WORKING CONDITION
(The flip-side of success - Febraury 1996)

Working Hours and Holidays

  On our visits to electronics enterprises, serious instances of overtime work were reported. The management in these enterprises ignore the labour laws and regulations, forcing workers to do overtime. Workers can work for up to 11 or 12 hours per day, and sometimes some even have to carry on working throughout the night. This kind of situation is seriously damaging to workers health.
  According to PRC labour laws and regulations, a worker's normal working hours should be eight hours a day, five days a week (as adopted on 1 May, 1995), with weekly working hours not exceeding 40. Where an enterprise has difficulties in implementing the new working hours system, China will allow the enterprise to keep to a working week of 44 hours until 1 May 1997.
  As for overtime, Article 41 of the Labour Law clearly states that: an employing unit may extend working hours to meet production targets, through consultation with labour unions and the labourers. Normally, this may not exceed one hour per day. Where working hours are extended for special situations they may not exceed three hours per day, and not more than 36 hours per month, in order to safeguard labourers' health.   In the 14 electronics enterprises we investigated, we discovered that most had violated labour regulations on working hours. In terms of basic working hours, working hours in at least nine enterprises exceeded the standard of 44 hours. In these nine companies, average working hours were 51.19 hours per week, more than 16.3% above the standard.
  Nine enterprises had violated relevant regulations on overtime. On average, overtime in these nine enterprises totalled 87.1 hours per month, 142% higher than the standard of the legal limit of 36 hours. The following are some examples of excessive working hours:

1. According to one worker in an electronics equipment (parts) factory in Nanshan, Shenzhen, in addition to regular work, the workers also have to do overtime during the lunch break and from 6 p.m. to 11 or 12 p.m., and they are often forced to do overtime on Sundays. If they do not do overtime accordingly, they may be seen as neglecting their work or fined. Workers dare not disobey their orders. It is routine for them not to have a day off on Sundays, working overtime until 11 or 12 p.m. just as on every other day. Working 11 or 12 hours a day is pretty much par for the course.

2. In Yida Electronics Factory in Huizhou, workers do an average of 80-90 hours' overtime every month, sometimes even over 100 hours. The workers say the management often forces them to work excessive overtime. In 1993, on four occasions between September and December they were forced to work three days' overtime without stopping, during which time they didn't even have the chance to have a drink of water. The workers' lives are unbelievably harsh.
  Is overtime in reality an individual choice. as it is stipulated to he in labour regulations? If workers refuse to do overtime they are punished for neglecting their work.

3. The workers we visited at Baijia Electronic Wires Factory state that if they ask for a day off they can he fined Rmb 10 by the management, while workers in the Korean invested Ruijin Factory say they dare not refuse to do overtime tor the management, as they do not want to have any money deducted on the grounds of neglecting work. Workers in joint ventures and foreign-invest ed electronics factories usually do extra work under pressure from the management. Although the information supplied to us by the workers shows that in general factories have a day off on Sundays, they stress that if the management wants an ''urgent shipment", they still have to go to the factory and do overtime.
  So in general, even after the State has implemented the five-day week system, workers in the electronics industry cannot usually enjoy the day of rest they deserve.

