November 19 is the 27th anniversary of the Shenzhen toy factory Zhili fire, the fire killed 87 people. After the incident, the Hong Kong-owned factory was revealed to have fire problems, the boss instructed the factory director with 3,000 yuan to “get it right! Twenty-seven years later, the mainland media TuDuDu commune briefly described the daily life of the female workers at the Chili factory and wrote about the current labor conditions of the female workers.
On May 27, 1993, Wu Xinghui, a police officer from the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau’s Tianbei Fire Brigade and head of the Kwai Chung Town Fire Safety Improvement Working Group, received HK$3,000 from Huang Guoguang, the director of the Kwai Chung Zhili Craft Products Factory. On the same day, Wu Xinghui ordered his subordinates to issue a fire certificate to the Zhili factory.
A month and a half ago, firefighters went to the factory to check fire safety, and found 13 fire hazards, including: all safeties with 2.01 mm thick copper wire as safety wires; the warehouse of flammable materials is located on the first floor of the workshop, and the warehouse is separated from the factory only by wooden boards; one of the two fire evacuation shutters on the first floor of the factory is welded to death, and the other one is locked for a long time; the fire regulations can only accommodate 50 people per floor. The plant housed 230 workers at …….
On May 24, the boss of the Hong Kong-based company, Lao Zhaoquan, got the news and instructed Huang Guoguang by phone to send HK$3,000 to “fix” the problem. “. Wu Xinghui accepted the stolen money and forced his subordinates to issue a certificate of conformity to the Zhili factory when other police officers thought that the factory had not been rectified and the fire department did not review the situation and did not agree to issue the certificate.
In charge of coordinating this deal was the director of the Zhili factory, Huang Guoguang. Shenzhen’s early three to one complementary (“three to one”) “refers to the processing of incoming materials, processing of incoming samples, and assembly of incoming parts, while “a complementary ” refers to the compensation trade) factories, usually employing a local person as the factory manager for the “Settle” all kinds of procedures and affairs at the local level. Huang Guoguang, who was responsible for fire prevention, did not make any changes to the safety hazards that had been identified, but provided a false report to the fire department, falsely claiming that the factory had organized a volunteer fire department and modified the wire sleeves.
The girls who came from faraway villages to work in Shenzhen, the girls who worked overtime day and night on the assembly line, the girls who put their dreams in a humble notebook, didn’t know that they had to leave a black gold in their hard-earned wealth, didn’t know that a small “wet crumb” of bribe money was their salary for more than half a year, didn’t know that it was this under-the-table deal that finally sent them to their death.
On the afternoon of November 19, 1993, five months and 22 days after receiving the fire certificate, three power lines in the factory short-circuited and caught fire, because the fuse made of copper wire could not be fused, the power could not be interrupted in time, the short-circuited wires continued to sparks, igniting the piles of cloth and sponges in the warehouse, and disaster ensued.
When the fire started, more than 300 workers were working overtime to make Italian brand CHICOO toys for the upcoming Christmas, and the factory manager Huang Guoguang, who was on the second floor, opened the window and climbed a rope to escape.
Employees on the second and third floors scrambled to escape without anyone directing them to do so, but the windows were nailed shut with iron bars and three of the four exits were locked or welded shut. The narrow roads, crowded streets, heavy smoke, poor visibility, and toxic fumes from the burning chemicals caused many employees to fume near the stairways.
When the firefighters used an axe to split open the welded shutter door at the western stairway, people were shocked to see that from the corner of the first floor to the third floor were all the bodies of the working girls, piled up on several floors, some of them burned to the bone, and some of them were hugging four or five of them in a ball, unable to break them off.
In the end, 87 people were killed and 51 injured in the fire. Among the dead, except for two male workers, the rest were working girls, the youngest of whom was only 15 years old.
At the time, it was the deadliest fire in Shenzhen since the city was founded.
