Shehong County Silk Factory Workers Protest in Shihong, Sichuan

• Date: Apr 23 2005 Time: 19:08
• Description:
  From CLB: On April 23, 2005, more than 1,000 employees from the Shehong County Silk Factory in Sichuan Province staged a sit-in protest in front of the county government, demanding that the government revise its economic compensation scheme for the employees. When the county-owned silk factory declared bankruptcy in 2000, the employees were only given 120 yuan a month in living expenses. Five years later, on April 22, 2005, the county government issued an economic compensation scheme for the employees, setting the basic compensation at 4,500 yuan and adding 606 yuan for each year of employment. However because the scheme also required workers to pay their own pension and insurance contributions for the years 2000-2005, the workers claimed they would have virtually nothing left after their pension and insurance contributions.