Yes, Lou, that is why I thought it was important to note that I can vouch
for this report, although its distributors have their obvious neo-liberal
goals as the motivation. However, and what might be of interest to you, is
that not every instance of labor organizing in Chinese SOEs is dominated
by neo-liberal agendas. In this instance, the main people involved in
helping workers are Maoists. And, as I reported, their goals are not to
get more private enterprise in China, but to preserve the state sector
from its current dismantling.
Shame on me for not writing this case up earlier, but I know it quite well
and the people involved in it are not of the same ideological orientation
as Human Rights Watch. This is the irony of the workers' struggles in
SOEs in China. The Party either ignores them or directly participates in
their repression and then liberal organizations like HRW are able to claim
them as part of their own agenda. The struggles are real nonetheless, are
closely interrelated with the problem of the reform agenda and ideology
itself, and if the Marxist left abroad doesn't want to claim them,
liberals will surely benefit from that decision.
News of this story btw didn't originate at HRW. It originated on the China
and the World web page (chinabulletin.com), which is a Chinese
Marxist/Maoist web page, with the latest books in online form of Chinese
left economists on China and WTO, and a host of other topics critical of
reform, imperialism, etc...Unfortunately most articles are in Chinese, so
only those who can read Chinese can understand it. If they had some big
funding they could hire out people to do full time translating of its
better articles, which would be invaluable to western marxists...
Steve
On Fri, 16 Mar 2001, Louis Proyect wrote:
> >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
>
>
