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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-1831630,00.html">http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-1831630,00.html</A></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial size=5>Workers Shut Down Chinese
Factory</FONT></STRONG>
<P><FONT face=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif size=2><BR><B>Monday June 24, 2002 3:50
PM</B></FONT>
<P><FONT face=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif size=2>
<P>BEIJING (AP) - Hundreds of workers laid-off from a state-run military
equipment plant in southwestern China shut down production there in a protest
over compensation, a rights monitoring group said Monday.
<P>Workers blocked the plant's gate around the clock for the past two weeks,
preventing other workers from entering, the Information Center for Human Rights
and Democracy said.
<P>The factory, located in a special military district in Chengdu, the capital
of Sichuan province, makes military optics such as gunsights, the Hong
Kong-based center said.
<P>It said management last year laid off staff under a controversial system
known as ``pay-and-cut.'' Workers took a lump sum payment based on years of
service but subsequently demanded additional payments, saying salaries had been
too low all along.
<P>Similar arrangements have prompted protests this year at other state
industries around China, some involving tens of thousands of workers. There have
been no reports of management giving in to demands.
<P>The center said the factory was owned by the China South Industries Group
Corp., one of China's largest arms producers, and is administered directly by
the State Council, China's cabinet.
<P>Communist China's founder Mao Zedong moved thousands of industries and
military logistics bases to Sichuan in the belief they would better survive an
attack by U.S. or Soviet invaders. The invasions never came and the industries
have suffered from widespread inefficiencies and a lack of markets.
<P>Telephone calls to the factory and local government offices rang unanswered.
A policeman who answered the phone at a local precinct station said he had no
information on any protests.
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