Labor Unrest In China

Columns of helmeted military police dispersed thousands of protesters in one northern Chinese city and demonstrators overturned a car in another Wednesday, part of labor unrest fueled by anger over industrial reform that has blocked wages and benefits. Three labor leaders were detained by police.

Accounts of the unrest, which came from witnesses in the cities of Daqing and Liaoyang in the heart of China's "rust belt," suggest that protests under way since early this month may be gathering steam.

In Daqing, a famed oil town in northern China's frigid Heilongjiang province, witnesses said workers - many laid off - were demonstrating Wednesday morning in front of the provincial branch of China National Petroleum Corp. when a traffic accident took place.

Protesters surged forward and overturned the gray Chinese-made Santana, one witness said. It was not clear who was inside the vehicle.

"I don't know what happened to the victims and the driver," said a traffic police officer from the city's Ranghulu district, reached by telephone. He did not give his name.

In Liaoyang, in Liaoning province, police seized Xiao Yunliang, Tang Qingxiang and Wang Zhaoming, three workers' leaders from the city's bankrupt Ferroalloy Factory after some 10,000 workers thronged around government headquarters, protesters said.

Police let about 1,000 protesters inside the mostly empty building and locked a few chosen representatives into a room, but workers broke in the door and released them, they said. As they left the building, the police struck again, they added.

"First, more than 20 plainclothes police attacked the group, tramping old retirees under their feet, and dragged away Xiao Yunliang. We could not stop them," one protester, a woman worker laid off from the Ferroalloy Factory, told Reuters.

"Minutes later, another group of about 100 uniformed police attacked us again, beat us up and hauled away Tang Qingxiang and Wang Zhaoming. Now almost all our leaders are gone, and we don't know what to do."

A Liaoyang man who works for a private factory but knows many of the protesters said owed salaries and severance payments are just part of the reason, and that "the real problem is that the life of laid-off workers is too difficult." The worker, who gave only his surname, Ma, said people feel the government used them "and then threw them away."

Such demonstrations - particularly ones allowed to continue for so long - are unusual in China, where the government keeps a tight rein on protests and uses threats and force to discourage any anti-government activism.

But the government also realizes that workers, once revered as the "vanguard of the proletariat," are suffering from widespread closures of inefficient and outdated state firms.

Simmering unrest among workers and farmers represents one of the greatest threats to Communist Party rule as China prepares for a sweeping leadership change late this year.

"It doesn't matter if it's Daqing or Liaoyang, these are the biggest organized demonstrations since 1989," said Han Dongfang, a labor activist exiled after the Tiananmen demonstrations and now with Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin.

He said Beijing had told local governments to handle protests without bloodshed in the sensitive run-up to a party congress in September or October, when top leaders are expected to retire.

"It is a different issue how the local governments will interpret and implement it," he said.

One woman who works in a travel agency near the Liaoyang city office said she saw 10,000 demonstrators on her way to work Wednesday - the ninth straight day of protests in front of the building. Protesters carried a portrait of revolutionary leader Mao Zedong mounted on a small chariot and red banners.

She said the number of protesters had increased by several thousand since Monday, with throngs crowding Democracy Road and narrow streets nearby each morning. Most were gone by the afternoon.

The protests have been peaceful, "but such a big crowd of protesters really shocked us," she said.

The government has been loath to acknowledge the protests. Liaoyang city officials said they didn't exist. "It's quiet outside," said a spokesman at the offices being besieged.

Ma, the worker from the nearby Jian An Machine Factory, said protests began with laid-off workers from Liaoyang Ferroalloy Factory but expanded this week to include ex-workers from other plants.

Farmers even joined in to protest not being paid by bankrupt factories that built on their lands, said Ma.

Protesters are angry at Liaoyang Ferroalloy Factory for refusing to pay laid-off workers severance pay of $500 a year. Ma said former workers feel they were cheated by factory managers working with corrupt local officials.

The demonstrations in Liaoyang escalated last week with the arrest of protest leader Yao Fuxin, detained by plainclothes police Thursday, according to the China Labor Bulletin. Yao, 54, led workers at the Liaoyang Ferroalloy Plant for the last four years since operators declared bankruptcy, it said.

Another worker protest broke out last week in the mining city of Fushun, also in Liaoning, a mining official said.

About 1,000 textile workers had also been protesting in Guangyuan in the southwestern province of Sichuan since March 13 to demand promised compensation for job losses, a spokeswoman for the Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin said.

A Guangyuan police official said those protests ended a few days ago after several arrests.

Labor activists also said disgruntled workers had protested in the central province of Henan and the coastal provinces of Guangdong and Fujian in the past month.