China

Since September 2010, Solidar Switzerland is involved in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong to improve the working conditions.

China is the country with the worldwide highest economic growth, but at the same time it’s the country with the highest poverty rate in absolute figures: 150m people or 12% of the population have to live with less than a dollar a day. Poverty is especially high in rural regions, which leads a lot of people to seek for work in the booming towns where they are faced with bad working conditions.

Miserable working conditions

The example of the jewellery industry in the province Guangdong shows how precarious the working conditions are: Workers don’t receive masks protecting them against the fine dust and have to cut the stones with their bare hands into small pieces and colour them. Resulting from these conditions are illnesses such as silicosis, cut off fingers, deafness through the noise of the machines. A normal working day has 12 hours, overtime is regular. More than 80% of the workers have no contract and the wages are low. Workers who suffer from silicosis are often let go – as they are not aware of their right to compensation, most of them go back to their home place. Without a contract they can hardly prove they ever worked for the company causing the illness and hospitals often refuse to give an official diagnosis. Claiming their rights is therefore nearly impossible for workers.

Campaign against irresponsible companies

That’s where our partner organisation Labour Action China (LAC) gets involved. With the support from Solidar Switzerland, LAC get workers organised, helps to take legal action against their employer and is leading an international campaign to put pressure on the companies. With a campaign against the violation of the law for occupational health through the company Lucky Gems they achieved, that Lucky Gems was excluded from the Swiss Watch- and Jewellery Show ‘Baselworld’, in 2010 and 2011. Lucky Gems employs thousands of workers and is one of the biggest export firms of semi-precious stones in Asia. It is the first time a Hongkong company was excluded from an international fair because of their violation of labour rights.