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DaShi
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The Taste of Japan
Sep 2000
time: 05:29
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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/18/i...sia/18GEMS.html
quote:
Making Trinkets in China, and a Deadly Dust
By JOSEPH KAHN
SHUANG TU, China, June 15 — With his handsome smile and full head of black hair, Hu Zhiguo hardly looks 44, much less gravely ill. The giveaway is his wispy voice, faint from clotted lungs.
One doctor told him he had tuberculosis. Another guessed it was cancer. The final diagnosis, based on the cumulus of gray that clouds his chest X-rays, is a severe case of silicosis, a disease Chinese workers call dust lung.
Mr. Hu got the illness making cheap necklaces and bracelets from iridescent stones like opal, sold by the containerload to United States retailers. Working long days at a factory in booming Guangdong Province, he probably inhaled more quartz dust in 10 years than China's own safety standards would permit in a thousand.
Mr. Hu has now retreated to his hometown here in the rugged hills of Sichuan, where he tried, and failed, to help his wife run a dry-goods store.
"I cannot lift a bag of rice," Mr. Hu whispered one recent evening in the back of the family shop. "I am a wasted man, waiting for death."
China has emerged as Asia's leading exporter of manufactured goods to the United States, but the workers who produce those goods are victims of a surge in fatal respiratory, circulatory, neurological and digestive-tract diseases like those American and European workers suffered at the dawn of the industrial age.
China in that sense is not only recreating the industrial transformation that brought prosperity to Europe, the United States and some East Asian nations. It is also reliving its horrors.
Even by its official count, China already has more deaths from work-related illnesses than any other country or region, including the industrialized economies of the United States and Europe combined.
Last year, 386,645 Chinese workers died of occupational illnesses, according to government data compiled by the International Labor Organization.
The statistics may understate the situation in China's thriving east coast industrial centers, where tens of millions of migrant workers like Mr. Hu produce the bulk of China's exports for well under a dollar an hour without employment contracts, health care plans or union representation.
The company where Mr. Hu worked, called Lucky Gems and Jewelry, is now based at a multibuilding site in Huizhou, about two hours north of the mainland Chinese border with Hong Kong. It employs 3,000 workers, almost all of them from far away provinces, living in dormitories inside a gated campus or in the harsh residential community that lines the unpaved streets and construction sites surrounding the factory.
Its owner, a Hong Kong businessman named Wang Shenghua, was a pioneer in bringing jewelry manufacturing to southern China in the mid-1980's, when he opened his first factory in the mainland's experimental economic zone of Shenzhen.
With Lucky and hundreds of small-scale rival manufacturers, China dominates a labor-intensive industry once scattered widely around East Asia and the Middle East.
Lucky says it takes safety seriously. While the owner, Mr. Wang, declined a reporter's request to talk with him and visit the factory, he appointed a lawyer to answer questions about its safety record. The lawyer, Kang Ziying, said the company has always protected its workers and invested heavily in equipment to prevent workers from contracting silicosis, though he acknowledges there have been some cases of the disease among its employees.
"We have always met the government's standards for safety," Mr. Kang said. "Otherwise, they would not let us operate."
Mr. Hu was a 30-year-old peasant farmer eager to earn a worker's wage when he left his home in northern Sichuan in 1990. He traveled for four days, by train and bus, to Shenzhen. There, he landed a job at Lucky, introduced to the company by a distant relative.
He learned how to cut and sand semiprecious stones like opal, topaz and malachite into hearts, stars, pearls, and diamond shapes that are strung together to make rings, bracelets and necklaces.
Mr. Hu sat shoulder to shoulder with other cutters and polishers in confined workshops. Often working 12- and even 18-hours days, they generated clouds of dust that hung in the air even when windows were wide open and the fans were set to high.
"It was always like dusk inside the factory, no matter how much sunlight there was outside," he said. "It was like a heavy fog. We got used to it."
By the late 1990's, Mr. Hu began having trouble climbing stairs and lifting rocks. He came to dread winter, when a common head cold caused prolonged torment. "If I walked quickly, I would run out of breath right away. If I got a cold, I felt like I was suffocating," he said.
If anyone at Lucky was aware of the risks that workers might acquire diseases from exposure to quartz dust, Mr. Hu says that information was not shared with him. Local doctors first told him he might have tuberculosis, then lung cancer. By late 1999, he felt too weak to continue and took a low-paying job selling fruit on the muddy street in front of the factory.
