International Liaison Committee for a Workers International
Appeal from the International Liaison Committee:
Solidarity with the Embattled Chinese Workers!

Fifty thousand laid-off oil workers in Daqing (north-east of China) have been engaged in demonstrations and gatherings in front of the Daqing Petroleum Company offices since March 7, the day the company's management announced they had suppressed the winter heating subsidies and arbitrarily increased up to 80 % the amount the workers are required to pay annually into the company's social security fund -- a fund they are not even sure will protect them.

An armored regiment and paramilitary police units have been patrolling the area around the clock. Up till now there have been no confrontations with the workers.

Workers are assailing the administration offices daily to support the delegates they elected and mandated to negotiate with the managers. The workers have set up a Provisional Committee of the Union of Laid-Off Workers of the Petroleum Administration Bureau of Daqing.

"We are not afraid because we are defending our rights," a delegate said.

In Liaoyang, another town of the region, 10,000 workers laid off from the State enterprises of the town took to the street on March 11-12 to demand payment of their arrears. They denounced the conditions in which they were laid off and demanded that their unemployment allowances be paid. They also asked that the managers of a steel factory stand trial for corruption.

On March 12, a meeting took place between 13 elected delegates and the town authorities. Other meetings were to take place, but on March 17, Yao Fuxin, one of the workers' delegates, was arrested.

On March 18, 40,000 laid-off workers of the 20 State firms in Liaoyang took to the streets to defend their demands and insisted that Yao Fuxin be released.

On March 19, in spite of the fact that the police took control of the town, 10,000 workers demonstrated again.

Workers' mobilizations in Daqing and Lioayang are the expression of a deep-going movement that is taking various forms throughout China.

Confronted with mass layoffs, unpaid arrears, the drastic reduction of unemployment allowances, and the destruction of all social protection measures, Chinese workers are standing up to defend their rights.

Chinese workers are using the traditional means of the working class to pursue their grievances: demonstrations and strikes. They are organizing and asserting their need for trade unions that will defend their interests and demands. They are electing their own delegates, and, in spite of repression and intimidation, they are trying to coordinate their resistance.

The defense of workers' rights cannot accept borders or exceptions. The duty of all organizations claiming to defend workers the world over is to support and protect the Chinese workers' fight to secure their legitimate demands.

The International Liaison Committee calls upon all organizations and activists associated with its activities -- and beyond them, to all organizations claiming to defend workers and democracy -- to take urgent action:

Chinese workers must have the rights that are enshrined in ILO Conventions 87 and 98:

* the right to strike

* the right to demonstrate

* the right to organize.

In addition:

- The Chinese authorities must begin negotiations immediately with the elected delegates of the Daqing and Lioayang workers, on the basis of the demands raised by the workers.

- The Chinese authorities must release immediately all the delegates who have been arrested.

- The Chinese authorities must withdraw all the paramilitary police forces and army units from Daqing.

The ILC calls upon all workers, activists, and organizations and asks them to send protest statements and letters to the embassies of the Popular Republic of China in their countries with the above-listed demands.

- March 20, 2002