IMF joins complaint against China

CHINA: The IMF has informed the International Labour Organisation that it is joining the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in a formal complaint lodged on March 27 with the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association against the government of the People's Republic of China for violations of the principles of freedom of association. During the month of March alone, in the provinces of Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Sichuan, there have been reports of authorities taking a number of repressive measures - such as threats, intimidation, intervention by security forces, beatings, detentions, arrests and other mistreatment - against leaders, elected representatives and members of independent workers' organisations. The IMF is particularly concerned about the case of at least 5 independent workers' representatives at the Ferro Alloy Factory in Liaoyang (the capital city of Liaoning Province, in northestern China) who were arrested last month and remain in detention. One of them, Yao Fuxin, is believed to have been severely mistreated, if not killed, by public security officials. Yao was arrested on March 17, several days after 10,000 retrenched workers, mostly from the ferro alloy plant, staged a mass demonstration in Liaoyang to demand a solution to the economic and social problems encountered by the laid-off workers. They also called for legal measures against the corrupt managers of the factory and that the Public Security Bureau refrain from arresting the workers' freely elected representatives. The IMF has written to the ILO director-general, Juan Somavía, requesting him to intervene without delay with the Chinese government to clarify the situation of Yao Fuxin and all other detained workers' representatives, with a view to obtaining their immediate release. In a letter to the country's president, Jiang Zemin, the IMF general secretary, Marcello Malentacchi, expressed the IMF's shock by the developments there and by the government's attitude. "We urge you," said Malentacchi, "to urgently issue instructions to the relevant departments of your Government in order that all detained workers' representatives be immediately released ... and that all intimidation, threats and other repressive measures against all independent workers' activists be stopped at once and that the management of the companies and the local authorities involved be instructed to negotiate in good faith with the workers' representatives concerning all of their legitimate claims." The IMF has sent copies of the above-mentioned letters to the All-China Federation of Trade Unions and to the National Committee of Chinese Machinery and Metallurgical Workers' Union.