A short time later, when numerous colleagues began developing similar symptoms, Mr. Hu joined them on bus trips to the provincial capital, Guangzhou, to seek a diagnosis. There, a doctor at a hospital that specializes in occupational diseases suspected that jewelry workers might be developing silicosis in large numbers.
The pulmonary ailment comes from overexposure to silicon dioxide trapped in quartz, minerals, rocks and sand. Though it is one of the oldest known occupational diseases, it has only recently become a priority for Chinese authorities, who now consider it a leading work-related illness.
Despite what Lucky workers described as a campaign by the company to deny the problem, provincial authorities eventually ordered all of Lucky's workers to undergo X-ray exams. How many workers showed signs of the disease is uncertain. At least 50 people claim to have fallen sick at Lucky. What is clear is that the company began battling dozens of workers over medical claims, while installing equipment to improve ventilation.
Mr. Kang, the lawyer, said some of the people seeking compensation were fakers and opportunists who either never worked there or who did not really have chronic illnesses. He acknowledged that the company invested $1 million to improve ventilation at the factory after 2001, but said those were not the first steps the company had taken to clean up the work environment.
Workers tell a different story. In the shadows of the Huizhou plant, where the ear-splitting whine of stonecutting machines pierces the air, about two dozen old friends and colleagues of Mr. Hu rent tiny rooms in restaurants, shops and private homes. They spend their days petitioning the government and gathering evidence to use against the company in court.
"Our boss cares only about the money in his pocket," said Liu Huaquan, a 39-year-old former craftsman at Lucky. In 2001, he was the first worker at the company to have silicosis formally diagnosed, but he is still fighting for compensation.
"You would think he could share a small part of his profits with the workers who got sick," Mr. Liu said. "But he uses his money to deny that we exist."
Two former Lucky managers, Chen Xingfu and Yuan Tianhui, say that shortly after they were told they had silicosis, Lucky demoted them, cut their salaries in half and assigned them to haul rocks to and from a warehouse. The demotions, both men said, were intended to force them to leave the company so it would not be obligated to pay their medical expenses.
They said they resigned because their silicosis made it impossible to do heavy manual labor. They are now suing. Mr. Kang, the company lawyer, said their demotions were performance related.
The company has denied compensation to others who worked for Lucky before 1997, the year the company opened its Huizhou plant. Lucky's old Shenzhen factory has no legal tie to Lucky even though it had the same owner and many of the same workers, the company argued in court.
The Huizhou factory does appear to have improved internal air quality, though workers said the main ventilation system was installed only after the first cases of silicosis were confirmed. Work stations now have vacuum tubes to suck up dust, which is spewed outside through exhaust valves. A light frost of silica crystals covers the factory grounds.
Even so, stonecutters and sanders can be easily spotted at the end of the work day because their company-issued navy blue crew shirts have turned gray from the dust.
The factory failed a safety inspection by the Huizhou Center for Disease Control as recently as last summer. The center's report shows that some work stations had ambient silica concentrations as high as 70 times the standard allowed by the Chinese safety code, which is less strict than related American and European standards by a factor of 20.
Lucky rejected the results of that inspection and arranged a new test by another safety agency last October, which it passed. Workers say the company, informed in advance of the inspection, shut down some work stations before inspectors arrived. The company denies that.
Any improvements came too late for Mr. Hu. Doctors eventually confirmed that he had third-degree silicosis, the most severe form, and he was told that the only way to extend his life was to stop working.
He stayed in Huizhou for two years, living on borrowed money, to force the company to pay his medical expenses. It refused, but eventually agreed to a one-time settlement proposed by the Huizhou government that gave Mr. Hu 200,000 yuan, about $25,000. He returned home.
Half a year later, most of the money is gone. Mr. Hu spent several thousand dollars to open a small grocery to generate income. But he found he could not even stock the shelves without collapsing from exhaustion. When he began coughing up blood this spring, he turned the store over to his wife.
Mr. Hu said he had spent most of the severance on hospital visits and intravenous injections of glucose and sodium chloride, which help relieve the pressure on his chest.
One day last week he called his 16-year-old son to his bedside and told the boy that he had to find a job instead of attending high school as planned.
"I am on the threshold of death and this family must have income," Mr. Hu said. "He cried when I told him and I cried, too. But we are going to run out of money in a few months. There is no other way." |
In other news, Lucky Gems and Jewelry is currently looking for hardworking, desperate people willing to waste away their lives for peanuts and crackerjacks. Prior lung poisoning not required, but a plus.
