Heilongjiang authorities surprisingly side with striking miners
For the first time, the province backs workers’ demands and tell state-owned company to pay back wages. Graft and inefficiencies have brought state-owned companies to their lowest point. Beijing has decided to lay off workers, but this could lead to unrest. For one official, “The problem is even worse than what is revealed”.
Beijing (AsiaNews) – The authorities in China’s northernmost province of Heilongjiang vowed to “financially support” a struggling state-owned coal firm, but also ordered it to pay its miners overdue salaries. They also slammed the firm for withholding information about the employees’ unpaid wages.
Heilongjiang Governor Lu Hao, who is in Beijing for the annual National People’s Congress, said workers and families affected by layoffs caused by Beijing’s economic restructuring will be re-employed in the province.
Lu’s statement came hours after miners and their families took to the streets in Shuangyashan to demand back wages. Uncensored videos online showed thousands of miners and their families protesting, holding up banners saying, "We want to live, we want to eat" and "Lu Hao lies with his eyes open".
The last reference is to the governor's comments a few days ago in which he said the miners did not have “even a penny” cut from their pay. Lu had also cited Longmay as a prime example of an inefficient, overstaffed state-owned firm, saying that the government could not afford to bail out the group.
Since then, demonstrations forced Lu to change his mind at a time when National People's Congress was in session. This is the first time that Heilongjiang authorities take the side of workers. Usually, labour unrest is met with repression, bloodshed and arrests.
Longmay, which has been in the red since 2012, has to comply with Beijing’s order to cut industrial overcapacity. It said last year it would cut its 248,000 headcount by as much as 100,000.
Heilongjiang’s economy is largely based on coal and oil, whose price dropped by 6 per cent per cent in the last two months.
Beijing wants these cuts to reshape the economy by abandoning heavy industry, but is also concerned that it might lead to social unrest and undermine its authority.
In his opening statement at this year’s National People’s Congress, which will ratify the new five-year plan, Prime Minister Li Keqiang announced the restructuring of state enterprises, which involves the loss of at least two million jobs (which could become six, according to some international analysts).
Subsidies to the steel and coal industries cost China’s central government some US$ 15.3 billion a year. To reach its goal, Beijing wants poor regions to pitch in; in exchange, it is offering workers retraining courses and new jobs in their own province.
China has more or less 150,000 state-owned companies employing 30 million people. Many of these are so-called "zombie companies", i.e. companies kept artificially alive by local authorities to prevent GDP losses and local unemployment.
To deal with the situation, Beijing plans to close scores of plants producing steel, coal, aluminium, cement and glass, which are often among the major causes of ground, water, and air pollution.
A former central regulatory official with knowledge of the issue told the South China Morning Post that Longmay’s problems stem from years of miscalculated policies that needed more than financial aid to resolve. “The problem is even worse than what is revealed,” he said.
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08/03/2023 15:59
02/04/2009
