[The mine’s owner, the Longmay Group, the
biggest coal company in northeastern China, announced in September that
it planned to lay off 100,000 workers. The elimination of about 40 percent of
the work force at 42 mines in four cities is the biggest reduction in jobs that
anyone could recall in this steadily declining rust belt near the Russian
border.]
a
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Two workers at the Xingshan mine, affiliated with
Longmay Group, in
in
in northeastern
Credit Li Qiang for The New
York Times
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HEGANG, China — In the dank shower room where the miners soak, the coal dust from their bodies staining the water chocolate, a lone worker sat smoking a cigarette, staring at the floor.
He lingered, he explained, because since his
pay had been cut in half, he had been eating dinner at his parents’ apartment,
and he dreaded the humiliation of going there again.“If
any of the leaders would do their job properly, the situation would not be like
this,” said the worker, Mr. Guo, 39. “If they want to sack me, they should just
do it. Can it get any worse?”
It probably will.
The mine’s owner, the Longmay Group, the
biggest coal company in northeastern China, announced in September that
it planned to lay off 100,000 workers. The elimination of about 40 percent of
the work force at 42 mines in four cities is the biggest reduction in jobs that
anyone could recall in this steadily declining rust belt near the Russian
border.
But that was when the economy
was booming and could readily absorb displaced workers. The test the government
now faces in this depressed coal town and in other hard-hit areas across the
country is whether it can head off labor discontent in a slowing economy.
Longmay has so far delayed the
bulk of the layoffs, cutting only several hundred older workers who held
nonessential jobs. Last month, the government of Heilongjiang Province
The coal industry is hurting
nationwide, as coal prices have fallen nearly 60 percent since 2011, said Deng
Shun, an analyst at ICIS C1 Energy, a consultancy based in Shanghai
“They are quite worried about
social unrest, so they delay,” he said. “These layoffs should have happened two
years ago.”
Still, there have already been flashes of discontent.
In April, even before the layoffs were announced, thousands
marched on the streets of Hegang
In October, company management stifled a protest by locking
workers in the mines. The police patrolled the streets outside the company
headquarters on the day the rally was planned.
A few weeks later, Internet regulators exposed a group of
workers discussing a demonstration on an online bulletin board. They were
hauled to a police station, fingerprinted and warned that jail sentences would
follow if they dared do it again.
“We are all on edge, the
company is on edge,” Mr. Chen, 27, an organizer of that abortive protest, said
over breakfast at a nearly empty restaurant, washing it down with a couple of
beers at the end of his night shift. “We don’t know what is going to happen. It
all depends on how the company takes care of the laid-off workers.”
Like other miners here, he
spoke to a foreign reporter on the condition that he be identified only by his
surname for fear of reprisal.
Of greater concern to the government, Hegang Hong Kong . The organization said strikes and worker protests hit a record
high of 301 incidents last month.
The reaction of the demoralized workers is being watched closely
because the staying power of the Communist Party has been immutably linked to
its ability to deliver continued economic progress. The unwritten social
compact here is that the party delivers growth, jobs and higher living
standards, and in exchange, the workers acquiesce to its monopoly on power,
surrendering the right to organize unions or protest.
That bargain could unravel if workers no longer believe the
government is living up to its end.
The outward signs of severe economic trouble are evident.
For-sale signs hang on the facades of restaurants that draw few customers.
Robberies are on the rise: manhole covers and cellphones are popular targets.
Women say they have stopped wearing jewelry for fear of being assaulted.
“What you have now is a very, very severe economic situation in
one part of the country,” said Andrew Batson, China Beijing
Still, the state-owned mines
have been reluctant to cut production because there is little other work here.
The first round of layoffs at Longmay, though relatively small, came soon after
the September announcement.
Older workers in their late 50s
were called to an office on the second floor of a disused building. Two young
clerks barked orders at men. They were told to sign two-page contracts that
pledged a small monthly stipend and vague promises of retraining.
Mr.
Hui, 55, was one of the first. “It was 7 o’clock in the morning,” he recalled.
“Our captain came to our changing room after meeting with the leaders. He said:
‘Here is bad news for you guys.’ Then he said, ‘Hui, you are one of those who
are above the age limit.’ ”
Mr. Hui said he was crushed. He had worked as a firefighter at
the mine for 35 years and expected a pension. He had not been told how much
severance pay he would get, he said.
Although his wife, son and daughter-in-law had jobs, he could
not make ends meet. “I have been paying the mortgage of my son, and the
day-to-day expenditures for our grandson,” he said. “I’m short of cash. I have
to work. What else can I do? I want to give my grandson the best education so
he can leave this place. There is no future in coal.”
The management of the Longmay Group declined to be interviewed.
In response to a request to its headquarters in Harbin
As the region’s population has dwindled in the last decade, the
younger people who stayed say they feel trapped. They have few skills to offer
to factories in southern China
A 29-year-old mechanic, who declined to be identified, said he
loved his job working with precision instruments in one of the mine’s
workshops. He had tried to get a job in the port town of Dalian
Blinking back tears, he said he depended on his fiancée, who
earned a handsome salary as a video editor, and his father, who made more money
than he did driving a truck.
“Most who are still here are like me, they don’t have a way
out,” he said. “If the company would pay our salaries on time and in full, the
workers would love to work.”
One employee, Mr. Cui, 40, a driver, said he had quit rather
than wait to be laid off. He hopes to secure a taxi license to augment his
severance of $104 a month, which he says is not enough to get by on, much less
pay back the $6,000 he borrowed for his wife’s medical bills.
When the full brunt of the layoffs comes, the violence could be
terrible, he predicted. Since the last economic crisis, in the 1990s, a
conspicuous new group had appeared: the owners of recently privatized small
mines who drove around in Mercedes-Benzes.
“In the 90s, everyone was
poor,” he said. “Now the rich are too rich, and the poor are too poor. Because
of the layoffs everyone is worried. No one has a way to live outside the mines.
With the New Year holidays coming, there will be chaos in Hegang