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Zylka
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HA ah AA!!!
I bet you almost sh*t yourself to be the first one to say something like that, Che?
quote:
Last year, 386,645 Chinese workers died of occupational illnesses, according to government data compiled by the International Labor Organization. |
Unreal. Absolutely unreal.
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mindseye
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A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:29
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quote:
migrant workers like Mr. Hu produce the bulk of China's exports for well under a dollar an hour |
A very common problem with reporting the plight of workers in China is the translation of Chinese renminbi figures into US dollars without mentioning the actual buying power of those renmenbi in China. Readers are left with the impression that the amounts in question are appallingly small, when in fact they may not be.
In this example, Mr. Hu works "12- and even 18-hours days" for "well under a dollar an hour". Let's assume he is only paid for 10-hours of work daily, six days per week (unsurprisingly, workers here are not always paid for every hour they work). Let's assume "well under a dollar" is about sixty US cents (about five rmb) per hour. That means, in a four-week month, Mr. Hu's salary is about 1,200 rmb per month. To put that in perspective, in the provinces with the wealthiest farmers in China (Zhejiang & Jiangsu, both neighboring Shanghai), farmers earn something like 1,500 rmb per month. However, most farmers earn substantially less. In the hinterlands, they might earn about 200 rmb/month. Knowing this, you can understand why Mr. Hu would ever consider such a job.
This also explains why laborers continue to line up for work in China's dreadfully dangerous mines: the pay - relative to local standards - is often quite good. This is the opposite of the impression you might get when reading figures quoted in US dollars.
quote:
the Huizhou government that gave Mr. Hu 200,000 yuan, about $25,000. |
In a similar vein, $25,000 sounds like a shockingly small sum, yet in Mr. Hu's home town, that amount would probably be far more than required to build a luxurious multi-storey home. If the average salary in his home town is 500 rmb/month (could easily be lower), that US$25,000 is about the equivalent of 33 years' average salary.
Believe me, I'm not trying to exonerate the despicable villians who so happily exploit other Chinese for (sometimes relatively small) personal gain. However, sometimes the situation is not as extreme as western news stories may lead one to believe.
Last edited by mindseye on 19-06-2003 at 11:48
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mindseye
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A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:29
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quote:
Don't tell me the same crap doesn't happen in the US, Japan, or anywhere else, DaShi. |
Sure, it happens, but on nowhere near the scale and frequency it does in China - and in many other developing countries, for that matter. Corruption and exploitation of workers/the poor are hardly Chinese problems, they are major issues in something like 2/3 of the world's nations.
Another key difference is that in most western nations (not as sure about Japan, S. Korea), a worker such as Mr. Hu stands a fighting chance in a court of law. Few in China have such an option, at least not yet. 
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote:
Originally posted by mindseye
Sure, it happens, but on nowhere near the scale and frequency it does in China - and in many other developing countries, for that matter. |
You have other problems, such as Enron and MCI Worldcom.
quote:
Originally posted by mindseye
Corruption and exploitation of workers/the poor are hardly Chinese problems, they are major issues in something like 2/3 of the world's nations. |
Yes, sure corruption is a problem. The laws are there, just that they aren't enforced enough.
quote:
Originally posted by mindseye
Another key difference is that in most western nations (not as sure about Japan, S. Korea), a worker such as Mr. Hu stands a fighting chance in a court of law. Few in China have such an option, at least not yet. |
There are some lawyers do pro bono work.
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Zylka
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Does anyone here yet understand that we're not talking about the f*cking cereal? ok
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Zylka
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quote:
Originally posted by Boris Godunov
How come whenever people bring up Western companies like Nike and such exploiting workers in developing countries, we hear "That's the way capitalism works!" and other such excuses from the right, but here they instantly jump on the Chinese government (which I am no fan of, believe me), blaming them for thid guys woes?
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I don't know. Even western exploitation companies know to supply their workers with something called a "DUSTMASK". Granted that and the 1 or 2 replacements spanning one's career might cost a whopping $2.79 a worker - I guess that's where we have to be sympathetic
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Zylka
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quote:
Originally posted by mindseye
This is a key point often overlooked by the western press. 2003 China is not the same as 2003 USA. China is in the midst of a change that the west went through long ago, comparisons need to keep this in mind. I applaud the reporter for including this reference, few such stories do. |
Yet 2003 China is not 1850 USA. China is not in the 19th century chimney sweep era, rather one where they have MASSIVE infrastructure - including superhighways, mass transit, looming skyscrapers, and the same trivial gadgets consumed all over the world. I don't much care how little of these things they can produce - but if they can construct them to the capacity claimed, maybe a little bit of that production could be sacrificed to buy rare treasures such as dustmasks. Don't stop me there in naming other examples!
