The melamine-tainted milk scandal in China posed one of the most serious global food safety crises in recent years. While hundreds of Chinese made food products, including leading global brands (see Melamine milk contamination exposes the reality of ‘global brands’, IUF, 26 September 2008), were pulled from shelves worldwide, health authorities in China raised the official number of children suffering kidney ailments due to melamine-contaminated milk formula from 53,000 to 294,000, including 2,400 suffering acute kidney failure and six dead. With thousands of children requiring dialysis and the need for kidney transplants later in life, it is clear that the melamine-milk scandal will have a serious and lasting impact [see "Melamine and human health" box below].
Archive for the 'China' Category
Distraught parents whose infants were poisoned by the addition of the industrial chemical melamine to dairy products have been offered a sop by Chinese courts which handed down three extraordinarily harsh sentences to those deemed responsible for the poisoning.
The Intermediate People’s Court in Shijiazhuang convicted Zhang Yujun, a cattle farmer, of producing 600 tonnes of tainted protein powder in Shandong province in eastern China. Geng Jinping, a milk trader, was also found guilty of producing and selling toxic products to dairy companies. They were sentenced to death.
Despite an aggressive anti-union stance throughout the rest of the world, global retailing giant Wal-Mart acts very differently in China, as demonstrated in July 2008 when the company signed its first agreement with the state-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) in Shenyang, the provincial capital of Liaoning Province in North-East China.
Agreements have subsequently been signed in Shenzhen, a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in southern China and in the city of Quanzhou in the South-Eastern province of Fujian. The ACFTU has claimed these agreements are a great victory and proof of the strength the ACFTU. Wang Tongxin, a representative of the ACFTU, asserted the agreement is “a win-win contract which has balanced the interests of workers and management.” (China Daily, 26 July 2008) Kevin Gardner, a Wal-Mart spokesperson, noted, “we support these efforts because of the valuable, mutually beneficial partnership the government-run union offers and because of their commitment to assisting businesses in our growth and development in China.” (Forbes Magazine, 25 July 08)
An interview with Han Dong Fan, founder of China Labour Bulletin and former railway worker and spokesperson for the Beijing Autonomous Workers Trade Union during the Tiananmen demonstrations in 1989. In this interview Han Dong Fan discusses the role of workers and the possibilities for change in China.
Interview with Elizabeth Tang, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) on the history of cooperation between the IUF and the HKCTU on building the first independent trade unions in China.
Also see: The IUF, the HKCTU and Hong Kong 1980-2005 (PDF 730kb)