Wages

  The rights and interests of workers working in foreign-invested factories are not safeguarded. On one hand, workers in this kind of factory usually do not understand what their rights and interests are, (as almost all are recent migrants from the poor villages), so the management can freely impinge on their rights and interests. On the other hand, the management can do as it pleases, considering the authorities' preferential treatment accorded to foreign investment, and lackadaisical enforcement of laws by government officials. The above-cited cases of management forcing workers to do extra work are just a few examples of this situation.
  Below we will focus on how the management holds back the workers wages. A clearer picture of wage standards determined by labour laws and regulations is provided in the table of the regional minimum wage standards in Guangdong province opposite:
  Except for basic wages decided by local governments, overtime wages are set according to Article 44 of the Labour Law, which states, "when arranging for workers to extend their working hours, remuneration equivalent to not less than 150% of the regular wage shall be paid...." In addition overtime wages for rest days should be paid on a double-time rate and triple-time for legally designated holidays. The workers' wages were less than the minimum wage standard designated by regulations in eight of the 14 factories we investigated.
  In Guanya Electronics Factory in Dongguan, the hourly wage is only Rmb 1.25, 32.2% less than the legally-designat ed Rmb l.99.
  In Huamei Electronics Factory, situated outside Shenzhen SEZ, the average hourly wage is only Rmb 1.25, some 21.9% less than the standard designated Rmb l.6.
  In Meizhi and Xinyang electronics factories in Shenzhen SEZ the average hourly wage is 14.6% less than the standard.   In Chun Tai Electronics Factory in Zhongshan, it is 11.2% less than the standard Rmb 1.7.
  Of the seven electronics factories we visited in Zhuhai, three of them (Matsushita, Ruijin and Xianxing) did not comply with Zhuhai City's minimum wage standard of Rmb 2.16; on average, these three factories paid 39.4% lower than the standard. Although wages paid in the other four factories were higher than local city government regulations, after food and lodging, medical expenses etc. were paid, the actual wage level was not much higher than the minimum wage. Many workers we visited say it is hard to send much money home to their family in the villages because their wages barely cover their own expenses.
  Such underpayment of wages is common among all small - and medium-size FlEs, but from the management's point of view, this deduction of wages is just one way of "cutting down on costs". Many factories hold back the workers' first month's wages, are in arrears on wages or concoct different methods and various types of fines to help increase the factory's income in other ways. The following are some individual cases described by the workers we interviewed:

Strict Factory Regimes

  Apart from the aforementioned methods of forcing extra overtime, docking pay, implementing fines, etc., to lower production costs, the FIEES usually also adopt strict management methods to make workers observe the principle of 'Production First'. In addition, there are also many strict rules arbitrarily set by the factories and which violate the legislation that workers must abide by. Many electronics factories stipulate that workers should take turns to go to the toilet and return to their work station within a specified time or else they will be punished.
  The above-described yellow card system used at Matsushita is one example; other even more horrendous treatment includes heating and abusing workers, the 'kneeling punishment', not allowing workers to have a drink of water, restricting workers from going to the toilet etc. The following examples come from the workers we interviewed and from newspaper reports:

- In March 1995, workers at the Korean invested Ruijin Electronics Factory in Zhuhai City were collectively penalised. The workers had done overnight overtime for four evenings, during which time they had slept only five hours, so they had a nap during the ten-minute afternoon tea break. The boss considered that workers sleeping on the table were breaking factory regulations. She ordered over 100 workers to kneel down in a row as punishment. The workers who refused to submit were dragged along, heaten and abused. The ones who would still not give in were sacked on the spot.
  Ruijin Electronics Factory has over 30 rules set out by the boss, for instance, 'those sleeping on duty will he fined Rmb 20 each time'. Almost all of the rules concern punishment and expulsion; but even in these rules, there was no mention of the "kneelingpunishment".
  The Zhuhai City Labour Bureau stepped in and punished the management, demanding that it reimburse the sacked workers' wages and pay compensation, hand over a report on excessive overtime (as described above, overtime in this factory in February was well over 200 hours), and apologise to the workers. However, the boss agreed only to pay the fine and compensation but would not apologise to the workers; she said she was willing to listen to the workers' opinions, but the workers described this as 'luring a mosquito out of a hole (to be killed)'. Some workers who had offered their opinions say they were intimidated and 'persuaded' to quit their jobs.
  The enterprise's management indiscriminately abused their workers with beating, scolding and corporal punishment, totally disregarded the workers' dignity.

- Jinjia Electronics Co Ltd in Bao'an, Shenzhen, is another example. Every day at clocking off time in this factory, security personnel are sent to stand at the factory gates to search every single worker (male and female) by checking their pockets and patting their legs. This company is a producer of radio cassette player products. Spare parts are quite expensive and the boss is worried that they might be stolen, so has deliberately ruled that workers must be searched every time they leave the factory. Those violating the factory rules are expelled promptly.

