(Please scroll down for the original English article)
《寫在中國政府打壓、勞工活躍分子被捕之時》
【Caught in China’s crackdown on labor radicals】
2016年1月4日
12月3日,中國廣東,政府拘留了不下20位與各種勞工組織相關的人士。被拘留者活躍於工人運動,提供各種服務和培訓。在廣東掀起罷工和抗議的高潮之際,政府的鎮壓隨之降臨。
艾倫·戴維·弗裡德曼(她是佛蒙特州的“全國教育協會”的長期組織者,佛蒙特州“進步黨”的創始成員,也是“Labour Notes”政策委員會的成員),過去十年她一直致力於與香港及中國大陸的勞工和工會積極分子們合作。最近在中國,她被短暫拘留,並被政府問話。就此次打 壓,她與阿什利·斯密做了對談,她們談及此次打壓的起因,以及活躍分子們可以做些什麼來幫助中國的活躍分子取得自由與正義。
圖片:中國的勞工維權人士呼吁立即結束廣東省正在加強的鎮壓
1 在你最近的一次旅程中,在中國政府打壓勞工非政府組織的同時,你也被扣留了。你能告訴我們發生了什麼事嗎?
我已經在中國工作了10年左右,做勞工方面的教學,並參與工人運動的各個部分。我以前也收到過很多警告,但他們始終是間接地找我,通過同事傳話給我。這次是第一次,警察直接來問我。
他們來到我的酒店,詢問了大約兩個小時 – 很禮貌地 – 但警告我停止“和人見面”及可能有法律風險。他們說我違反了我簽證上的有關規定。
很難知道我被扣留是否也是勞工活躍分子此次被打壓的一部分。事情差不多都發生在同一時間,但在中國發生的事情,究竟是因為什麼原因, 我想沒有人會知道。自然,當我被扣留時,他們沒有給我任何解釋。因此,我認為我們最多只能猜測。
這個事情的背景大概是,自從三年前習近平政府開始執政,中國政府就有了非常明確的轉變,不再寬容任何形式的積極運動和公民社會組織。前任的胡錦濤政府治 下,似乎還有大量空間供非政府組織(NGO)發展,也容許批判性的輿論與研究。而所有這一切在習近平政府治下已受到嚴重的限制。
習上台後,國家就騷擾勞工非政府組織,給勞工的抗議定罪名,並拘留和控告工人積極分子。中國政府還進行了“反對外國勢力干預”的運動。所以,因為我在這段時間一直活躍於中國的勞工運動,而我又是個外國人,我們只能說,這事情的發生符合他們一貫的政策。
2 鎮壓的規模有多大?誰是被打壓的對象?
最近的事件是12月3日大約20多名積極分子被高調拘留。所有事都在中國其中的一個最大的城市—廣州發生。它位於東南沿海,與香港交界。它是廣東省的省會城市,更是20世紀80年代中國資本和勞動力市場的發源地。
從那時起,它的發展很快。數以百萬計的農民工在這裡找到工作,它也經歷了勞工抗爭事件的井噴。在工人的行動之下,大約有十幾個左右的勞工NGO從事勞工工作。
政府此次打壓的目標是與四個NGO相關的活躍分子。有些NGO是相當溫和的服務型機構,主要協助工傷工人申請賠償。有些NGO則更積極地參與到工人運動中,它們找到領頭罷工的工人,培訓他們的領導能力和集體談判能力。
大多數人只是被問話,並在一天之內釋放,但有七人一直被拘留,並面臨著刑事指控。此次“掃蕩”中最突出的被捕者是曾飛洋。他是番禺打工族服務部的創始人和中心主任,這間機構歷史悠久,盛名廣傳。
政府指控這些被拘留的勞權人士,說他們擾亂了公共秩序。這種指控很常用來對付勞工維權人士。他們還控告其中一人涉嫌職務侵佔。支援者為被拘留者安排了律師 – 事實上,目前已有一個60人組成的律師團隊自願來代理此案 – 但到目前為止,他們一直無法會見被拘留的勞權人士。因此,我們仍然不知道對他們的具體指控是些什麼。
3 這輪打壓是否是針對越來越多的中國勞工罷工?
