of her suicide were that her factory had refused to pay compensation and that she could hardly find another job to support her family because of the illness.

The other woman died of benzene poisoning on Nov. 3, after 11 months hospitalization. Since the factory where she had worked had stopped paying money for her treatment, the hospital stopped providing her with sufficient medication, and she died.

There are some 800 EPZs all over the world, employing approximately 30 million workers. The Chinese EPZs employ about 20 million, two thirds of the world total. This speaks for the fact that China has become a favorite haven for the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) of trans-national corporations.

FDI flows to countries where wages are exceedingly low, which implies a high profit rate. Chinese wages are even lower than those of Thailand and many other Asian countries. Chinese workers do not enjoy any of the basic rights of organizing and collective bargaining, thus robbing them of all means of defense against TNCs and their sub-contractors.

China was awarded the title of "world factory" for its huge volume of exports. The title should read, "world sweatshops."

Back in 1995, the Chinese government adopted the first labor code, offering protection on wages, working hours, employment regulations, holidays, etc. Yet it is rare to find incidents where the code is enforced.

On most occasions, the labor departments simply turn a deaf ear to workers’ complaints, sometimes even pressing workers to give up their rightful claims. This greatly helps the TNCs and their sub-contractors to scrupulously exploit workers—especially women workers, who make up the absolute majority of the working population of the EPZs.

The author once encountered a male worker who was looking for a job in the EPZ of Shen-Zhen. He complained that it was difficult to find a job since plants always prefer to hire females. As to my question, "why is this?" he replied, "Female workers are easier to handle."

For management, "handling" male workers is more difficult because they are less likely to endure the cruelty of the sweatshops. Cases of violent fighting between male workers and management have been reported.

As for women workers, since they come mainly from rural areas where women have been oppressed for thousands of years and thus made to be more obedient, they tend to be more tolerant even when unscrupulously exploited.

They are easy prey for management in addition since they have little access to legal advice and have little knowledge of their own rights.

The work day in the EPZs of China lasts as long as 10 to 12 hours. At times when orders must be rushed through, it is common for the employees to work from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.—or even to 2 a.m. Workers find it difficult to cope with such hard labor, but any refusal to work overtime will result in their being fired.

Only youngsters in their late teens and early twenties can endure such inhumane hardship. When they reach their late twenties, they often find it hard to continue and leave the job—thus releasing management of the burden of paying any compensation for having to lay them off.

Since the female population in the EPZs far exceeds the male, women workers generally find it difficult to encounter prospective husbands. Even if a woman can find one, her family will oppose her choice if the man does not come from the same county Moreover, some factories have rules that force women to resign if they get married.

It is common for married couples who come to the same EPZ to live separately, each staying in their own factory’s dormitory. Even when the couple works in the same factory, they still have to live in separate dormitories—thus no normal sex life is possible.

If women workers get pregnant, their own choice is resignation since they would be unable to endure such hard work. The employers then need not pay any maternity leave, although the law requires them to pay. In a word, women workers are seen as simple tools for the process of "value-added," not as human.

In Shenzhen, the minimum monthly wage is 460 RMB [Chinese "People’s Currency"; 8.3 RMB equal one U.S. dollar] for the outer EPZ and 600 RMB for the inner EPZ. These are shamefully low wages. Yet the majority of workers do not even get this level of wages. Some may get as low as 200 RMB [about $25] a month, which is not even enough for food.

Many women workers over-work at the expense of their health. Added to this is management’s harsh policy of no sick leave, restrictions on using toilets, and high medical expenses charged by both private and public hospitals.

Thus women workers often suffer from bad health. Most suffer from menstruation pains. One third are underweight. Many are nearsighted, especially those who work in electronics plants. Occupational accidents and exposure to toxics are severe problems.

Aside from physical health disabilities, women workers suffer spiritual damage from being forced to separate from their families, having few support groups in the cities, sexual harassment, etc. But since they have been denied basic civil rights and labor rights, they are robbed of the ability to defend themselves.

China is probably one of the most repressive countries in the world toward labor. Not only does the government deny workers the right to organize but the labor department and official trade unions are so anti-labor that they often refuse to enforce existing laws when they are favorable to workers.

One way to control migrant labor is the Hu-Kou system, or household registration, which restricts the right of mobility across the country, particularly the right of rural residents to move into the cities. Migrant workers must pay several hundred RMB in order to get a "temporary residential card." Failure to produce the card will result in forceful and always violent repatriation to one’s home village.

Last year, after a migrant college graduate who moved to another city to work was beaten to death for failing to produce the card, an uproar swept across the country, and the government relaxed the Hu-Kou system in response. The fees for the card were also substantially lowered. But the basic principle is still in place of denying equal citizenship to rural residents, and as such the migrant workers are denied basic welfare while their children are denied education.

Why then do rural young women still flock to the cities for jobs? It is because the countryside is slipping into bankruptcy. The "scissors" (the price differential between agricultural products and industrial products) has been widening year after year, bringing enormous burdens to small farmers.

In addition, higher and higher taxes leave farmers with little cash at their disposal. Since they face such difficulty in paying taxes, school fees for their younger children, and industrial products, they are forced to send their elder daughters to the cities for work.

Young women with basic or secondary education often prefer moving to the cities. They see this as a chance for improving the lives of their families and for personal development. They like to say that sticking to farming is "having their chest facing the soil and their back facing the sky—day after day, year after year," implying that there is little room for personal development there. Hence, millions of them migrate to look for jobs.

Now more and more women workers are becoming aware of their basic rights and are beginning to fight for them. It is the responsibility of the international workers movement to support their course, materially and spiritually. Only with such support can Chinese workers advance their struggle for freedom from the oppressive yoke of both the despotic state and the trans-national corporations.

The article above first appeared in the April 2004 issue of Socialist Action newspaper. Ting Yong is the pseudonym of a Hong Kong-based socialist activist who has worked with women in an EPZ of southern China. This article is special to Socialist Action.