- The Epson factory we visited in Shenzhen is yet another example. If workers go to the toilet without permission they will have some money deducted from their wages. What is more, the factory has a rule whereby big offences are subject to a fine of more than Rmb l00, and small offences more than Rmb 30. However the workers are unclear as to what violation of a rule constitutes a big offence and what a small offence is. It is mostly after they are punished that they finally find out what the factory rules include, because the enterprise decides arbitrarily.

- Jiaying Electronics Factory in the Meilin Industrial Zone rules that workers may not have a drink of water during working hours, or else they will be flned Rmb 5-10 for each drink. They can spend no longer than 15 minutes in the toilet during working hours.

- Tong Ye Electronics factory in Shenzhen stipulates that workers going to the toilet during working hours must wear a leaving-the-post badge, or else they will he fined Rmb 5-10; hut there are 40-60 workers on each production line and there are only two or three leaving-the-post badges. The workers have to study 'endurance' to cope with such restrictions. In addition this factory also rules that workers may not run, or walk in twos when clocking on or clocking on or else they will he fined one hour's wages. If workers resign from their employment, the factory keeps the workers' initial deposit payment and their last month's wages.
  Such ahusive treatment hy the management relegates workers to the status of an item of production machinery. These managers are able to carry out such severe and flagrant abuses of the workers only because the latter are deprived of their right to organise and negotiate.



HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK



Use of Chemicals


  Around 300 kinds of chemicals are commonly used or stored in the electronics industry. Long term or short-term exposure to many of these chemicals can cause many different kinds of illnesses. For example, the alloy fluxes used for soldering printed circuit boards and their components often contain lead, zinc, and resina (turpentine) etc., which give off toxic fumes. Resina can cause asthma. Other chemicals commonly used when producing PCBs and their components are chlorobenzene, plastic resin, epoxy resin and silica. Chlorobenzene is a skin irritant and long-term exposure can cause serious skin damage or permanent allergies. Some solvents such as chlorobenzene and chlorinated diphenyls can cause chloracne and damage to the liver. Resins and their curing agents used in the encapsulation processing of PCBs are irritants to the skin and the respiratory system, and can cause dermatitis, coughing, and aching eyes, etc. Some chlorinated solvents (such as trichloroethylene) when exposed to high temperature (such as during soldering) produce a highly poisonous gas, phosgene, which if inhaled can cause potentially fatal lungoedema. 

  The above examples are only the tip of the iceberg. The electronics industry is filled with hidden hazards. Industrialists often are aware of such health hazards in the production. But many electronics enterprises neither adopt adequate industrial safety measures nor inform the workers of the hazards. As a result workers unknowingly are constantly exposed to damages to their health.

 

Lack of Protective Gear


  Of the workers we visited the vast majority say they are not required to wear the most basic protective gear such as safety helmets, masks or gloves.

  The workers at the Korean-invested Xianxing in Zhuhai even told us it is hard to breathe easily in the workshop, as the air is very hot and stuffy. Some workers faint during working hours, but they are not provided with masks or gloves.

  The tragic case of some mass poisoning, resulting from long-term use of toxic glues in the Hong Kong-invested Rirong Plastics Electronics Factory, situated in Zhongshan (near Zhuhai), drew some public attention. In mid-November 1993 three female workers died in the factory and more than 30 workers fell ill. It was later proved some extremely toxic glues used in the factory had given off poisonous fumes inhaled by the workers, causing brain and nervous damage. Some workers were per manently injured. None of the workers knew the management was using toxic materials. The management did not advise the workers to use any protective equipment.



Unsafe Storage of Dangerous Goods


  Some enterprises keep large quantities of dangerous goods close to their factories, in blatant disregard for workers' lives and safety.

  At Shenzhen's Guangtong Development Co Ltd, two gas canisters over 10m high and 1m wide containing liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen were kept next to the factory, blocking the whole roadside. These inflammable gases were stored at the factory grounds, like massive bombs. In the event of a leak, a huge explosion could easily have happened, so the workers say they felt like they were sitting next to a landmine every day at work. 


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