Presentation on OSH in China, illustrated with LAC's cases on silicosis  (As presented on India National Workshop on Silicosis, Jan 2011) 

Brief introduction of LAC's strategy and timeline of our silicosis campaign (As presented in our speaking tour to Switzerland, March 2011)

 China is one of the most rapidly developing countries in the world. The current pattern of economic development has increased the number and frequency of occupational hazards and incidents. Occupational diseases exist in a wide range of industries and are rampant in middle and small scale enterprises. There are occupational hazards in traditional industries like coal mining and metallurgy as well as some newly emerging industries like automobile manufacturing and bioengineering. In China, the prevalence of occupational diseases and persistent exposure to occupational health hazards have posed serious threats to the vast migrant worker population. According to the Ministry of Health (MoH) report, over 200 million workers are directly exposed to occupational health risks in their workplace with 16 million companies associated with poisonous and hazardous operations and production in the country. The experts estimate that at least 25 million employees in China are exposed to dust, toxins and noise hazards in over 300 different industries. In particular, the number of employees contracting pneumoconiosis is increasing at a rapid rate of 10,000 annually.

 Campaign Update 16 September 2010 For more than 6 long years silicosis victims at the Hong Kong owned LuckyGems and Jewellery Factory Ltd have been fighting for fair compensationthrough legal channels. In August a final court decision was issued on fivesilicosis workers, namely Liu Dabing (劉大丙), Tan Zhouquan (譚周全), LiuZhongwu (劉忠武), Ren Qimei (冉啟美) and Jiang Xueying (蔣學英 ). On 3rd August, the Higher People's Court of Guangdong Province made an ultimate andirreversible judgment on the five cases: the Court upholds and reaffirms the original verdicts of the second trials on the five cases and dismisses the application for re-trial of Lucky Gems Jewellery Company.

Over the past decade, Hong Kong labour NGOs have been playing an active and vital role in supporting and strengthening the labour activism in China. They have done this by engaging in direct organizing, campaigning and advocacy for the rights of migrant workers and by regulating the violations of the foreign investors, particularly those Asian exporting capitals from Hong Kong and Taiwan. As fellow Chinese across the border, we exercise our special position to empower Chinese workers through solidarity and concerted actions with them in their struggle for justice and dignity. It is also a struggle of workers in search of a new set of social values and attitudes, and new economic and political structures in China, which have a bearing not only on the country and on Hong Kong, but also on the whole world as the interplay between the west and the east intensifies.  

Press Release 2 March 2010 Between 2004 and 2007, the Hong Kong owned Lucky Gems and Jewellery Factory Limited was exposed for causing silicosis, the lethal occupational disease to employees in China. The gemstone cutting victims had travelled to the company’s headquarters in Hong Kong, and staged demonstrations at the international jewellery exhibitions in Hong Kong and Basel in Switzerland to press the company for due compensation and improvement of the safety and health conditions. In 2008 and 2009, Labour Action China lodged official complaints with the Hong Kong Trade Development Council and the Baselworld, the hosts of the world’s biggest international jewellery exhibitions in Asia and Europe, demanding for the banning of Lucky Gems in international trade fairs.