http://www.clb.org.hk/en/content/least-119-workers-confirmed-dead-jilin-factory-fire
At least 119 people have been killed in a fire that swept through a poultry processing plant in the north-eastern province of Jilin on Monday morning, 3 June, the local authorities have confirmed. The official media reported the fire had been ignited by series of explosions at Baoyuanfeng Poultry at around 6.am when around 300 to 350 workers were on the site. Many workers were trapped inside the plant’s narrow network of passageways as the fire spread rapidly.
The Global Times reported that almost all the doors of the workshops were locked on the outside, and only a narrow side exit had been left open, which made escaping difficult. Relatives of the victims told the Global Times that most of the doors were shut during working hours to prevent workers from slacking off while on duty. One survivor told the official Xinhua news agency that there was a stampede when workers fled the workshop and only around 100 employees managed to escape the fire. At least 54 workers were sent to local hospitals around the city of Dehui for treatment. Photographs posted on social media sites in China such as Weibo (see above) showed thick black smoke billowing out from the factory, as well as some of the horribly burnt victims. This is one of worst, if not the worst, factory fires in China in living memory and the death toll has already exceeded that of the infamous Zhili Toy Factory fire in Shenzhen in 1993, which killed 87 young migrant women workers and injured 47 others. However, the lack of proper fire safety equipment, exits and training for workers are all too commonplace in China’s factories.
The worst industrial accidents in China have been in the coal mining industry, with several disasters in the mid-2000s, which claimed the lives of more than one hundred miners. See CLB’s research report Bone and Blood: The Price of Coal in China for more details.
China’s workers demand a better trade union : China’s workers have demonstrated remarkable solidarity and organizational ability for several years now in strikes and protests across the country. They have demanded and in many cases obtained higher wages and better working conditions from their employer. Moreover, they have done this on their own and without the help of the trade union, which is usually seen as ineffectual or merely a tool of management.
China’s public institutions a “discrimination disaster zone”: The vast majority of China’s public institutions (事业单位) blatantly discriminate against job applicants from outside their local area, the Legal Daily reported today. The newspaper cited a survey of job advertisements at nearly 100 public institutions in cities across China during the first five months of this year which showed that a staggering 99 percent of the institutions stipulated that candidates should have a local household registration (户籍) – in other words, no one from outside the locality could apply.
The survey, conducted by China’s foremost anti-discrimination organization Yirenping, indicated that the longstanding and institutionalized problem of household registration discrimination was actually getting worse and that the worst offenders were the civil service and educational, scientific and public health institutions etc. The Legal Daily said the country’s public institutions had now become a “discrimination disaster zone.”
New report shows little improvement in the lives of migrant workers’ children in China: The Chinese government has implemented a whole raft of policies over the last decade to improve the lives of migrant workers’ children. However, a new survey published by the All-China Women’s Federation shows that between 2005 and 2010, the numbers of left-behind children and migrant children in the cities both increased, while the long-standing issues of separation, loneliness and vulnerability, as well as the lack of access to decent education, healthcare and social services remained largely unresolved.
The survey, based on data from the 2010 census, shows that the number of left-behind children increased by 2.42 million to reach 61 million, or about 38 percent of the total rural population under the age of 18. There was a much greater increase in the number of migrant children living in China’s cities. In 2010, there were 35.8 million migrant children in the cities, an increase of 41.4 percent over five years. Children from rural families accounted for about 80 percent of that total, about 28.8 million in all.
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