Read this article in:
6 April, 2003United Auto Workers' president says China encourages an anti-worker, anti-union environment, and that the U.S. auto industry should rethink its investments there.
USA/CHINA: Recent remarks by the United Auto Workers' president, Ron Gettelfinger, that China foments a climate which is hostile to workers and trade unions, were denounced by Chinese authorities via a spokesperson at the Chinese Consulate in Chicago.
To illustrate his charges, Gettelfinger had referred to the two independent metalworker activists from the Liaoyang Ferro-Alloy Factory, Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang, who were accused of subversion after organising a protest action in March 2002 to demand back pay and pensions for some 10,000 laid-off workers at the steel plant. (See associated link for IMF background information on this case.)
Although China has attempted to deny that the subversion charges against the two labour activists are related to the protest action, Amnesty International has supported the UAW president's account. In a statement specifically mentioning Yao and Xiao, the human rights organisation said: "Subversion charges, which carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment or the death penalty, continue to be used widely to detain and imprison rights activists in China."
Due to China's top record on imprisoning trade union activists, Gettelfinger is challenging the U.S. auto industry to rethink its attitude toward investments in this country.
This past January, when the trial against Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang opened, the IMF general secretary, Marcello Malentacchi, protested not only to the president of China, but also wrote to the All China Federation of Trade Unions saying that instead of assisting Yao and Xiao, "the ACFTU has abandoned them to a system that continues to ignore even the most fundamental workers' rights."
The outcome of the trial has not yet been announced.