Who’s Who: Han Dongfang – Labour Activist

One of the survivors of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, Han Dongfang is not passionate about recalling the event in which China’s People’s Liberation Army killed hundreds, if not thousands, of pro-democracy demonstrators.

“Do you assume that I’m an unhappy man? No, I’m happy because I always look into the future,” said Han, who was a 25-year-old rail worker when he joined other young protesters in a call for democracy.  “Often times people bring me back to what happened before, on which I don’t necessarily like to spend much time.”

“I always try to make the main area of conversation about what’s happening today and what there will be in the future,” he said. “We have weaknesses as human beings in revisiting unhappy things,” he added with a smile.

To Han, the incident was merely an event that happened at one moment in his journey called life, although he admits that it was surely a turning point for him. Born in a small village in Shanxi province of China in 1963, he had never imagined he would be involved in the pro-democracy movement and the large-scale June 4 military crackdown that resulted.

He was jailed for having helped set up an independent trade union in China, and he spent 22 months behind bars. Released with tuberculosis in 1991, he was allowed to go to the United States for treatment. On his return to China, he was expelled to the then British colony of Hong Kong and started his new life there. It was 1993.

Over the past years he kept paying attention to the daily lives of people on the mainland. For he concluded that the top priority was not the overturn of the authoritarian political system but the improvement of the living conditions of the Chinese people. Poor job security, poor health care, low quality in education — there were a number of difficult challenges to meet.

“Democracy, freedom, human rights, those are the words we created to describe the living situation,” Han said. “If we focus too much on those terms, it would mislead people’s attention to something else. I don’t believe those terms are more important than the reality. These terms are supposed to reflect the reality.”

In March 1997, shortly before Britain returned Hong Kong to China, Han joined Radio Free Asia, a private radio station funded by the U.S. government that provides news and information to Asian countries whose governments ban access to a free press. To this day, Han continues to host a 10-minute programme twice a week to comment on labour issues in China.

He asks his audience in China to call in so that he can learn more about their problems. Soon after he launched the programme, it received favourable comments from the audience and he began to get calls from all over China.

“I use simple questions: What happened? What did you lose? These questions to uncover the facts,” he said. “In this way, I improved my understanding of their situations and came to feel that I’m tied to the soil.” Based on what he hears from the phone conversations, Han said, he tries to find a way to help those people.

Meanwhile, Han is working at the China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based, non-profit organisation that he founded in 1994. Its aim is to defend and promote workers’ rights in China. Although Han has never studied law formally, he has became familiar with China’s labour and employment law over time.

He said it was difficult at the beginning to persuade the troubled people to go through legal procedures.

“When I talk to the workers, I always tell them, ‘Your situation is not as bad as you thought, there are laws you can use’,” Han said in an interview at his office in Sheung Wan, on the western part of Hong Kong island. He introduces them to legal basics with easy and concise explanations.

“They don’t know why it’s wrong even though they know there should be justice, that’s why they’re desperate,” he said. What is most important, Han believes, is that people participate in every process to make their lives better. “Then, for the first time they know what they want. That’s the spirit.”

Recently, Han has been dealing with health problems among migrant construction workers in Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong. When major construction sites emerged there during the 1990s, many workers moved to the city to work. Those involved in blasting construction holes, switching from site to site and working for long hours, breathed in harmful dust without knowing it. As a result, many of them were later diagnosed with the lung disease, pneumoconiosis.

According to Han, the migrant workers did not have formal labour contracts, so employing companies did not feel obligated to provide them with medical check-ups. Han said there is a “big hole” in the construction industry in China, which is a lack of guaranteed safety for the workers.

“Workers thought the government would take care of them and ask the companies for compensation. But the government just pushed them out,” Han said.

He helped the workers in Shenzhen fight for justice. Although living in Hong Kong, Han searched out mainland-based lawyers who would agree to represent the workers. In September 2009, the workers sued the local health bureau for not having provided them with medical examinations, and claimed compensation.

Soon after, he heard good news from Shenzhen: patients with third-grade (the most serious level) pneumoconiosis each received RMB1,300,000 (about US$190,350) in compensation while first-grade patients received RMB70,000 (about US$10,250). Han also said he observed drastic changes in the attitude of the government officials in Shenzhen. On the day the case went to a trial, about 30 to 40 government officials were sent to the court.

“First of all, I was surprised the court accepted the case,” Han said. “Those figures were far more enough to compensate them (the workers). But that everyone learned lessons is much more important. We regard this as a quite successful case.”

Han says he will soon start preparing for another lawsuit for the same group of workers. He is going to bring a case against the local labour bureau in Shenzhen for its failure to monitor construction sites on a regular basis.  ”They escaped from their duties to protect the workers. This case will be clearer,” he said.

Han began learning the Tibetan language a month ago. He takes time out from his busy work schedule to go to the language school three days a week. Asked why he studies Tibetan, he chuckled and said, “Free Tibet.”

“I’m joking,” he added quickly. He said he is trying to reduce the language barriers he would face when he supports non-Mandarin speakers’ struggles for their labour rights. He explained that he believes workers from all across China – including, presumably, Tibet – will stand up and initiate a labor movement some day.

“I’m learning it to prepare myself in order to talk to workers from every part of China and fight with them. I’m sure that it (the labour movement) will happen very soon. I always look into the future.”

External links: Han Dongfang at the JMSC.