15-01-2010 Breitbart: thousands of workers on strike at Chinese Apple supplier over pay and use of toxic chemicals

Excerpt from the Breitbart news article:

Thousands of workers in a factory in eastern China's Jiangsu Province protested Friday over the cancellation of annual bonuses and poor work safety environment, a human rights watchdog and local media reported.

The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said 10,000 workers staged a strike over the apparent cancellation of yearend bonuses for the second consecutive year due to the economic slump, and more than 100 of them were injured after clashing with hundreds of police officers.

The crowd later dispersed after the company promised to reconsider the bonuses.

An unidentified worker, who claimed to have been poisoned by the factory's unregulated use of chemical n-hexane, said more than 200 workers have suffered the same problem since July last year, and about 40 of them remain in hospital, the center said.

The worker said the authorities have knowledge of the chemical use but have done nothing about it.

The factory in Jiangsu's Suzhou Industrial Park, United Win (China) Technology, is a subsidiary of Taiwan's liquid crystal display manufacturer Wintek Group, Hong Kong's Cable TV said.

...

He said business has recovered in the past year and the workers are disappointed that there was no bonus for 2009 year in addition to there having been no bonus for 2008.

Regarding the use of n-hexane, Zhu said at least three people, including an engineer, have died from poisoning and a few others have been paralyzed.

"I don't dare to work here any longer, I will quit after Chinese New Year," he said.