我想是的。罷工活動無疑有顯著的上昇,可能主要是回應中國的經濟放緩。這導致了大量的工廠倒閉和搬遷,也意味著失業工人大量增加。老板們也在工廠關閉的時候跑路,以此逃避他們的法律義務來支付給工人離職補償。
失去工作的工人也發現,他們的老板並沒有給他們支付社會保險——也就是,社會保障或養老金。許多工人都在30歲到40出頭,現在面臨的情況是,他們將不得不返回家鄉省的村鎮裏,但卻沒有養老金。所有這一切就是最近很多抗議和罷工的根源。
而這也符合過去15年來日益增長的勞工鬥爭的長期模式。所有這些罷工和抗議活動一直保持相對原子化。工人們一直沒能因其鬥爭而連結起來,但人們當然也從所有經歷的事件中學到經驗教訓。
其結果是,罷工的特性已經有了重大的變化。工人已經變得更加自信和更具戰略性。工人們更多地了解了集體談判。他們更多地了解如何既與資本又與國家互動。這已明確對政府構成了威脅。
它也影響了中國的官方工會——中華全國總工會(全總)。這不是一個真正的工會,而主要是由政府操縱來控制勞工的工具而已。它並不代表工人,反而主要為雇主分憂。工人們一點兒也不信任它。所以呢,工人,特別是農民工,現在真正明白到,他們必須建立起自己的組織。
因此,過去這些日子有很多的討論,關於是否需要一個獨立的工會。當然,這在中國就是越過紅線了,政府是不會容忍這點的。所以,這可能也是最近嚴打的原因之一。
4 中國的經濟狀況到底怎樣?這種狀況又如何塑造了工人的鬥爭與意識?
中國經濟體是巨大的,也很複雜。毫無疑問,2008年出口貿易的崩潰直接導致了非常非常嚴重的經濟衰退。有人說,在2008年短短兩個月的時間,約莫75000家工廠關門結業了——僅是在廣東省。
因為政府龐大的刺激計劃,中國經濟開始復蘇。國家抽出大量的資金投入到基礎設施建設,特別是在內陸的省份。所以也就有了很多很多的項目,如建造道路和堤壩、電力設施、港口、貨運站等等。
但所有這一切的前提建立在中國出口業將要復蘇的期望之上。但這並沒有發生。所以,這一切基礎設施建設本來是要給後續出口制造業打好基礎的,現在卻只能眼睜睜看到產能過剩。中國已有了過度投資、過度生產、和產能過剩的問題。經濟刺激的舉措導致形勢遠比以前更糟了。
最重要的是,國家已經基本上無法通過刺激國內消費需求,來彌補出口行業的下跌。中產階級正在發展,購入大量的汽車和豪華公寓。但它的範圍並不是很廣,而且它肯定不能彌補國際需求的下降。
因此,隨著經濟放緩,人們,甚至大部分的中產階級,都嚇得有錢也不敢花。相反,他們將錢都存起來,以支付生活必需品,如住房、醫療保健和養老金——這些都是國家不給提供的。這樣一來,中國政府一直沒辦法通過刺激國內消費來替代出口的下跌。
最後,中國政府已經制定了長期計劃,要從東海岸城市帶動投資和發展到內陸省市去,希望農民工能夠返回他們原來的家鄉(工作)。
但由於政府還放寬了戶籍制度的要求,很多農民工都不打算回家了。他們就留在了沿海城市。這樣一來,中國政府的內陸發展計劃只是推動了大量興起的“鬼城”:那裏有巨大的居民小區,裏面空無一人,但什麼都是嶄新的。
5 在經濟放緩與衰退之時,工人有沒有開始組建一些新組織,以此來反抗?
是的,但目前還不成氣候。工人、活躍分子、和學生,想要形成網絡是非常非常難的。國家很警惕他們,竭力破壞這樣的努力。
我舉個例子來說明。我過去十年一直與廣州的中山大學有合作。在相對自由主義的胡錦濤時期,我們成功地在政治系裏建了一個國際勞工中心。我們做了好些研究, 涉及到勞工學者、工會會員、經濟學家、歷史學家和勞工律師等,也包括中國和外國的實踐者們。我們做了大量相當不錯的研究、課程和研討會。
當局去年卻突然將這個機構強制關閉。他們並沒給出任何原因——他們只是突然關閉它。相熟的學者、積極分子和工人們在通過項目結識之後,試著保持聯繫並繼續我們的事業。但是,我們不能再正式地這樣做了。
顯然,勞工中心也引發了當局的關注。當我被扣留和問話時,他們就問我關於勞工中心的事,仿佛這組織仍在運作中。我對他們說,“你明知道這機構去年關閉了, 再也沒有勞工中心了。”但是,他們堅持有。他們問我,“當你在廣州時,你和誰說過話?你見過你的同事嗎?你為什麼要與以前的學生見面?”
不難覺察到,活躍分子正被大規模的審查監控。人們的電子郵件、手機和會議都是被監控的。甚至在使用社交媒體時——人們也使用得相當頻繁,他們立即就會遭遇 審查。因此,盡管有強大的國際組織團結起來聲援被捕勞權人士,這樣的事情在中國境內卻幾乎是不可能發生的。實際上,即使想要獲得有關拘留的信息,都異常艱 難。
6 在美國的工會會員和活動分子能夠做些什麼來幫助這場防禦戰嗎?
