Lianhe Zaobao article on reports of large numbers of middle-aged and elderly Chinese women working in harsh labor conditions

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During the May Day holiday, accidents in China continued. In Liaoning, a vehicle that was extremely overloaded carrying several elderly women part-time workers, and in Hunan a fireworks factory with many middle-aged and elderly female workers, each suffered serious accidents with at least eight deaths and 26 deaths respectively. In the five-day Labor Day holiday from last Friday (May 1) to this Tuesday (the 5th), many rural elderly women who work as day laborers to earn meager income remained busy, yet some lost their lives during the holiday.

According to CCTV News, around 7 a.m. on Sunday (the 3rd), a car with a rated capacity of six but actual load of 21, traveling a village road in Dangdong Port City, Liaoning Province, collided with trees on the roadside in a one-vehicle accident, causing at least eight deaths and 13 injuries. Those in the vehicle were mainly blueberry-picking workers. According to Taiwan’s Want Want Daily, Dangdong Port’s blueberry-picking season requires a large amount of temporary labor, mostly undertaken by elderly women from surrounding villages.

In the recent explosion at a fireworks factory in Liuyang, Hunan, the older injured was 68 years old. According to the independent media “Egg Bot” quoting local residents, there are many middle-aged and elderly women working in this fireworks factory in the town where the company is located, most aged between 40 and 60. Further reports say that at the fireworks factory where the accident occurred, a 60-year-old woman had been working as a day laborer, starting at 5 a.m. and finishing at 5 p.m., with a daily wage of only 60 yuan.

Local residents also pointed out that many elderly people know that fireworks factories are high-risk industries, but they can only work in fireworks factories to make ends meet.

As a student I used to ride in a small van mentioned in the article with colleagues of my mother and other local middle-aged and elderly people to do this type of day labor. At that time, more than ten of us crowded into a small van, heading to the neighboring county’s logistics center to do sorting work. It left a lasting impression.

In many industrial sectors in China, such as textiles, many light-industrial sub-sectors, and even some semi-automatic manufacturing industries, female workers are the main labor force.

This article summarizes the recent incidents where these workers have suffered under harsh working conditions. But the cause of the accidents themselves is not the result of the author’s propaganda about a “lack of systemic safety nets.” It is a brutal manifestation of oppression of the working class by China’s capitalist society.

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The Chinese authorities will use this fireworks explosion as an excuse to tighten control over fireworks and to intensify the crackdown on the general population.

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In the past, any factory or mine事故 had strict crowd control and throttling; some videos hardly reached triple digits views. This time the fireworks factory explosion will surely have public outcry pushing it into the spotlight. But seeing many official media outlets also come down to “follow up,” it feels like there’s another agenda at play, and the government may tighten controls on fireworks and firecrackers.

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And it’s not just that; every safety incident will give fascist China an excuse to claim they need to strengthen safety facilities and protections, ultimately eliminating a bunch of small workshops, which helps consolidate monopoly capital.

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I am puzzled: is it bad to regulate fireworks and firecrackers?

This thing itself has a certain level of danger, and the quality is uneven, making the danger even greater. It’s common to see people fire fireworks and firecrackers improperly, injuring themselves. And there will be people who ignore fire regulations and set off fireworks in densely populated residential areas, which is very dangerous.

Fireworks and firecrackers are only for special days of celebration and are not daily用品; you can completely choose other ways to replace them, such as electronic fireworks, which are safe and non-polluting.

On another note, my own thoughts: every year during the Spring Festival a few days, there are always people setting off fireworks and firecrackers in the middle of the night in the community. This not only disturbs residents but can shatter the glass of other people’s homes. My own house’s glass has been shattered several times, but it’s hard to defend our rights because we can’t find the person who set them off. Moreover, the smoke and dust from fireworks can irritate people with respiratory sensitivities, and the loud noises and bright flashes during firing affect people indoors who are trying to enjoy themselves or rest.

Overall, regarding the argument against banning fireworks, I do not agree with it. I believe that, regardless of the ultimate purpose, banning the lighting of fireworks and firecrackers can be considered virtuous governance.

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The main point is to look at the purpose behind the heavy crackdown on fireworks: to fear that people will use fireworks as weapons to strike against the Central Russian regime. There are many reports of Central Russian police being sprayed with fireworks by the people. And the people are not the so-called mob slandered by the regime; no one would arbitrarily use fireworks to hurt others or cause trouble. If such situations do occur, it is because the regime is too rotten; some petit bourgeois rightists and bourgeois-morality are the ones who would do such things. Moreover, this issue itself can be resolved through persuasion and education, rather than a blanket and direct ban. In itself, the prohibition of fireworks by the regime is not for protecting the environment or preventing disturbance, but to suppress the people’s resistance, and that is the main purpose.

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The phrase “De Zheng” is almost heaven-defying, as if saying that fascist regime policies could objectively achieve beneficial effects for the people. If you keep speaking along this line, any policies of Zhongxiu and their lackeys could be found to have a “bit” of objectively beneficial effect for the people, like picking bones from an egg. I feel this notion is problematic.

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If we follow this line of reasoning, the fascist government would have implemented widespread lockdowns during the pandemic, sold overpriced food, and everyone would be tracked by QR codes, which would then become “controlling the epidemic and protecting people’s lives and health.”

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When a problem arises, people talk about empty slogans like “lack of institutional safeguards,” which everyone gets tired of hearing, and yet there are still a group of people who echo it every day, dutifully acting as the most loyal watchdogs for the bourgeoisie.

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