Is it better to be alive? –The Daily Life of a Cherie Worker in a Family Letter
The Hong Kong Noise Cooperative’s song “Goodbye Fireflies” features Ying, one of the survivors of the 1993 Zhili fire. And in the lyrics, “How can I go to school if I have no money to cry? “Twenty years later, in Zhong County, Chongqing, we listened to Xiaoying’s brother, Chen Jian, recount the situation back then, and although we didn’t see it with our own eyes, the images seemed to pass before our eyes, which was still very heartbreaking. Chen Jian, Xiaoying’s brother, held a letter from her family back then and said.
Their factories at that time treated the workers as part of the machine, with no independent human existence. The windows in their workshops were all welded with iron bars and then netted with iron mesh to prevent the workers from throwing their toys out, so they made them fully enclosed, basically like a cage to keep the workers inside, lacking respect for people. ”
“The hours required of the workers were too long, basically no breaks, no time for eating, laundry, or showering were given. She said that they took cold showers there, which we thought was a terrible situation, and that they had to wait for a long time because there was only one toilet. Under these working and living conditions, Xiao Ying earns more than 200 yuan a month, which is a considerable amount of money in the countryside.
After the fire, Ying was taken to Kwai Chung Hospital, where she was transferred to Nanfang Hospital because of the severity of her injuries, where she was hospitalized for more than seven months and underwent more than two dozen surgeries. Chen’s father did not agree, so the hospital stopped the medication, pulled the electric switch in Ying’s room, and did not clean it.
When she left Guangdong, she was still immobilized in bed, bleeding from pus, and needed three rows of chairs to lie flat on the plane. The hotel asked the family to buy all the sheets and blankets when they checked out, because all the blankets, cloths, sheets, and coverings that Xiaoying had used had pus and blood. In this case, the Southwest Hospital, which was better at treating burns, was reluctant to accept her, saying that they couldn’t treat the old wounds at the Southern Hospital, but that they were worried that she would die at their place if they couldn’t heal her. The family had no choice but to take her back to her hometown, but the hometown hospital still did not dare to accept her.
The first time I saw her, I couldn’t believe she was my sister. She had pus and blood all over her body, and her skin was black, the color of charcoal. She couldn’t cover anything up, she could only put a little piece of cloth on some parts of her body, and that was just to cover it up. ”
After being in the hospital for some time, Ying’s wounds would not heal, and she kept bleeding, unable to grow new skin. In the end, her family found a doctor at home to treat her wounds, but it took a long time for them to heal. Until now, only the slightest touch would cause the skin to break ……. After returning home in 1994, Ying had more than 20 surgeries, large and small, and in some places the bones were exposed and no skin could grow. In addition, Xiao Ying is very easy to catch a cold, when almost twice a month, with a high fever.
The family of the deceased in the Zhili fire, however, received more than 30,000 yuan in compensation, while Xiaoying was completely incapacitated, paying out a lump sum of 160,000 yuan, which was calculated as the cost of living until the age of 60, spread out over about two to three hundred yuan per month. The 160,000 was not enough to cover the more than 20 surgeries that Xiaoying had to undergo after she returned to Chongqing, and the family had to raise money for her medical expenses.
After 27 years, how are the women workers doing?
However, it would be too optimistic to say that the women who died in the Chili Fire are history. Just today, the women workers are still in pain ……
(1) Leukemia Curse in the Workshop
Xiao Jie used to work in a shoe factory, and she said that there were many women workers in the factory, and at a glance, almost the entire assembly line was made up of women workers.
Now, she works with workers with occupational diseases. Most of them were diagnosed with leukemia after working in the shoe factory.
The root cause of leukemia is benzene poisoning. Benzene poisoning causes changes in the blood, firstly, menstrual disorders, then leukopenia, thrombocytopenia and anemia, and in the worst cases, aplastic anemia or leukemia.
Mei was diagnosed with occupational leukemia after working outside the home for more than 20 years. During these 20 years, her salary in a shoe factory slowly rose from 200 RMB to 800 RMB and then to 2000 RMB. During that time, she got married and had children, and just when she felt her life was settling down, she fell ill.
