Radio station

Music/singing

01.00.00.00

Hutcheon:  This man has already spent nearly two years in a Chinese jail. His crime was to establish a free trade union. Today, his message is the same, the only difference is it's being heard all over China.

00.19

Han in radio studio

Han:   To hold demonstrations and block the traffic puts pressure on the government, and this is our proper right.

Map

Han in radio studio

Hutcheon:  Three times a week, Han records a program for Radio Free Asia, from the heart of Hong Kong. His show has become one of few outlets for dissatisfied workers on the mainland. And an important part of a growing network calling for labour rights and free unions in China.

00.44

This listener complains that he's being forced to buy shares in the near bankrupt state factor he works for. It's a complaint he can't make to the official union, which is supposed to represent him.

Han:  How much did everyone have to pay?

Caller:  At least three thousand yuan ($500) each.

Han:  Three thousand? What if the workers couldn't afford it?

Caller:  They just took it out of the housing entitlement, salary increases and bonuses.

01.18

Hutcheon:  The downsizing of state factories has left millions without jobs. But schemes like this just inflame the situation, encouraging workers to speak out.

01.32

Han:  In the Sichuan Jiang You Iron and Steel Factory, there are thirty thousand workers who haven't received their salaries for ten months, and this has aroused strong dissatisfaction. We strongly condemn the illegality of the Zigong authorities who violently cracked down on the peaceful demonstration by workers.

01.45

Map

Lantern Festival

Hutcheon:  In Zigong, it's Festival time. A river of light to entire tourists and badly needed foreign investment. But the happy faces and bright lights are a superficial cover-up. Zigong's city government has spent one million dollars on the lantern festival, in December workers were warned their interests were to be sacrificed temporarily for the sake of the festival. A million dollars for lanterns, when some workers hadn't been paid for more than a year.

02.12

Han Interview

Super:

HAN DONGFANG

Labour Activist

Han:  The radio listeners say to me in that city more than 70 percent, 80 percent of the state enterprises not working any more. They're dying actually. So if these factories are bankruptcy, it means the whole city is bankrupt. So nobody will find a job.

02.45

Zigong streets

Hutcheon:  Zigong is a city like many in China, where the state sector has always dominated. Now it's sharing another ubiquitous trait, high unemployment. Officials put the number of China's jobless at 12 million. A further 10 million will join the queue in the next two years.

03.12

During the 50th Communist Party Congress last October, President Jiang Zemin gave orders to speed up the reform of lumbering state owned factories, even at the expense of more jobs. Zigong is no exception.

03.34

Salt factory

In the light of day, it doesn't take much to find evidence of Zigong's demise.

03.55

This is the city's biggest salt factory. We are told it's not producing today, because of a damaged pipe. Like most of Zigong's traditional industries, salt has taken a beating with the advent of the market economy. The local government talks about restructuring. The reality suggests massive layoffs.

Hutcheon to camera

Super: JANE HUTCHEON

In the past year, there have been five demonstrations in the city of Zigong, at one stage involving almost 6,000 people. The protesters are all workers laid off from state factories on the verge of bankruptcy. In the past, these incidents went largely unreported. But no longer. A network is beginning to form all over China to spread the word, that workers won't take it any longer.

04.25

Zigong streets

We're here to find the people behind last year's protests, to witness what could be the beginnings of China's free trade union movement.

04.55

The last protest, on December 4th, involved Zigong's pedicab drivers. They demonstrated against new rules banning tricycles from the city centre. Most of the drivers were laid off workers trying to earn a crust.  The inner city is their most lucrative pick-up point.

We saw the pedicab drivers, but almost as plentiful, the police, anxious to prevent any labour unrest during the lantern festival.

05.28

Hutcheon to camera

We came to Zigong to interview a worker who was going to tell us about how and why the demonstrations were organised. But when we arrived, we found the severity of the police crackdown meant the worker was too afraid to even speak to us.

05.41

FX:  Train

Train interior

Hutcheon:  Word has been passed that another worker, who's now fled Zigong, will speak with us if we can meet him elsewhere. So we travel hundreds of kilometres to another city.

06.02

The worker is running from the police. He has changed his identity, and fears immediate arrest if he ever returns to Zigong.

We arrange to meet him at a busy intersection, making sure he hasn't been followed.

Tuning radio

FX:  Radio

Hutcheon:  Zigong machinery worker, Mr Xiao, like countless others, makes a ritual of turning his short wave radio to Han Dongfang's labour program.

06.39

From the radio, Mr Xiao gleaned how unions are organised overseas. He hears stories from workers all over China, and decided to speak out instead of keeping silent.

06.51

FX:  Radio

Hutcheon:  Shortly after the tricycle drivers demonstrated in December, he took a huge risk by alerting foreign news and human rights agencies to the unrest in his city.

07.06

Xiao Interview

Hutcheon:  Did you help to organise the demonstrations in Zigong?

07.16

Xiao:   I want to make it clear here that it wasn't me who organised the demonstrations in Zigong. The demonstrations were held under unusual conditions by workers from the factories and pedicab drivers. With no income they had no other choice but to demonstrate. They didn't want to do it but they went to the streets anyway. But it wasn't me who advocated this.

07.20

Hutcheon:  So why are you running away from the police?

07.50

Xiao:   Because the police have already questioned me and keep a tight watch on me. What's more, my family was asked to go to the police and were questioned. So I left Zigong.

