A harsh reality
 Rights groups: Many furniture workers in China treated poorly

 BY PAUL B. JOHNSON
 ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
  HIGH POINT – Imagine work*ing six days a week, 11 hours a day, for 40 cents an hour to eke out a living.
  The money you make comes from working in appalling and dangerous conditions. You have little recourse to im*prove your lot – the govern*ment isn’t on your side, there are no free trade unions, not even the courts or media will help.
  This may sound like a bleak description from a 19th centu*ry Charles Dickens novel, but human rights activists say it’s today’s sobering reality of how furniture is produced in many factories across the Peo*ple’s Republic of China.
  The High Point Enterprise has spent two months re*searching information on manufacturing working con*ditions in China, which has skyrocketed to become the leading exporter of furnish*ings to the United States in 10 years. The rise of China as a furnishings exporting behe*moth has corresponded to the time when American furni*ture factories have closed, costing thousands of people their jobs at plants across the Triad and tens of thousands across North Carolina.
  The pay that Chinese furni*ture workers receive – and which draws manufacturers for low-cost production – di*rectly relates to repressive la*bor conditions, said Li Qiang, executive director of China Labor Watch.
  In addition to the long work hours and paltry pay, Chinese workers have few options to right any wrongs in the work*place, said Qiang, whose hu*man rights monitoring group is based in New York City.
  “Most workers don’t have medical insurance or pen*sions,” he said. Many factories are filled with toxic dust from the by*product of making furnish*ings, which results in workers developing serious lung dis*eases and other illnesses, Qiang said.
  A spokesman at the em*bassy in Washington for the People’s Republic of China SOURCE:
 couldn’t be reached for comment by The High Point Enter prise.
  Trade agreements with Chi*na and other developing coun*tries don’t ensure protection of workers’ rights in those na*tions, said Rep. Mel Watt, D* 12th and co-chairman of the Congressional Furnishings Caucus.
  “If an employee gets his hand cut off on the job in the United States, there’s some re*sponsibilities of the employer to help that person,” said Watt, who visited China in De*cember 2002. “If he gets his hand cut off in China, they treat him as if he’s another moving piece of machinery.
  They just send him home with no rights.” Here are some examples of reports from human rights groups and Chinese labor monitoring organizations CHINA, 7A
 about abuses in the Chinese furniture industry:
  ● In November, more than 3,000 workers at a sofa factory in Shenzhen staged an upris*ing after three of their col*leagues were reportedly beat*en by supervisors in a pay cut dispute.
  The workers were dispersed by riot police armed with shields and clubs, reports Chi*na Labour Bulletin.
  ● Thousands of workers at a Hong Kong-owned furniture factory in Shenzhen staged a protest in April against long working hours and inhumane treatment, China Labour Bul*letin reports.
  Riot police were called in to quell the protest.
  ● At a furniture factory in Guangdong Province, workers on all-night shifts have lost fingers and limbs in industri*al accidents, reports China Labor Watch. Injured workers are pressured to never tell anyone of work injuries at the factory or risk retaliation.
  Human rights monitors say other incidents most likely oc*cur but don’t come to light be*cause China has no independent press, courts or labor advocacy groups.
  The rate of serious and debilitating work injuries in the Chinese furnish*ings industry is higher than other manufacturing fields, Qiang said.
  American companies doing business in China can try to influence work conditions by bargaining with the government, said Qiang, speaking through a translator. The best way to improve conditions, he said, is support labor unions independent of companies or the Chinese Community Party.
  “But under the current political circumstances, there are great limitations on the freedom to organize labor unions and have col*lective bargaining,” Qiang said. “The working condi*tions might worsen in*stead of improve in the fu*ture. The workers are on the weak side.

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