{"id":389,"date":"2013-09-29T17:05:57","date_gmt":"2013-09-29T17:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/2013\/09\/29\/china-worker-rights-and-the-mirage-of-reform-iuf-2013\/"},"modified":"2013-09-29T17:05:57","modified_gmt":"2013-09-29T17:05:57","slug":"china-worker-rights-and-the-mirage-of-reform-iuf-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/2013\/09\/29\/china-worker-rights-and-the-mirage-of-reform-iuf-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"China: Worker Rights and the Mirage of \u2018Reform\u2019 – IUF (2013)"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nPublished on IUF UITA IUL (http:\/\/cms.iuf.org)
\nChina: worker rights and the mirage of \u2018reform\u2019<\/strong><\/em>
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\n23-09-2013
\nTrade union and NGO statements submitted for the UN\u2019s upcoming Universal Periodic Review of member states\u2019 human rights records give stark evidence of the relentless and systematic repression of worker and trade union rights in the People\u2019s Republic of China. Submissions from the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions [1] (HKCTU), ITUC [2], Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among others, demonstrate that workers in China who organize in defense of their interests, go on strike or even petition to the government are fired, criminalized, arbitrarily detained in \u201cblack jails\u201d outside the legal framework or sentenced to prison labour \u2013 with the complicity of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which remains the single authorized \u201cworkers\u2019 organization\u201d under existing law.
\nTens and millions of rural migrants to the urban industrial centers \u2013 over a third of the urban population \u2013 suffer systematic discrimination and lack basic rights to residency, social protection and education. Worker and labour rights activists seeking to function as legal NGOs are subject to surveillance, fines and eviction.
\nLegal \u201creforms\u201d designed to suggest convergence with international rights standards have been essentially cosmetic or even retrograde. Article 73 of the new Criminal Procedure Law effectively legalizes forced \u201cdisappearances\u201d by allowing police to detain individuals for up to 6 months in unofficial detention centers (\u201cblack jails\u201d) without informing family members of the whereabouts of those jailed or detained. Hints of changes earlier this year to the Reeducation through Labour system \u2013a conduit by which the products of forced labour routinely enter international supply chains \u2013 chiefly amounted to a change of name to \u201cIllegal Behavior Correction\u201d. According to Amnesty, torture remains \u201cendemic\u201d in China.
\nThe ACFTU\u2019s new clothes and increasing ability to talk the talk that trade unionists visiting China like to hear should not be allowed to obscure the ongoing work of the state\u2019s enormous repressive apparatus and the indispensable role of the ACFTU in this repressive machinery..
\nThe HKCTU submission to the review procedure contains a non-exhaustive list of workers and labour rights activists currently serving sentences of 2 years to life for their defense of working class interests. Their cases, and the urgent need for fundamental democratic change in China, are central to the struggle for worker rights internationally.
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\nThe International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) is an international federation of trade unions representing workers employed in agriculture and plantations; the preparation and manufacture of food and beverages; hotels, restaurants and catering services; all stages of tobacco processing. The IUF is composed of 388 affiliated organizations in 124 countries representing a combined membership of around 2,6 million.
\nHow to contact the IUF:
\nEmail: iuf@iuf.org
\nPost: Rampe du Pont-Rouge, 8, CH-1213, Petit-Lancy (Switzerland)
\nPhone: + 41 22 793 22 33
\nFax: + 41 22 793 22 38
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\nSource URL: http:\/\/cms.iuf.org\/?q=node\/2782
\nLinks:
\n[1] http:\/\/cms.iuf.org\/sites\/cms.iuf.org\/files\/HKCTUUNHRCsubmission.pdf
\n[2] http:\/\/cms.iuf.org\/sites\/cms.iuf.org\/files\/ITUCUNHRC.pdf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}