China Labor Watch

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China Labor Watch (CLW) is a New York-based non-government organization founded by labor activist Li Qiang in October 2000 whose mission is the defense of workers' rights in China. Through research, advocacy and legal assistance, CLW seeks to help China's workers become more informed of their rights and to empower them to realize those rights within their communities.

[edit] Facts

Founded in the year 2000, the New York-based NGO China Labor Watch promotes the rights of workers in the People's Republic of China. It does this by revealing to the international public news of sub-standard working conditions and wages, but also by working quietly with international merchandisers who outsource production to Chinese companies, so that they can press their suppliers to conform to international standards. The group works to protect the legal rights of all categories of workers, including women and children.

The organization promotes workers' education. It organizes free law classes held in neighborhood settings. The classes cover, for example, what to look for in a contract, health dangers in workplaces, education on Chinese labor laws, and how to bring grievances to the local government and labor departments. By 2007, China Labor Watch was training over five hundred workers. The organization has distributed forty thousand copies of booklets that explain in clear accessible terms the hours, wages, and benefits to which workers are entitled by law.

Often, CLW engages in direct interventions with regard to situations in China. Examples:

2001: Laid off workers from a VTech factory in Guangdong Province received their legally mandated unemployment benefits only after CLW helped take their case to court. Citation: [1]

2002: CLW helped workers in the city of Panjin (Liaoning Province) receive their legally owed compensation by releasing a series of press releases.

Citation: [2]

2004: CLW and other activist organizations successfully campaigned for the release of ten imprisoned Stella International workers by hiring prominent labor lawyers to defend the arrested workers, and by writing advocacy letters asking the companies for which Stella produces to insist on leniency. [3]

2004: CLW began pressing Chinese factory owners to provide injury insurance for their workers. Finally, in 2007, in the wake of these efforts by CLW and other organizations, the Chinese government began to require factories to provide such insurance.

2005: A CLW-funded legal aid program helped about one hundred workers in Shenzhen to receive adequate wages, by training them on how to bring their cases to local labor bureaus. Altogether, the program educated about eight hundred workers on the law and labor issues, and trained ten labor activists to help workers with work injury related issues.

In 2006, CLW helped coordinate ten thousand workers in launching a petition on labor rights protection in Shenzhen. [4]

2006: CLW publicized the fact that fifteen of Wal-Mart’s China-based supplier factories were under violation for underpaying their workers. [5]

Occasionally, the organization issues its own monographic reports. Examples:

2007: A survey and case studies on work injuries in the Pearl River Delta region, surveying 260 injured workers was published. (The Long March: Survey and Case Studies of Work Injuries in the Pearl River Delta Region [6])

2007: A report about Chinese suppliers to multinational corporations was released. The report covered approximately eight toy factories, which are affiliated with Bandai, Chip Jap Co., Ltd., Walt Disney, E. Box and Eager, Fox, Gosh International, Hasbro, Meid Ltd., Russ Berrie, Sanrio, Seeds Co. Ltd, Sega, Takara, and others. (Investigations on Toy Suppliers in China; Workers are still suffering [7]

Since 2003, CLW has maintained a bilingual website in EnglishChina Labor Watch and Chinese Media:中国劳工观察 to provide information to any interested individuals. The group is often cited in the media. Citation: [8]