["8,000 Workers at Taiwan Invested Factory in Jiangxi Which Made Footballs for World Cup Go on Strike, Damage Factory"]
Urgent! [as published, in English]
(1000 hours 9 Jun 2010) - This Centre has learned that large-scale disorder has erupted at the large, Taiwan-invested sports equipment manufacturer "Simaibo Sports Equipment Corporation" located in Xingzi County, Jiangxi, over the beating of a worker by security personnel, as well as poor working conditions and low pay. From 7 June to today, 8,000 workers have been on strike. Workers have been damaging company equipment and blocking a public road. The strike continues today. China has been experiencing a wave of strikes at foreign invested factories since the Foxconn incidents.
This Centre has learned that on 5 June a female worker working overtime was not wearing the company logo [ wei dai chang pai ], for which she was violently beaten by a factory security guard. A male worker [illegible handwriting; quickly?] intervened but was beaten and seriously injured by several security guards. He was sent to a hospital for urgent treatment. When the whole workforce reported for work at 0800 hours on Monday 7 June, a rumour spread that the injured worker had died. Accumulated anger over low pay and poor working conditions erupted among the workers. They began wrecking the factory security booths and the factory gate. They then smashed up an office building and dining hall. Everywhere in the factory was damaged to varying degrees. On the afternoon of 7 June and the morning of 8 June, workers blocked roads at the factory. The strike is still in progress today.
The factory is located in the Jiujiang Xingzi Industrial Park in Jiangxi. The investor which set up the factory with an investment of 300 million RMB is the world's largest manufacturer of balls for sports, the Sigerui Corporation of Taiwan. According to reports, some of the footballs to be used in the World Cup in South Africa were made by this factory.
The start of the Foxconn incidents set off a wave of strikes in foreign invested factories throughout China. On 6 June, 10,000 workers at the "Meilu Electronics Factory" in Shenzhen went on strike and blocked a road. On 7 June, 2,000 workers at the "Yacheng Electronics Factory" in Huizhou went on strike. And on 7 June, 2,000 workers at the Kunshan Shuyuan Machinery Plant near Shanghai went on strike and clashed with hundreds of special police personnel. Fifty workers were injured in that incident. And now comes the turmoil and damage to the "Simaibo" factory.
Social contradictions in China are worsening sharply. From the series of five incidents in which kindergarteners were injured, to the recent incidents in which three judges were shot dead and six judges were injured with sulphuric acid, and then to two recent "human bomb" incidents, the perpetrators [begin underlining] clearly knew they would die but did not fear death [end underlining]. Nor did the 13 suicide leapers at Foxconn fear death. Now [begin underlining] a tide of mass anger [end underlining] is erupting, and [begin underlining] the mass eruption of collective anger and the fearlessness of death [end underlining] could very possibly lead to unforeseen, very large incidents before long in China.
Source: Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, Hong Kong, in Chinese 9 Jun 10