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China's
deadly mining industry
By Antoaneta
Bezlova
BEIJING - China has renewed its efforts
to improve conditions in its coal mines and reduce the
alarmingly high number of mining accidents, but newly
unveiled statistics suggest the country remains one of
the world's deadliest places for miners toiling
underground.
Last year, 6,995 coal miners were
killed in explosions, shaft collapses and floods in
different parts of the country, according to government
figures. In the first half of this year, the number of
fatal coal mine accidents rose 10.3 percent over the
previous year to 1,630, the Chinese trade newspaper
China Coal Report reported this month.
Government officials consider as fatal accidents
those resulting in 10 or more deaths. Even as the new
figures were being released, three mining accidents in
July brought the death toll up by more than 40 people -
all trapped in gas-filled shafts, buried in rubble from
explosions or drowned in flooded coal pits.
The
increase in deadly accidents comes despite the enactment
of a new occupational safety law in October, which
promised to hold businesses and government departments
more accountable for accidents. In May, new tough
regulations threatening financial punishments for those
enterprises forsaking safety went into force.
The rising figures of industrial deaths are
embarrassing for the new generation of Chinese Communist
Party leaders who came to power last fall vowing to
improve the lot of China's disgruntled industrial
workers. They particularly singled out the working
conditions of the country's five million miners.
On the eve of Chinese Lunar New Year in January,
Wen Jiabao, the premier-designate at the time, signaled
the new leadership's commitment to care for the miners
by celebrating this traditionally family festival with
coal miners underground.
China, the world's
largest coal producer, relies on coal for more than 70
percent of its energy needs. Poor safety regulations,
slack management and the lack of government pressure are
all blamed for the country's dismal track record in
mining accidents.
Independent experts consider
official statistics of mining accidents a gross
underestimate because more than half of China's coal
miners work in small mines run by local governments -
and they are known to censor reports of all accidents. A
commonly cited estimate is that about 10,000 miners die
in China every year.
Repeated efforts to close
smaller shafts, many illegal or privately-run with lack
of even rudimentary fire-fighting and safety equipment,
have yielded no results. Despite the central
government's ban, many mines that have been shut down
quickly reopen, often in cooperation with local
officials who rely on their revenues to meet the
localities' running costs.
As part of the move
away from a planned economy, China's coal industry has
been downsized over the past five years and now big
state mines are also the responsibility of local (town
and county) or provincial governments. This means that
even in state mines, it has been hard to enforce health
and safety regulations because local officials and mine
managers share an interest in boosting profits.
A mine accident in the country's northeast
industrial belt, widely reported even in the
state-censored media earlier this year, illustrates the
perils of the whole industry. Thirty-three miners were
trapped in an underground shaft after a gas explosion in
a coal mine in Harbin, Heilongjiang province. The mine
had previously been government-owned, but had been
leased to a private subcontractor who recruited cheaply
paid and poorly trained peasants for the job.
Little was spent on improving the old
ventilation system and providing new firefighting
equipment, because the leaseholder saw the mine as a
short-term investment. This proved fatal when gas built
up in the shaft and triggered an explosion. All 33
workers perished.
The dire state of China's
mining industry closely mirrors labor standards in many
other industrial sectors, where decentralization of
management has enabled local governments to turn a blind
eye to worker safety and labour exploitation.
The International Labour Organization estimates
that 11.1 of 100,000 Chinese workers die annually from
industrial accidents. This contrasts with workplace
fatality accidents of 2.19 per 100,000 in the United
States.
Last year alone, some 14,924 people died
in industrial accidents in China, according to the State
Administration of Work Safety. Even as disaffected
workers demand safety and better working conditions,
they are forced to put up with the lack of such, as
thousands of migrant laborers are willing to forget
about safety hazards in order to get and keep jobs.
"The large volume of people looking for low-end
jobs drives down wages and working conditions and allows
migrant workers to be exploited by employers," argues
Anita Chan, a China labor researcher at Australia
National University, in a paper published by the journal
China Perspectives.
Because the Communist Party
bans independent trade unions, which it sees as a threat
to its monopoly of power, and the official trade union
acts as an arm of the Party, there is no one left to
speak up for workers' rights. Few lawyers have dared
represent workers' demands out of fear that aligning
with protesting laborers might be seen as state
subversion.
Wu Zhongmin, sociology professor of
the Central Party School, believes now it is up to the
new party leaders to redress the situation. "The new
government should shift its focus from economic
development to the needs of the poor," he said.
In Wu's views, the consequences of more than two
decades of single-minded economic development should now
be rectified with more official concern for the welfare
of workers.
"China's funding for the minimum
living standard scheme is too low," he continued,
referring to the government's welfare experiment in
establishing a minimum living allowance. In 2002, the
central government set aside several billion yuan for
the program. But, by comparison, Beijing will invest 200
billion yuan (US$24.1 billion) for the 2008 Olympics.
(Inter Press Service)
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