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Workers in China - no longer a privileged
class
BEUING - When Wang Lijun lost two co-workers on the job -
one who fell to his death while cleaning train windows and another
who died from exhaustion he decided it was time to speak up.
Rounding up 16 of his workmates at the Harbin Railway
Bureau in the northern Heilongjiang Province, Mr. Wang organized
a peaceful protest against 17-hour shifts and dangerous work
conditions - and promptly lost his Job.
That was 20 months ago. Today, he is still out of work and
deep in a prolonged lawsuit against the state-run Harbin Railway
Bureau.
"It is probably hopeless," the sinewy Wang says defiantly,
"But I am taking my case to the Supreme Court."
For more than 80 years, China's Communist Party considered
itself the vanguard of the proletariat, its 80 million state employees
guaranteed jobs for life and a cradle-to-grave welfare system.
But as the country's socialist market economy has evolved
into a bosses' paradise in just a decade, workers like Wang are no
longer treated like a privileged caste.
"The workers are not protected anymore," says an Australian
researcher, Anita Unger, author of a new book, "China's Workers
Under Assault." "And things are getting worse."
According to the government, at least 24 million workers
have been fired from their jobs in state-owned enterprises, which are
quickly being transformed into private enterprises as the state sells
off its shares.

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