Chinese Oil Workers Resist Mass Layoffs

NCHOR:
Our reporters recently spoke with a couple of the employees who were laid off from two of China's biggest oil companies. Here's more on the story.


STORY:
In 2000, the New York Times reported that most of the one million employees of China's National Petroleum companies were likely to be laid off, following
PetroChina's entry into the market. Sinopec, originally aimed to lay off almost 200,000 workers between 2001 and 2005.


A worker's rights representative from Xinjiang province, Umar Jiang says the total number of laid off employees could be even higher.


[Umar Jiang, Staff Representative]: Quote 3
"PetroChina, and the Sinopec Group laid off a total of 800,000 people. A lot of people are struggling on the edge of poverty. Many of them cannot afford to go to the hospital when they are ill and have no money to send their kids to school."


Recently the workers stopped appealing directly to the government and started to take legal action. But the collected signatures fell into the hands of the local government. The people who had signed have received retaliation, and many were forced to withdraw from the proceedings.


Umar Jiang from Xinjiang Province represents some of the former employees. In a phone interview he said that many people gave up appealing, after being punished by their new employers.


[Xiao Yishan, China Oil Staff Representative]: Quote 1
"Appealing cannot solve the problem. They have been playing games with us. We have continuously discovered new local oil blocks, and there aren't enough people to fill the jobs yet. They need large numbers of people."


Xiao Yishan also said that they are being closely monitored. Recently, the representatives of laid-off employees throughout the country sent a fast-post letter to Beijing, which included the list of the staff members' names who had agreed to the proceedings.


[Umar Jiang, Staff Representative]: Quote 2
"... many staff who had signed the document and the name list, have received retaliation. Their basic benefits were abolished, and some of them had their wages taken away by their company."


NTD, New York

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