>A labor organizer in central China has been detained for demanding his
>fellow workers at a paper factory be paid, a New York-based human rights
>group said Friday.
>
>Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Li Jiaqing was arrested on August 7 last year
>as a suspected ringleader of a protest in which more than 100 workers
>occupied a paper mill for two months to protest at a merger.
While I have no doubt about the anti-labor practices of the CCP, I wonder
about the credentials of Human Rights Watch as a critic of such practices.
HRW is a highly politicized outfit that was launched by publishing mogul
Robert L. Bernstein in a move to open up the Soviet Union to commercial
exploitation of highly marketable "dissident" authors. George Soros is on
the advisory board and is a heavy contributor. He has a vested interest in
"free" trade unions in China as long as they accompany free markets.
Jagdish Bhagwati, who is on the HRW China Committee, is raked over in a
recent Lingua Franca article--can't remember the name of the author.
Bhagwati is an economist who has been closely associated with the kind of
neoliberal changes taking place in China that has workers so upset.
Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
