Guest Comments by SACOM (Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior)
 
HONG KONG – This month, Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), based in Hong Kong, visited seven workers who suffered industrial accidents at Elec-Tech on the Chinese mainland. The following findings emerge from in-depth interviews with the workers.

“Elec-Tech is a factory that produces severed fingers and hands,” said Ruan Li Bing, who lost his forearm in a 2009 accident. “After so many injury cases, Elec-Tech has become professional at handling the incidents. All injured workers immediately are sent to the PLA No. 168 Hospital.”

Within a year starting in July 2009, more than 60 workers at Elec-Tech’s Zhuhai production facilities went through disability assessments after industrial injuries. We hardly can imagine how many fingers, hands and arms were severed earlier.

Factory machines smash and slice not just body parts, but workers' futures too. After an amputation, it's unlikely for a young worker to find a new job. Many were family breadwinners. Some dreamed of saving money to marry or open small shops, aspirations that soon fade away.

It can be heartbreaking to notice how the victims try to hide mutilated hands or wrist stumps inside sleeves or pockets, especially in public. Even compensation paid to legal standards fails to soften the psychological impact.

Outrageously, Elec-Tech fails to halt more tragedies. “Our torment doesn't bother Elec-Tech at all,” said a male worker receiving hospital treatment. “It doesn't care about ongoing dangers in the factory.” The machine that maimed him remains in operation, not replaced or repaired.

Unsafe machines, inadequate training, lack of protective gear and pressures to work faster cause the injuries. Other problems include: imposing fines on industrial-injury victims, excessive overtime (up to 310 hours a month), lack of rest days and arbitrary wage calculations.

As a major Elec-Tech client, the retail giant Wal-Mart has a responsibility to ensure factory safety and decent working conditions. So we urge Wal-Mart to:
-- investigate safety at Elec-Tech and issue a corrective plan;
-- work with Elec-Tech to replace old, unsafe machines;
-- compensate all industrial-injury victims;
-- provide labor-rights training to factory workers, stressing work safety;
-- facilitate a workers' committee to monitor factory conditions;
-- publicize a list of Elec-Tech industrial injuries; and
-- make available a complaint hotline for workers.

Such serious workplace injuries represent more than just accidents. They are man-made tragedies that could have been prevented.

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