http://www.thetimes.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-3-240732,00.html
March 19, 2002 Sacked Chinese murder their bosses From Oliver August in Xiannin. WORKERS in Chinas industrial heartland have started killing their bosses in protest at mass redundancies. In three recent, gruesome cases, managers at neighbouring state-owned factories were murdered in disputes with their employees. Sources say that labour-related killings have become widespread as reform programmes try to shift millions of workers into the private sector. Among the worst affected areas is Hubei province in central China, once the cradle of Maoist heavy industry but now weighed down with thousands of dead-end factories. In Xianning, a town 100 miles south of the Yangtse River, unemployed workers play cards at a decrepit chemical fibre factory while discussing its impending bankruptcy. They seem to accept the murder of their boss by Xu Yudong, a sacked colleague, as an almost normal by-product of Government restructuring. Many of Xiannings residents share the frustrations of Xu, a 28-year-old worker who was laid off last October. The manager of the fibre plant, Wang Shihua, offered him a redundancy package worth #350 after eight years of employment. Xu is said to have protested: The severance pay is too little. Its not even enough to start a small business. What am I going to do when I get old? The manager agreed to increase the package to #500 but Xu was still dissatisfied. When he began work at the plant in 1993, the Communist Party was promising lifetime employment. Now, the Communists wanted to throw him out with little hope of a new job. Xu returned to Mr Wangs office on October 31 to negotiate again but this time he was armed with a fruit knife. Mr Wang rejected his renewed demands and an enraged Xu pulled out his knife and stabbed him in the lower abdomen. Mr Wang died in hospital the same day. Xu was sentenced to death three weeks later and executed in January. In the street outside the factory, grimy children play a game called Kill the Boss in which they re-enact the managers death, pretending to stab and throttle each other. A worker called Xiang said that people had become used to eating from the iron rice bowl, the Chinese expression for a state-allocated job, guaranteed for life. They dont know anything else, so when thats taken away all of a sudden, they dont know what to do with themselves, he said. Mr Wangs murder is one of three at Hubeis state-owned enterprises in less than six months. In Huanggang, two hours drive north of Xianning, the 19-year-old son of a man laid off from Huanggang Aluminium Group killed the general manager who had sacked 10 per cent of the workforce. Even the Xinhua state news agency, which usually plays down such incidents, reported that the son was enraged at his fathers redundancy and by the wealth of the general manager, an allusion to corrupt practices. The agency also reported the killing of the deputy manager of a subsidiary of Xiangfan Xiangyang Resources as he was closing the insolvent company. He, too, was the victim of a sacked worker. Beijing has admitted that unemployment is one of its biggest problems. Although the official total is seven million, the real figure may be more than 100 million. How do you like them apples petrie? Justice is coming for you.
