Tom Lehman
Anyone else?
JKSCHW at aol.com wrote:
> The Telegraph is the main repectable paper of the old Tory right, not City of London right--that's the Times. I get the Guardian myself. Anyway, the Telegraph is not the Sun or the Nirror. I'd trust it for things outside the British Isles, not on Brit politics or Ireland. --jks
>
> In a message dated Mon, 8 May 2000 9:08:23 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Tom Lehman <uswa12 at Lorainccc.edu> writes:
>
> << How credible is the Telegraph(UK)? I'm somewhat skeptical of Johnny Bull
> reporting myself. Too much straight faced reporting on crop circles, ufo's etc.
> etc.
>
> Tom
>
> Stephen E Philion wrote:
>
> > The Telegraph (UK)
> >
> > Sunday May 7, 2000
> >
> > China's recession adds pressure for workers' rights
> >
> > By Damien Mcelroy in Beijing
> >
> > CHINA returns to work today after an unprecedented week-long national
> > holiday ordered by a Communist leadership alarmed at escalating violent
> > protests and strikes among a discontented workforce.
> >
> > The decision to extend the "Labour Day" holiday to a week for 300 million
> > urban workers seems to have been taken shortly before May 1st and had a
> > whiff of panic about it. Analysts see it as a barely disguised attempt to
> > defuse an increasingly explosive atmosphere among a workforce facing
> > Western-style job insecurities combined with falling wages.
> >
> > Fed up with not being paid by their bankrupt employers and fearful of being
> > laid off, many workers are taking to the streets to challenge the
> > leadership for a better deal. Above all, Beijing is terrified of a workers'
> > rights movement emerging from the spread of isolated protests, and of China
> > spawning the kind of Polish-style free trade union that helped topple
> > communism in eastern Europe in the Eighties.
> >
> > Unrest has been particularly prevalent in the provinces north-east of
> > Beijing which have been hardest hit by the decline of old industries amid
> > economic restructuring. Once in the vanguard of Mao Tse-dung dash for
> > development, the region is now a basket case of outdated factories and
> > exhausted mines.
> >
> > In cities such as Shenyang, tens of thousands of laid-off factory workers
> > wander the streets for want of something to do. They are easily prompted
> > into reciting a litany of grievances. A recent flare-up involving redundant
> > miners in Yangjiazhanzi, 250 miles north-east of Beijing, was typical of
> > the type of incident now taking place regularly in China.
> >
> > Cars were smashed, shops looted and fuel stores set alight as the town was
> > embroiled in a three-day battle between 20,000 miners and soldiers
> > following the announcement that the largest local employer, a molybdenum
> > mine, was to close.
> >
> > Workers were further enraged at the management's decision to offer only a
> > few hundred pounds in severance pay for a lifetime's work. One man and his
> > wife, who had worked a combined 70 years at the mine, were given £350 to
> > compensate them for lost earnings, pension and health care.
> >
> > At one stage, demonstrators raided the mine's explosives store to hold the
> > troops at bay. The growing mood of unrest has come about despite the tight
> > lid kept on labour disputes by the Communist Party.
> >
> > Independent trade unions are banned, and any sign of a co-ordination of
> > protests in different areas prompts a harsh response. Labour activists are
> > frequently detained in laogai labour camps to undergo "re-education".
> > However, worker discontent has been escalating across China, according to
> > new figures.
> >
> > The number of officially recorded strikes soared to more than 120,000 in
> > 1999 - a 14-fold increase in five years. The new statistics are all the
> > more remarkable as they will have been "massaged" by officials in an
> > attempt to gloss over rising tensions.
> >
> > They illustrate the frustrations among a workforce that was nurtured on
> > promises of jobs for life but is now confronted with the collapse of
> > uneconomic and outdated heavy industry. Many employers are failing to pay
> > salaries and entitlements to their workers on a regular basis - causing
> > great hardship.
> >
> > Those laid off are often forced to sell household items from makeshift
> > street stalls to earn the money they need to live. One old soldier, who was
> > demobbed from the People's Liberation Army in the late Fifties to work in a
> > factory, said hardship was rising, even for those who were still being paid.
> >
> > He said: "Pensions and salaries aren't going up, but rents and electricity
> > prices are," he said. "If you paid for enough electricity to heat your
> > home, you couldn't eat. So people have to steal the electricity."
> >
> > There is an almost uniform bitterness among ordinary Chinese against
> > officials and company managers who have been able to enrich themselves from
> > their positions. Yet despite rising resentment, corruption is still on the
> > increase.
> >
> > One Hong Kong academic estimates that the party-appointed management of
> > state-run factories skim more than £8 billion into their own bank accounts
> > - usually overseas - every year. In a move eerily reminiscent of the dying
> > days of the Soviet bloc a decade ago, the Chinese Communist Party is now
> > trying to distract people's attention from the inequalities that are
> > feeding their deep-seated grievances.
> >
> > Last week the propaganda machine was busy issuing reports of crowded
> > airports and bustling streets in an attempt to obscure the real reason for
> > the extended break. Newspapers reported a stampede to the shops, claiming
> > growing consumer confidence that the economy was improving.
> >
> > But a quick visit to one of Beijing's biggest department stores revealed
> > that, while people were out in force, few were spending with the abandon
> > that the government had hoped for. Official figures put the annual economic
> > growth rate at eight per cent. But the steady decline of state-owned
> > companies, which still employ more than half the urban workforce, has
> > pitched the country into a malaise that will not be lifted by last week's
> > extra holiday.
> >
> > Li Qiang, an electrical appliance salesman, said few people had taken up
> > the official invitation to spend freely during the holiday. He said:
> > "People are still afraid to spend. The whole economy has been changing
> > dramatically since 1994. There are so many laid off from state-owned
> > companies that, until social welfare improves, people won't spend money
> > needlessly."
>
> >>