Chinese officials meet with protesting workers

BEIJING -- Government officials in northeastern China met Tuesday with hundreds of laid-off state textile workers who have taken to the streets to demand back pay and unemployment insurance.

The meeting in Jiamusi, a city in China's rust belt, came during a gathering of the country's legislators in Beijing to discuss poverty and unemployment, among other major problems.

Labor discontent is strong across the northeast, where millions have lost jobs because of the closure of state factories, often after accusations of corruption or mismanagement.

Protests by workers demanding back pay or unemployment benefits are regular occurrences, though public demonstrations and independent labor unions are illegal in China.

Workers laid off from the Jiamusi Fengda Textile Factory held talks with factory managers and city officials, said an employee of the city's public complaints office, who gave only her surname, Gao.

Gao said the workers' main demand -- to get their jobs back -- would be hard to grant since the factory has already filed for bankruptcy and plans to close. It employs 6,000 workers.

"We are doing best to guarantee their basic living demands, but it is difficult to recover their jobs again," said Gao, contacted by telephone in the city in Heilongjiang, in China's far northeast.

A retired worker from the factory said about 500 workers attended the meeting with city officials, who included a deputy mayor. The man, reached by telephone at his home near the factory, refused to give his name.

The workers took to the streets by the hundreds on Monday to press their demands. No arrests were reported but the retired worker said two workers were slightly injured in a clash with police outside City Hall.

The Jiamusi activists have decided against electing representatives to negotiate for them out of fear they would be arrested, the retired worker said.

In Liaoyang, a major city in northeastern China's Liaoning province, two labor activists are awaiting sentencing on subversion charges for organizing protests involving tens of thousands of laid-off workers last spring.