Hutcheon:  What would happen if they found you?

08.04

Xiao:   I would be sent to jail for re-education or sentence.

08.06

Xiao reading newspapers

Hutcheon:  He hoards every piece of information about China's unemployment situation. For despite the hard line attitude of the government, the movement is growing.

08.11

Xiao Interview

Xiao:  Demonstrations and protests are held in every city in China wherever I go, whoever I meet -  even if I meet new people, when I stay in a hotel - they all say workers in their hometown go onto the street and hold demonstrations.

08.22

Hutcheon:  If China had free trade unions, how would things be different for workers now.

08.40

Xiao:   At present, a lot of city workers can't find a place or organisation to protect themselves so some violent situations arise. We can read about these in the newspapers. So if there are free trade unions which let the workers speak out I think the violent cases might disappear or be reduced.

08.46

Black and White/ workers archival footage

Music/Singing

Hutcheon:  When the Communist Party took power in 1949, it promised to look after the workers with a cradle to grave support system dubbed the Iron Rice Bowl.  In return for conformity their every need was met.

09.19

Bicycle factory/factories

The move to the market economy has shattered the Iron Rice Bowl, and as yet, nothing has been put in its place.

09.38

Unions fall under the umbrella of the Party's Propaganda Department. They encourage vocational training and dispense relief funds, but aren't there to protect workers' rights to protest.

Workers have become increasingly hostile about their raw deal. But according Han Dongfang, the government's system of political repression doesn't allow them to vent their anger.

Han Interview

Han:  You just take care of the part to survive as an animal, so we will take care of how do you think, and your mind and your speaking. That's impossible. So that is the main reason I say the government policy makes people still keep the broken dream. Say okay, you force me don't think, you force me don't speak. Okay, means you will take care of me.

10.14

Soldier in Beijing/demonstration

Hutcheon:  From Beijing, the ferment around the country doesn't go unnoticed. Dissidents see the wave of dissatisfaction as an opening, an opportunity for political change. But getting to them isn't easy.

10.46

Hutcheon on phone

China's repressive ways not only silences workers, it restricts foreign journalists from access to dissidents, who increasingly write about labour unrest.

11.06

To arrange an interview with dissident, Xu Wen Li, I call him from a public phone at a designated time to ensure the call isn't traced. The police have been following him all week, but today he says, they're taking a break.

11.18

Car at night

To be on the safe side, we wait for nightfall before driving to his home.

11.35

Xu at desk

Dissident Xu Wen Li is one of a growing number of activists who believes the current labour unrest is a vehicle for bigger social and political change.

11.45

He spent 12 years in jail for promoting democracy. Since his release in 1993, he's continued to push for political reform. But as the layoffs mount in China's state sector, Xu has joined the call for the establishment of free unions.

Xu interview

Xu:  The Chinese Communist Party used workers and peasants to overthrow the KMT Nationalists in the past. This is the revolutionary method used before so the government is really worried that dissidents when informing people of their rights will use the same method to overthrow the regime or seize power. So they're really worried about this.

12.14

Newspapers/list

Hutcheon:  As proof of widespread anger and frustration, we are given a list of names and writers scattered all over China, sharing similar views.

12.48

Some advocate rapid change, others like Mr Xu, call for something more gradual. Together they form a loose association of dissident views; views that the Chinese Communist Party periodically seeks to crush.

12.59

Xu interview

Xu:  I think my friends in China express their opinion individually. They established a profound friendship over twenty years. But they don't have a formal organisation.

13.15

Hutcheon:  Do you think the Chinese leadership feels you pose a threat to them?

13.35

Xu:  I don't think the Chinese Government should worry about communication between friends.

Red Square

Hutcheon:  But the government does worry. It's made too many enemies to believe its position at the top is safe. Now with millions of workers facing an unknown future, the potential for instability is greater than ever.

13.47

Xiao interview

Hutcheon:  Do you want to overthrow the Chinese government?

14.03

Xiao:  I don't have this idea in mind.

Hutcheon:  So what do you want to achieve?

14.09

Xiao:   If this situation continues more large-scale upheavals may appear in China. If our leaders, who formulate policies don't confront reality and solve the problem,  the overthrow of the government will probably happen in the future - and that could be a disaster for the whole of China.

14.12

Han in radio station

Hutcheon:  Back in Hong Kong, Han Dongfang continues keeping tabs on where the situation is heading. Another day on the phone to his listeners tells him the situation has reached boiling point.

14.42

Han Interview

Han:  Now it is happening, it is a time bomb. But the most dangerous point is not a time bomb itself, the dangerous point is nobody can touch it, nobody can try to resolve it, nobody can, you know, even getting any closer to it. And also nobody knows the time when will be the time to explode. Any time it could be.

14.57

Hutcheon:  And what happens when it explodes?

15.25

Han:  Everybody will be hurt, including the Communist Party, including workers and including everybody who has your interests in this country all over the world.

15.27

Red Square

Singing

Hutcheon:  The Party has too quickly forgotten the workers' contribution to China's near miraculous growth, breaking a promise of lifelong care and robbing workers of their voice, at a time when they need it most.

15.49

But for Han Dongfang, the circle of friends is growing, and patiently he'll wait for the day when he can do more than shout from the sidelines.

16.04

END

16.18