After long periods of hospitalization and chemotherapy, her husband became annoyed and gradually withdrew from her. She was under tremendous mental pressure, and while fighting the disease, she had to go through a complicated and lengthy process of compensation for her occupational disease. ……
Xiao Jie said that besides shoe factories, toy factories, and eyeglass factories, these factories tend to hire female workers who are considered to be more “obedient” and meticulous in their work, and these factory workers are most likely to suffer from menstrual disorders, thrombocytopenia, and even occupational leukemia due to chronic benzene poisoning.
In recent years, there have been numerous reports of female workers suffering from occupational leukemia.
(2) The specter of dust floating in the air
In addition to leukemia, pneumoconiosis is one of the longest latent occupational diseases. When we think of pneumoconiosis, we tend to think of industries such as mining and construction where there are more male workers, but we tend to overlook textile factories and toy factories where there are more female workers.
The air in the textile workshop is filled with invisible dust, and the factory does not take safety precautions or inform workers of the risk of occupational diseases.
Cotton spinning workshops usually have air conditioning, but the function of air conditioning is not to improve the working environment of employees, much less to discharge dust, but to maintain a certain temperature and humidity to prevent the cotton products from breaking.
Women workers with few protective measures are more likely to develop cotton pneumoconiosis if they inhale organic dust over time.
In the toy and garment factories, the women workers had little protection.
The invisible dust floating in the air eats away at their young bodies with impunity.
(3) Neglected Physical Injuries
Apart from occupational diseases, the effects of intense labor on women workers’ bodies are often overlooked.
A worker once submitted an article to us, “The Asses of Female Garment Workers,” describing their daily lives as follows.
When you work for twenty hours straight, your ass hurts from sitting, but you can’t do this kind of work standing up, and you have to sit down, and your ass ends up with blisters. The number of calluses (on the buttocks) represents the number of working hours, just like the annual rings on a tree. As a garment factory worker, there are always those few days in a month when we are most physically inconvenienced, when our great aunt has to come and visit us. But regardless of the physical inconvenience, we have to work as usual. The manager said, “We all have our periods, everyone takes time off, so how can we produce?
As this worker said, women workers during their cycle are not protected, but rather bored. Moreover, the temperature in the workshop is adapted to the product, and the production environment is very unfriendly to women who are menstruating. As early as 1990, some scholars have shown that noise in textile factories not only affects the hearing of female workers, but also causes menstrual disorders, worsens menstrual pain, and even affects pregnancy and the newborn baby.
There are also many unseen physical injuries, many cleaning and houseworking women in factory canteens and hospitals, who suffer from dermatitis and rheumatism for years.
These physical pains are not covered by occupational diseases, and they can only endure in silence.
Conclusion
The Zhili fire, although a human tragedy, but there is a “windfall”! In 1995, China’s first Labor Law to protect workers’ rights and interests was finally issued. A few years later, the Labor Contract Law was also issued amidst controversy. The birth of all the laws and regulations that protect the rights of workers is the price that workers paid with blood, tears, and even with their own bodies in a lump.
Today, however, it has become the primary task of all corporate legal and human resources departments to find ways to exploit the loopholes and avoid the risks associated with these two laws. Just as, with the passage of time, their sacrifices are forgotten. Even those people and articles that were brave enough to speak up for women workers, to help them find hope and fight back in the midst of painful life experiences, have been muted and disappeared. ……
Therefore, on a day like today, it is all the more important that we do not forget that it is not only because of the pain that is still being covered up, or the many sisters who are still suffering from inhumanity, or the compassion from on high. More importantly, as we welcome those so-called days of remembrance and enjoy the many “international and modern” events in Shenzhen, we should not forget the many sisters who are still suffering. Every minute of their labor, their blood and sweat is concentrated in their urban life.
Perhaps there should be a sculpture of them in one of the city’s landmark parks, so that future generations can truly remember their mission and move forward. But we don’t dare to ask for that. We only hope that on the dark days, more light will shine through to warm the cold hearts and bodies of the women workers, so that even if they risk being silenced, there will still be people who can stand up and speak up for them. Perhaps, just as we expect, one day, this ray of light, this little voice, can really break the fog and usher in a brand new sunshine for women workers and Chinese workers.
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