华尔街日报
中国打工族，漫漫维权路
Protests by Hong Kong worker groups over the stabbing of Shenzhen labor leader Huang Qingnan reflect the unrest bubbling up ahead of China's new labor laws.
The Hong Kong groups say Huang, who runs a center counseling migrant workers, was attacked because of his work there. He is in the hospital with severe injuries and could lose a leg from infection, according to friends who have visited him.
Huang's labor center, the Dagongzhe Migrant Worker Centre, has been vandalized twice this month by assailants with pipes and is now closed. Shenzhen police confirmed the incidents and said they are investigating.
'If justice is not done for this case, it will give a misleading message to the attackers, and more labor groups and their staff would be harmed,' a consortium of Hong Kong labor groups said in a statement issued Monday.
They include Workers' Empowerment, Labor Action China, Asia Monitor Resources Centre, Globalization Monitor, and Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior.
The consortium is appealing to the Chinese authorities to help re-start the Dagongzhe center, provide Huang with appropriate medical treatment and improve the protection of civic groups.
The new labor laws, to take effect at the beginning of next year, are China's most significant overhaul of workplace regulation in a decade.
Companies will now face more stringent regulations in the firing and hiring of staff. In one proviso, employees who have worked 10 consecutive years are entitled to sign labor contracts with no fixed terms, essentially granting them permanent jobs.
China's nascent labor movement is growing more vocal with the nation's widening gap between rich and poor, a concern the Chinese government takes very seriously. But because of Hong Kong's proximity to southern China's manufacturing heartland and because many China-related labor groups are based in Hong Kong, the city's worker-rights groups have become involved in mainland matters.
The Dagongzhe center has been in operation for about four years. Its tiny staff-some five workers-has offered counseling, including advising laid-off workers on how to seek fair compensation.
Such advice appears to have been in more demand in recent months, following increasing reports of layoffs at small factories in southern China, said Dominique Muller, Hong Kong spokeswoman for the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation.
Labor analysts believe employers are laying off workers now in anticipation of the stricter laws.
Early this month, China's biggest telecommunications network equipment maker, Huawei Technologies Co., sparked controversy when it asked staff who had worked for eight consecutive years to re-apply for their positions, according to state news agency Xinhua.
Huawei later agreed to suspend the plan after discussions with China's umbrella trade group, the All China Federation of Trade Unions, according to Xinhua.
Huawei didn't respond in time to requests for comment.
Huang, 34 years old, became involved in labor rights after being injured while working in a food factory in 1999. He was disfigured after acid was thrown on his face while he was sleeping in a factory dormitory, according to his lawyer, Zhou Litai, a well-known civil rights attorney.
Huang unsuccessfully sued the company for compensation in a court case that lasted four years.
He later established the Dagongzhe center. Huang is a respected figure among Hong Kong labor groups, said Apo Leung, director of Asia Monitor Resources.