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Zylka
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
You have other problems, such as Enron and MCI Worldcom.
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Yes, except these smokescreen cases have nothing to do with working hundreds of thousands of your desperate people to death EVERY YEAR - in simply saving enough to keep a few of those semi precious stone necklaces, etc. yourselves
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mindseye
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A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:29
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quote:
You have other problems, such as Enron and MCI Worldcom. |
Apples and oranges.
The Enrons and Worldcoms are rare indeed when compared to what is normal operating procedure at their Chinese counterparts (i.e major Chinese corporations). He11, even Beijing admits that most major Chinese corporations are cooking their books.
AS far as sweatshops and labor exploitation is concernced, you will certainly find it in the US as well, but it is minute in comparison with the problems in China, where this is quite common. And again, at least laborers in the US can resort to the courts and the media.
quote:
There are some lawyers do pro bono work. |
And end up ... arrested! That's what usually happens, anyway. Most recent example: residents of Shanghai who lost their homes to a corrupt developer. Six households found a lawyer to take up their complaint with the city gov't. The lawyer was immediately arrested for "revealing state secrets." The "secrets" were documents proving that corrupt city officials had cut the developer a sweetheart deal (in return for a kickback, of course).
quote:
The makers of Lucky Charms are giving their business to companies that provide super cheap labor in unhealthy conditions, and they don't bear any responsibility for this? |
I agree, but in this case it's not an American company, it's a domestic Chinesecompany, "Lucky Gems".
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DaShi
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The Taste of Japan
Sep 2000
time: 05:29
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
There is another thing I want to point out. So you have, now and then, a businessman who cuts corners to make even bigger profits. So what? You cannot draw any conclusions from an isolated example. Don't tell me the same crap doesn't happen in the US, Japan, or anywhere else, DaShi. |
We should make a game out of this. You get a point for each post Urban Ranger makes comparing the US in every non-US thread you start. Two points, if the thread is about China.
4 points for me today.
Now on to serious matters.
Mindseye,
Unfortunately, most of the stories printed about any country are usually negative. If they're not, then they are often boring and make for poor thread topics. Of course, there are good ones. Canada's legalizing gay marriages for example. But China hasn't come up with anything like this. In short, this is all I have to work with. Plus, making people aware of these issues is important, especially for China, which has demonstrated that they will do little for human welfare unless foreign pressure pushes them to, it is cost effective, or a revolution or riot will start. This is one of the good points about China's rise as a world power. It makes other countries more interested in them. The Chinese hate this, but they need it. When I was in China, all I heard was that China would be a superpower without making all the mistakes that the West did. However, that is not the case. Hopefully, with pressure China will develop the systems to help curtail human rights abuses there. Until then, people need to know. However, the next time I come across a more positive article about China, I'll be sure to post it.
Oh, and I like to get UR riled up by these threads. But it is losing its sport as of late. 
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mindseye
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A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:29
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quote:
Not so. They are both manifestations of the same thing: namely companies breaking laws for their own gain. |
Sorry, apples and oranges. There is a difference in the type of gain. In the US, the management of a few large, influential companies cooked the books to benefit themselves financially. In China, small business owners frequently imperil their employees' health or lives for small financial gain (the subject of this thread, ahem). No one that I know of lost a limb from Enron's collapse.
Unfortunately I cannot recall the source. It was in an article comparing corporate accounting practices. The estimates were that something like 5% of large US corporations were cooking their books (appalling in and of itself), while Beijing's own estimates for the same were something like 75% of China's largest corporations. If you've ever done business in China, you may conclude that 75% is probably much lower than the actual figure.
quote:
Enron and MCI Worldcom |
To use your style of debate, I suppose I could respond "That's just two cases". 
Instead, I'll offer a real response: if you don't believe that the arrested Shanghai lawyer represents business as usual in China, then you don't know much about life in contemporary China (have you spent any time at all in the mainland?). In the PRC, the police (like most officials) are for sale. From my experiences living here, this is utterly standard operating procedure and common knowledge. He11, I have experienced this myself, firsthand! The cops here don't usually bother you, but step on some official's corruption pipeline, and you'll be dealing with the police very, very soon. 
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Apolyton Time is 00:29. |
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18-06-2003 21:14
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