Image:Image of the letter written which represents 82 nitrogenous fertilizer factory workers.

July 10 th , 2007

The nitrogenous fertilizer factory Lin Xiang located in Hunan is currently under reform. The Chinese laws stipulated, factories under the process of reform are required to change its system accordingly to the Chinese policies. Lin Xiang, however, uses its dominate position as an employer continuously taking away workers' rights during the reform by giving different inexcusable reasons. Out of more than one thousand workers in the factory, there were about 100 to 200 workers obtained only some of the rights that they deserve, there are 82 workers who were fired and given different reasons. During the interpellation concerning the factory's new policy and workers' rights which was attended by government officials from different departments, Lin Xiang failed to convince the workers by giving logical reasons. Instead, representative at the management level gave the following speech, “You workers want to protect your rights according to laws? In this factory, I am the law! (As we may all know, legislative power and legal jurisdiction are two significant aspects of the central Chinese government. Even in Hong Kong , under the policy of “One Country, Two Systems”, its legislative and juristic powers belongs to the central government. The government officials at the scene probably thought we are not educated enough to know about this basic fact, however, they did not make any attempts on correcting this Lin Xiang representative's speech.

Among the workers who were fired, there are workers who entered Lin Xiang during the 60s and 70s and young workers who joined during the past ten years. Their age and backgrounds may vary, but their only commonality is that they are all poor workers who have never had a chance to own any land with very few possessions, they can only put their hopes of survival on Lin Xiang! Now the Lin Xiang's human resource department used uncivilized ways which violated the Chinese laws to desecrate workers. Towards such behavior, we can only send complaints to the people's court in order to retrieve our rights.

Sincerely,

82 workers from Lin Xiang factory