人們可以做很多事情的。
有一些不錯的網站,提供更多詳情。你可以關注比如,“馬上釋放中國勞權人士”,“紅氣球”,“闖”。也有一些請願正在流傳,其中之一是由香港職工盟發起的,邀請組織和個人簽名,及後並在Labour Start上推廣。
對於那些在大學工作或在與中國相關的基金會裏工作的人,人們有機會通過他們來提出一些關於被捕者的問題。
在各個城市, 一些重要組織的積極分子可以聯手一致幫助團結支援行動。在舊金山,主要的組織是“華人前進會”。在西雅圖有個組織叫做“環太平洋地區團結網”,或PARISOL,也在做一些重要的工作。在紐約市,有反對“反亞裔暴力”的關注組。
------
Caught in China’s crackdown on labor radicals
On December 3, the Chinese state detained more than 20 people associated with various labor solidarity organizations in Guangdong province. The detainees had been active in the labor movement there, providing various services and training. The government crackdown comes amid a rising tide of strikes and protests in Guangdong.
Ellen David Friedman, a long-time organizer with the National Education Association in Vermont, founding member of the state’s Progressive Party and member of the Labor Notes Policy Committee, has been working for the last decade with labor and union activists in Hong Kong and the mainland. When she was in China recently, she was briefly detained and interrogated by the government. She spoke with about the crackdown, its causes and what activists can do to help the Chinese activists win freedom and justice.
Labor activists in China call for an end to intensifying repression in Guangdong province
DURING YOUR recent trip, you were detained amid the crackdown on labor NGOs. Can you tell us what happened?
I’VE BEEN working in China for about 10 years, teaching labor studies and participating in various parts of the labor movement. I’d received many warnings before, but they had always been indirect, and passed along through colleagues. This was the first time that police came to question me directly.
They came to my hotel and interrogated me for about two hours–quite politely–but warned me to stop “meeting people” or risk legal consequences. They said I was violating the terms of my visa.
It’s hard to know if I was detained as part of the crackdown on activists. It happened in the same period of time, but one never knows the reason that things happen in China. Certainly when I was detained, they didn’t give me any explanation for it. So I think at best we can guess.
The context for this is that, since the start of the Xi Jinping administration in China three years ago, the state has taken a very definitive turn away from tolerance of any kind of activism and organizing in civil society. In the previous administration of Hu Jintao, there seemed to be a good deal more space for the development of NGOs and critical discourse and research. All of this under the Xi Jinping government has been very severely curtailed.
Since Xi came to power, the state has harassed labor NGOs, criminalized labor resistance, and detained and charged worker activists. The government has also conducted an “anti-foreign influence” campaign. And so, since I’ve been active in the labor movement in China during this period of time, and since I’m a foreigner, we can only say it’s consistent with their policy.
WHAT’S THE scale of the crackdown? Who is being targeted?
THE MOST recent event was a high-profile detention of about 20 activists on December 3, all in Guangzhou, which is one of the largest cities in China. It’s on the southeast coast across from Hong Kong. It’s the capital city of Guangdong province, which was the birthplace of capital and labor markets beginning in the 1980s.
Since then, it’s undergone a vast amount of development. Tens of millions of migrant workers have moved there to get jobs. The area has also experienced an explosion of labor resistance. Around a dozen or so labor NGOs have been operating amid this worker activism.
The government targeted the activists associated with four of these labor NGOs. Some of these NGOs are pretty benign service organizations that do things like assisting injured workers to file worker’s compensation claims. Some of them are more actively involved in helping workers to develop skills for leadership and collective bargaining among those who have taken the lead in strikes and so on.
Most of the people were questioned and released within a day, but seven people are still detained and facing criminal charges. The most prominent person who was caught in the sweep is named Zeng Feiyang. He’s the founder and director of the oldest and best-known labor NGO in China, Panyu Workers’ Center.
The government has accused most of the detainees of disrupting public order, which is the usual allegation made against labor activists. They have charged one person with embezzlement. Solidarity activists have arranged for them to have attorneys–in fact, there is a now a 60-member attorney team that has volunteered to represent them–but so far, they haven’t been able to contact the detained activists. So we still don’t know the specific charges against them.
IS THIS crackdown in response to an increase in strikes in China?
I THINK so. There has certainly been a notable rise in strike activity, which may be largely in response to China’s slowing economy. This has led to a high number of factory closures and relocations, which means job losses for workers. Bosses have also run away from their legal obligation to pay severance compensation when a factory shuts down.
Workers who have lost their jobs are also discovering that their bosses had not been paying for their social insurance–that is, social security or pensions. Many of these workers are in their 30s and 40s and are now facing the prospect of returning to their home provinces, towns and villages with no pension. All of this is the source of a lot of the recent protests and strikes.
But it’s also part of a longer-term pattern of rising labor militancy over the last 15 years. All of these strikes and protests have remained relatively atomized. Workers have not been able link up their struggles, but people have, of course, started learning from all of the experience.
As a result, the strikes have changed in character. They have become more confident and more strategic. Workers are learning more about collective bargaining. They’re learning more about how to interact both with capital and the state. That has definitely posed a threat to the government.
It’s also impacted the state’s official union, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). It’s not really a union at all, but mainly a tool used by the government for labor control. It doesn’t represent workers, but mainly the employers. Workers don’t trust it all. So workers, especially migrant workers, now really understand that they have to build their own organizations.
So there’s more discussion than I have seen in the past about the need for something like an independent trade union. Of course, that’s crossing a line in China. The government won’t tolerate that, so this may also be a reason for more harsh repression.
WHAT IS the situation of the Chinese economy, and how is that shaping worker’s struggles and consciousness?
THE ECONOMY of the country is very big and complicated. There’s no question that the collapse of exports in 2008 led to an immediate and very, very sharp recession. It was said that something like 75,000 factories closed their doors in a two-month period in 2008–just in Guangdong Province.
There was recovery in the Chinese economy because of the government’s vast stimulus plan. The state pumped a lot of money into infrastructure development, particularly in the inland provinces. So there has been lots and lots of construction of roads and dams, power facilities, ports, trucking depots and so on.
But all of this was predicated on the expectation that the country’s export sector would recover. That didn’t happen. So now all of this infrastructure development, based on the idea of continued export manufacturing, is now just overcapacity. China already had a problem of overinvestment, overproduction and overcapacity. After the stimulus, it’s far worse than before.
On top of that, the state has been largely unable to stimulate the kind of domestic consumer demand to compensate for the drop in exports. A middle class has developed, which is buying lots of cars and luxury apartments. But it isn’t very broad, and it certainly can’t make up for the drop in international demand.
So with the economy slowing, people, even much of the middle class, are scared to spend money if they have it. Instead, they’re saving it to pay for necessities like housing, health care and pensions, which the state doesn’t provide. As a result, the state hasn’t been able to stimulate domestic consumption to replace the drop in exports.
Finally, the state has developed a long-term plan to drive investment and development inland from the East Coast cities, with the hope that many migrants would return to their former homes.
But because the government is also loosening the household registration requirements, a lot of migrants aren’t going back home. They’re staying in the coastal cities. As a result, the state’s inland development push has built ghost cities, with giant housing complexes standing empty and unused.
HAVE WORKERS started to build new organizations to mount resistance amid the slowdown and repression?
YES, BUT it’s very early in the process. It’s very, very difficult for workers to network, for activists to network, for students to network. The state is vigilant in disrupting such efforts.
Here’s an example. I’ve been associated with Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou for the last 10 years. In the period of relative liberalism under Hu Jintao, we managed to start an international labor center within the School of Government. We conducted research involving labor scholars, trade unionists, economists, historians and labor lawyers, including both Chinese practitioners and foreign practitioners. That produced a lot of really wonderful research, classes and workshops.
The authorities shut it down last year. They gave no reason–they just closed it, all of sudden. The scholars, students, activists and workers who knew one another through the program have tried to stay in touch and continue our work. But we can’t do it in a formal way any longer.
The Labor Center clearly provoked concern among the authorities. When I was detained and interrogated, they asked me about the Labor Center, as if it was still ongoing. I said to them, “You know it was closed last year. There is no more Labor Center.” But they persisted. They asked me, “When you were in Guangzhou, who did you talk with? Did you meet with your colleagues? Why did you meet with former students?”
That gives you a sense of the scale of scrutiny that activists are under. People’s e-mails, phones and meetings are all surveilled. Even when people use social media, which they do a lot, it suffers almost immediate censorship. So while there is a robust international solidarity campaign on behalf of the detained labor activists, there is nothing like this going on inside China itself. It’s virtually impossible to even get information about the detentions there.
WHAT CAN unionists and activists in the U.S. do to help with the defense campaign?
PEOPLE CAN do a number of things.
There are several good websites for more information. You can follow the solidarity efforts on Free Chinese Labour Activists, Red Balloon Solidarity or Chuang. There are also petitions circulating, including one for organizations and individuals that was initiated by the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions and picked up by LabourStart.
For those at universities or foundations with connections to China, there are opportunities for people to work through them to raise questions about the detentions.
There are some key organizations in various cities that activists can reach out to help with solidarity actions. In San Francisco, the key organization is the Chinese Progressive Association. There’s a group in Seattle called the Pacific Rim Solidarity Network, or PARISOL, which is also doing some important work. In New York City, there is the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence.