她只有19岁，在一个被我们当中的许多人描述为“花季”的最美好的人生年华里，她生命的花蕾甚至还没有来得及完全盛开，就匆匆地夭折了。而与此同时，许多她的同龄人，此刻也许正坐在宽敞明亮的大学教室里，为自己的未来做着最美好的规划和设计：或出国留学，或外企白领，或踏上仕途。他们的人生，何以会有天壤之别？
的确，她实在太渺小，太微不足道了，因为她是一个贫苦农民的女儿。即使比起过去几个月里那些几百个埋葬在深深地下煤层里的出身相同的兄弟们，她也是孤独的，所以，她的死，实在是算不上什么了。自从5月份看到这篇刊登在《华盛顿邮报》的报道以来，我也一直默默地等了两个多月，等着有比我更优秀更有良知更有责任感的人们将它译出，让更多的人了解这一个微不足道的生命的死。然而我错了，也许是精英们对这样一个弱小的生命根本就不屑一顾，也许是一例接一例的死亡数十上百的空难、矿难麻痹了人们的神经，遮挡了人们的视线，总之，她被我们中的绝大多数可耻地忽略了。搜遍这两个多月来的国内各主要论坛，我没有发现有谁提到过这篇文章。至少，北大论坛是没有的。
我们的确是可耻的，因为和我们生活在同一片天空下一样黑发黄肤的兄弟姐妹，却要靠远隔重洋的那片大陆上的金发碧眼的洋人来为之呐喊，为之鸣不平，为之伸张正义，难怪有人偏激地要“从美国退职前总统中选举williamhill官网 总统”（马悲鸣语）了。
我不想再这样可耻地生活下去，不想再让自己那点仅存的良知承受着日复一日的痛苦煎熬，所以，尽自己最大努力，将这篇文字译了出来。
以此献给我那些天堂里的姐妹兄弟们，愿你们安息。
（所附照片为本文主人公李春梅，刊登在《华盛顿邮报》网页上。Li Chunmei stands in her impoverished hometown of Xiao'eshan before she traveled to Songgang to work i n a toy factory. (Family photo) ）
干到累死－－williamhill官网
的新劳工缺乏保护
By Philip P. Pan
松岗（深圳附近的一个镇，译者注），williamhill官网 。－－－在她死去的那个晚上，李春梅（音译，以下所涉当事人名皆为音译，译者注）一定被耗尽了最后一丝精力。
工友说她已经在一家名为白南的玩具工厂里前前后后不停地跑了近16个小时，把玩具部件从一台机器运送到另一台机器。当下班的铃声最终在午夜过后不久响起时，她年青的脸上已经满是汗水。
这是一个繁忙的生产季节，在圣诞节到来之前，来自日本和美国的订单数量在这家生产填充玩具的工厂达到了顶峰。工人们被强制加班。李春梅和其他的工人上一次享受星期天的休息已经是两个月以前的事了。
她的室友回想起来，那天晚上躺在床上时，这位刚满19岁的女劳工盯着她上方的铺位床板，抱怨着说她感到筋疲力竭。她按摩着她那疼痛的双腿，咳嗽着，告诉她的室友她感到饥饿。工厂的饭菜很差，她说，她感到自己好像根本就没吃到什么。
“我想不干了”她的一个室友，黄家春，回忆起她这么说道，“我想回家。”
最后，熄灯了。当李春梅开始咳出血来时她的室友们都已经睡熟了。几个小时以后她们在浴室发现她蜷伏在地板上，在黑暗中轻微地发出呻吟，血从她的鼻子和嘴里流出来。有人叫了急救车，但在急救车到来之前她死去了。
李春梅的确切死因尚未确知。但李春梅的家人、朋友以及工友将去年11月在广东东南部的这个工业化小镇发生在李春梅身上的这一切描述成为越来越大胆的williamhill官网 报纸称之为“过劳死” 中的一例。这个词汇的意思是指由于过度工作导致的死亡，通常发生在日复一日由于超时加班而导致猝死的年轻工人当中。
有关这些死亡的原因和发生频率的调查很少。当地的新闻记者说每年仅仅在香港以北的新兴制造业地区珠江三角洲一带估计就有几十例这样的死亡，但很多从未被登记备案。
这些死亡的故事使得这些对williamhill官网 新一代工人而言都非常普遍的工作环境受到了人们的关注。这些为数上千万的工人是从这个国家贫困的农村涌向发达的沿海省份的。
历史发生了轮回，如今这些（工作在williamhill官网 私营血汗工厂里的）民工数量估计达到了2000万人，多于williamhill官网 那些日益衰退的国营企业里的800万职工数。
这些新工人更年轻，更贫穷，对那些曾经是共产党统治的意识形态基础的劳工权利和劳动安全更不熟悉。他们更愿意为那些通常有外资作为后盾的没有社会主义传统的终身福利的私营公司工作。
这些年轻的民工也是（这个社会的）二等公民。他们很少和那些软弱无能的法庭以及行业协会打交道。这些机构在williamhill官网 从社会主义转向资本主义转变的过程中有时候也能调节一下市场的力量。最主要的是，他们是外来者，在远离家园的地方艰难地谋生。
“出去赚钱”
李春梅的家位于遥远的四川省西部的高山上一个叫小峨山的村子里，离她丧命的松岗的工厂有700英里，完全是另一个世界。这一带依然是williamhill官网 最穷的地区，没通公路，只有一部电话和有限的供电以及铅管制造业。
这里没有拖拉机，只有耕牛和一些原始的生产工具。农民们徒手耕种着土地。几乎没有人能够读懂一张报纸，会说这个国家的语言普通话的人更少。到那里去必须要沿着狭窄的有如泥泞的平衡木一般的小径，翻越雾气笼罩的大山才可抵达。
李春梅是在这一贫瘠的地区艰难地生存的家庭中五个孩子中的老二。他们在沿着山腰开垦出的小块梯田里劳作，日复一日，沿着山爬上爬下，以到达那些种着小麦和稻谷的零星散布的田地。
“这是一个穷村子，所有的父母都希望他们的孩子尽可能快地离开这里到城市里去”李春梅的父亲李志民坐在他用夯实的泥土建造的房间里说道。“他们走得越早，就能越早地支撑起这个家庭。”
这里的经济很简单，居民说。小峨山的人们吃掉他们所种植的粮食中的绝大部分，剩下的一部分卖掉，这样他们每年可以获得平均约25美元的收入。但当地的官员要求他们每人缴纳约 37美元的税费。去年有几个拒绝交纳的农民被逮捕。
居民们说要活下去只有一条路：让孩子们辍学，然后把他们送往遥远的城市去寻找工作。
李志民让他的大女儿李梅辍学了，当她读到三年级的时候。她甚至还没来得及学会正确地书写自己的名字。李春梅也是在读到三年级的时候辍学的。这些女孩开始从事放养牲口的工作。
当李梅15岁的时候，她登上了一辆开往深圳的公共汽车，那是一个毗邻香港的经济特区。
“我们家庭有困难，”她说，“我要自立和挣钱帮助我的父母。我想让我的妹妹们留在学校。”
两年以后李梅带着积攒下来的100多块钱（应指美元，译者注）回家了。李春梅那时也15岁了。她宣布她准备和她姐姐一道到城里去打工挣钱。这个家庭需要钱，她不希望自己的父亲工作得那么辛苦，李梅回想起她当时这么说。
假期快结束的时候李志民陪着他的女儿一路穿过大山到达最近的公共汽车站。李春梅默默地哭了，他回忆道。
“当然，我为她们感到担心...但我告诉她别哭了，”她的父亲说。“我告诉她，‘有啥哭的，出去挣钱吧。’”“我还告诉她，‘倒霉才哭呢’。”
最差的工作
旅途花了三天三夜。
当她们到达衔接广州和深圳的高速公路时，李春梅才第一次见到了珠江三角洲的工厂建筑群，她的姐姐说。土褐色混凝土建造的宿舍沿着公路排成行，只有从一个窗户到另一个窗户上挂着的晾衣服用的绳子点缀其上。 深夜里，过往车辆上的乘客可以透过工厂的窗子瞥见成排的年轻女工俯身在机器之上，在盏盏灯光之下工作着。
李家姐妹在东莞下了车。这是一个有着900万居民的快速增长的城市，其中超过700万人是民工。过去的两年李梅就在那里度过，从一个工厂转到另一个工厂。有一份工作在等着她，她说为她妹妹安排一份工作也无需太久。
但由于李春梅在工厂的第一年因在过街道的时候一辆摩托车撞折了她的腿而忽然中止了。他的父亲说他赶到东莞把女儿接回家休养。
一年多以后17岁的她再次回来时李春梅在松岗安顿了下来。松岗是一个位于深圳西北方向的卫星镇，她的姐姐在一家名为开明工业公司的韩资玩具制造厂找到了工作。姐姐又一次帮了妹妹一把，李春梅在那里也得到了一份工作。
朋友和亲戚们说，在她死去的前两年里，李春梅曾经在三个不同的生产填充玩具的工厂里干过，一家是由开明公司运作的，另两家则经常从开明公司那里接到订单。
松岗那里遍布着毫无规划的、戒备森严的工厂，那些工厂为世界市场生产各种各样的服装、玩具以及电器产品。晚上放工以后，成群结队的青年男女工人涌上小镇的街头漫步闲逛，他们的工厂身份证别在他们的制服上，考勤卡折放在衬衣的口袋里。
在一个农村女孩看来，这个小镇是一个令人激动的新世界，到处是街灯，mahjong营业室，走调的卡拉OK歌曲飘溢在温暖的空气中。但朋友和工友们说李春梅很少走出厂门到外边去玩。
在工厂里面，生活遵循着一成不变的程序，工友们说。李春梅早上7：30起床，8点钟她必须穿着制服出现在工作岗位。中午，她有一个半小时的时间用于午餐和迅速地打个盹。5：30她有30分钟吃晚餐。6点以后是加班时间 ，而下班的铃声通常要在午夜才会响起。
工人们说绝大部分工厂的雇员被分配到那些把填充玩具缝合起来的装配线上。一个工人装上眼睛，下一个工人则缝上一只耳朵。他们整天坐在缝纫机前，重复着简单的工作。
李春梅是一个传递者，工友们说，靠着一双腿跑来跑去。当一个工人完成了一件任务，传递者捡起玩具迅速地将其传递给下一个工人。一条流水线有25个工人，两到三个传递者，一天大概生产1000个左右的玩具。
“她的工作是最差的，老板还总是朝她咆哮快点。”一位姓刘的工人说，他是和李春梅同一条生产线上的工人。“中间没有休息，也没有空调。”他还说空气当中充满了纤维，还有机器发出的热量，有时候室温会达到90度以上。（原文如此，估计为华氏度，译者注）
工人们说，传递者不需要什么特别的技术，收入是最低的，大约每小时12分。（原文如此，估计为美分，译者注）在生产旺季，包括加班收入，李春梅可以一个月挣到65美元。
但还会有扣除。工人们说公司每月会扣下约12美元的住宿和伙食费，还会以他们从未得到过的好处为名收取费用。例如，工人们说他们为能够让他们合法地在松岗生活和工作的暂住证付了钱，但从未得到过暂住证。
管理人员还拥有任意罚款的权利。在浴室里呆的时间超过5分钟，浪费食物，以及生产数量不达标都会被罚款，工人们说。
李春梅经常抱怨（恶劣的）工作条件，不过她看起来对能挣到钱而感到高兴，朋友们说。有一次，她告诉她们，她正在为自己的嫁妆攒钱。
“她害羞，诚实，是我们当中最穷的一个，”沈秀春，来自李春梅家乡的一个工友说。“她没有男朋友，也不喜欢音乐，当我们都出去的时候她通常留下来。”
另一个叫张发勇的同事，回想起李春梅曾经买过一件新衣服，但从未穿过。张说李春梅对自己在这上头花了钱感到惊异，担心自己会不小心毁了这件衣服。她死后，她的父亲在她的遗物中找到了这件衣服，衣服折放在一个塑料包装盒里，他说。
他还找到了几张过塑的快照，是在当地的照相馆里照的，每张5角钱。照片上李春梅和她的朋友站在假的风景前面，穿着这样的服装：一件军服，一件传统的williamhill官网 长袍。她看起来非常的年轻，只不过是一个留着长长的黑发的少女，手持着花束，或敬礼，或坐着，身份牌别在她的上衣上。
她仅仅在一张照片里露出了笑容。
“我们被套住了”
在她死前的两个月，李春梅被从开明公司的主工厂调到了街下面的另一家叫白南玩具厂的新工厂。那是一栋毫无特色的褐色建筑。工友们说，她和其他约60名的开明公司的雇员在开明公司的管理员吴多琴的监督下在三楼车间生产玩具。
在那里，工作条件变得更差了。生产旺季到了，吴逼迫她的雇员工作的越来越久，有时候工作会持续到凌晨2、3点 ，工人们说。她们每天都这样地工作了60多天。
“每个人都必须加班。你别无选择，即使你生病也必须工作。”一个姓赵的李春梅的工友说。
“但我们甚至连全部的加班报酬也得不到，”她接着说，“例如，我们加了6、7小时的班，但他们只在我们的考勤卡上打上3、4个小时。”
在她死前不到一周，李春梅请求她的生产线管理员给她放一天假，她说她感到精疲力尽。但是他拒绝了。后来李春梅偷懒了一个晚上去睡觉，她因此被扣掉了三天的工钱，她的工友回忆道。
朋友们说李春梅经常谈起辞职回家。但工厂已经两个月没发工资了，假如她不干了，她担心自己得不到那些钱。有好几个工人都处于相同的境地。“我们被套住了，”一个来自四川的 17岁女孩说。“我们能做的只是继续工作。”
李春梅的工友们所描述的许多工作条件都违反了williamhill官网 的法律。在松岗，最低的工资是大约每小时3角钱。在williamhill官网 ，加班被（法律）限制在每月不超过36小时，而且必须是自愿的。随意罚款和克扣工资是被（法律）禁止的，但是法律的实施从来就是软弱的。
“这也许不合法，但是很普遍。”25岁的吴春林说。他是来自四川的民工，过去的5年里在许多不同的工厂里干过。“不管我们去哪里，都大同小异。”
一个调查过珠江三角洲的工作条件的williamhill官网 记者说，这种问题是由于当地的官员和工厂管理者 “利益和并”导致的。他说，官员们急切地想刺激投资以产生税收和收取贿赂，因此他们乐于忽略劳工权利以及安全事故。
李强，一个两年前逃到美国的劳工组织者，描述了他帮助一群约400名的民工起草了一份控诉工厂工作条件的文件，结果这份文件被当地的官员又转回到了厂里。
“他们说，‘回厂里去吧，你应该更清楚，哪里都一样。’”李强回忆说。“问题在于这些地方官员有亲戚或者朋友们在这些工厂里被雇用为管理人员。那有一张关系网，民工们被排斥在外。”
在许多方面，民工们是williamhill官网 劳动阶级里最容易受到伤害的一部份。在一个意图限制人口迁徙的政府体制里，民工们所享有的权力和福利比起那些老的国营工厂里的工人们都要少，警察可以任意地逮捕他们并把他们遣送回老家。
要把他们组织起来进行抗议或者在运作迟缓的法庭打个官司也非常困难。“国营工厂里的工人呆在一起的时间已经很久，有时他们是一起长大的，因此把他们团结起来要容易得多，” 李强说。“但民工们来自四面八方，他们没有共同的根，很容易被驱散。”
比起城市里的工人，民工们受教育水平通常更低。很多人都不清楚他们有什么权利。几乎没有人属于政府控制的行业工会。在采访中，很多人甚至从未听说过“工会”这个词。
在民工们通常工作的私营工厂，管理者主要关注于利润。与此相反，尽管面对市场压力，国营工厂里的管理者通常像是个政治领导人，对他们的工人的一切福利负责。
一些国外的政府和组织为这些血汗工厂里的劳工鸣不平，使得一些跨国公司对它们的工厂以及直接供应者的生产条件加强了监控。但一个转包体制破坏了这样的措施。
例如，开明工厂从许多大牌公司那里接到订单生产玩具，而这些大牌公司的巡视员很少来开明工厂，即使来也会予以提前宣布，一个匿名的管理者说。
他说工厂保持着良好的劳动标准。这不难做到，他说，因为那些利润最微薄的以及制造最困难的订单被分配给了那些包括白南厂的低劳动标准的工厂，只需要一纸委托书。白南工厂，回过头来又把它的一部份工作量分配给像雇用了李春梅的吴多琴这样的次承包者。
“因此你看，她并不为我们工作。”他说。“这不是我们的问题。”
一个女人接听了打给白南工厂的电话，但拒绝透露她的名字。她重复了相同的回答：“是的，我们听说了（李春梅猝死）这件事。但她并不为我们工作，这不是我们的责任。”
没有人能找到吴多琴。开明和白南的职员说他们和她失去了联系。她曾经用过的一个电话号码无法接通。
一个父亲的悲痛
得悉女儿的死讯后，李志民立即赶到了松岗。在过去的28天里，他试图找到某人对所发生的一切承担责任。
警察将他送到当地的劳动部门的办公室，他们又把他送到了白南工厂，但是那里的管理人员拒绝见他。然后他又求助于区一级的劳动部门，他们又把他送往当地的商业部门和深圳的劳动局。
最终，警察给他一份通知，告诉他一名地区医学检查官断定李春梅的“猝死是由于她生前所得的疾病导致的。”没有其他的详细资料，当地的劳动部门宣布她的死“与工作无关”。
李志民说他对这样的结果并不高兴，但他孤立无援。他说，最终开明公司对吴多琴施加了压力，让她支付了李春梅的丧葬费用，以及他在松岗其间的花销和回去的车票钱。他的大女儿，李梅，陪着他回了家。
现在，这个家庭又一次挣扎着靠微薄的收入为生了。李梅打算明年就回到那些工厂里去打工。
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8254-2002May12.html
Worked Till They Drop--- Few Protections for China's New Laborers
By Philip P. Pan Washington Post Foreign ServiceMonday, May 13, 2002; Page A01
SONGGANG, China -- On the night she died, Li Chunmei must have been exhausted.
Co-workers said she had been on her feet for nearly 16 hours, running back and f orth inside the Bainan Toy Factory, carrying toy parts from machine to machine. When the quitting bell finally rang shortly after midnight, her young face was c overed with sweat.
This was the busy season, before Christmas, when orders peaked from Japan and th e United States for the factory's stuffed animals. Long hours were mandatory, an d at least two months had passed since Li and the other workers had enjoyed even a Sunday off.
Lying on her bed that night, staring at the bunk above her, the slight 19-year-o ld complained she felt worn out, her roommates recalled. She was massaging her a ching legs, and coughing, and she told them she was hungry. The factory food was so bad, she said, she felt as if she had not eaten at all.
"I want to quit," one of her roommates, Huang Jiaqun, remembered her saying. "I want to go home."
Finally, the lights went out. Her roommates had already fallen asleep when Li st arted coughing up blood. They found her in the bathroom a few hours later, curle d up on the floor, moaning softly in the dark, bleeding from her nose and mouth. Someone called an ambulance, but she died before it arrived.
The exact cause of Li's death remains unknown. But what happened to her last Nov ember in this industrial town in southeastern Guangdong province is described by family, friends and co-workers as an example of what China's more daring newspa pers call guolaosi. The phrase means "over-work death," and usually applies to y oung workers who suddenly collapse and die after working exceedingly long hours, day after day.
There has been little research on what causes these deaths, or how often they oc cur. Local journalists say many of them are never documented but estimate that d ozens die under such circumstances every year in the Pearl River Delta area alon e, the booming manufacturing region north of Hong Kong.
() The stories of these deaths highlight labor conditions that are the norm for a new generation of workers in China, tens of millions of migrants who have floc ked from the nation's impoverished countryside to its prospering coast.
In an historic shift, these migrant workers now number more than 200 million by some estimates, more than the 80 million employees working in China's shrinking state industries.
These new workers are younger, poorer, and less familiar with the promises of la bor rights and job security that once served as the ideological bedrock of the r uling Communist Party. They are more likely to work for private companies, often backed by foreign investment, with no socialist tradition of cradle-to-grave be nefits.
The young migrants are also second-class citizens, with less access to the weak courts and trade unions that sometimes temper market forces as China's economy c hanges from socialist to capitalist. Most of all, they are outsiders, struggling to make a living far away from home.
'Go Out and Make Money'
Li Chunmei's home was the village of Xiaoeshan, a remote hamlet high in the moun tains of western Sichuan province, 700 miles and a world away from the factories of Songgang, where she died. The area remains among the poorest in China, with no roads, one telephone and limited electricity and plumbing.
There are no tractors, just oxen, a few primitive tools and peasants who till th e earth with their hands. Few residents can read a newspaper, and fewer still sp eak the national language, Mandarin. Traveling there entails a hike through fog- shrouded mountains, along narrow paths that resemble muddy balance beams.
Li Chunmei was the second of five children born to parents who squeeze out a liv ing from this rough terrain, farming small plots of land on terraces carved into the mountainside. Day after day, they climb up and down the mountain, tending t o scattered patches of wheat and rice.
"This is a poor village, and all the parents here want their children to leave f or the cities as soon as possible," said Li's father, Li Zhimin, sitting inside a house he built out of packed dirt. "The sooner they go, the sooner they can he lp support the family."
The economics are simple, residents said. People in Xiaoeshan eat most of what t hey grow, and by selling the rest they earn an average annual income of about $2 5 each. But local officials demand about $37 per person in taxes and fees. Sever al peasants who refused to pay last year were arrested.
Residents say there is only one way to survive: Pull the children out of school, and later send them to find work in faraway cities.
Li took his eldest daughter, Li Mei, out of school in the third grade, before sh e learned to write her name properly. Li Chunmei left school in the third grade, too. The girls were put to work farming and feeding the livestock.
When Li Mei was 15, she boarded a bus to Shenzhen, the special economic zone adj acent to Hong Kong.
"Our family was having difficulties," she said. "I wanted to support myself and earn money to help my parents. I wanted to help keep my other sisters in school. "
Two years later, Li Mei returned home with more than $100 in savings. Li Chunmei was 15 then, and she announced she was ready to join her sister in the city. Th e family needed the money, and she didn't want her father to work so hard, Li Me i recalled her sister saying.
At the end of the holiday, Li Zhimin accompanied his daughters on the long walk through the mountains to the nearest bus station. Li Chunmei was crying quietly, he recalled.
"Of course, I was worried, . . . but I told her not to cry," her father said. "I told her, 'There's no reason to cry. Go out and make money.'
"I told her, 'It's bad luck to cry.' "
The Worst Job
The ride lasted three days and three nights.
When they reached the elevated expressway between Guangzhou and Shenzhen, Li Chu nmei caught her first glimpse of the factory complexes of the Pearl River Delta, her sister said. Drab, concrete dormitories line the road, decorated only by li nes of laundry hanging from window to window. Late at night, passing motorists c an peer through the factory windows and see rows of young women hunched over mac hines, working under florescent lights.
The Li sisters disembarked in Dongguan, a fast-growing city of 9 million residen ts, of whom more than 7 million are migrant workers. Li Mei had spent the past t wo years there, moving from one toy factory to another, and she had a job waitin g. She said it didn't take long to arrange one for her little sister, too.
But Li Chunmei's first year in the factories ended abruptly when a motorcycle st ruck her and broke her leg while she was crossing the street. Her father said he traveled to Dongguan and took his daughter home to recuperate.
When she returned more than a year later, at the age of 17, Li Chunmei settled i n Songgang, a satellite town northwest of Shenzhen where her sister had found wo rk with a Korean toy manufacturer, Kaiming Industrial Ltd. Sister helped sister again, and Li Chunmei landed a job there, too.
In the two years before her death, friends and relatives said, Li worked in thre e different plants that produced stuffed animals, one run by Kaiming and two oth ers that regularly received orders from the company.
Songgang is dominated by sprawling, fenced-in industrial complexes that produce all manner of clothes, toys and electronic goods for world markets. In the eveni ngs, after quitting time, groups of young men and women stroll through the town, their factory ID tags pinned to their uniforms, time cards tucked in shirt pock ets.
The town presented an exciting new world for a country girl, a place with street lights and mahjong parlors, and off-key karaoke songs drifting through the warm air. But friends and co-workers said Li rarely ventured outside the factory gate s.
Inside, life followed a rigid routine, co-workers said. Li was out of bed by 7:3 0 a.m. and in uniform and at her post by 8. At noon, she could take 90 minutes f or lunch and a quick nap. At 5:30 she had 30 minutes for dinner. Overtime began at 6, and the quitting bell usually didn't ring until after midnight.
Workers said most of the factory's employees were assigned to assembly lines tha t stitched together stuffed animals. One worker attached an eye, and the next se wed on an ear. They spent the whole day sitting in front of their sewing machine s, performing a single task again and again.
Li was a runner, co-workers said, always on her feet. When one worker finished a task, the runners picked up the toy and raced it to the next worker on the line . An average line had 25 workers and just two or three runners, and produced as many as 1,000 toys a day.
"She had the worst job, and the bosses were always yelling at her to go faster," said one worker on Li's assembly line, who asked to be identified by his surnam e, Liu. "There were no breaks, and there was no air conditioning." He added that the air was full of fibers, and with the heat from the machines, sometimes the temperature climbed above 90 degrees.
Runners required no special skills, and were paid the least, about 12 cents per hour, workers said. During the busy season, including extra pay for overtime, Li could earn about $65 a month.
But there were deductions. Workers said the company withheld about $12 a month f or room and board and charged them for benefits they never received. For example , workers said they paid for the temporary residence permits they needed to live and work in Songgang legally, but never received them.
Managers also had the power to impose arbitrary fines, including penalties for s pending more than five minutes in the bathroom, wasting food during meals and fa iling to meet production quotas, workers said.
Li often complained about the conditions, but she also seemed happy to be earnin g money, friends said. Once, she told them she was saving for her dowry.
"She was shy and honest, and the poorest of all of us," said Shen Xiuqun, a co-w orker from Li's hometown. "She didn't have a boyfriend. She didn't like music. W hen all of us went out, she usually stayed in."
Another colleague, Zhang Fayong, recalled that Li once purchased a new dress, th en refused to wear it. She said Li was amazed she had spent the money on it, and afraid she somehow might ruin it. After her death, her father found the dress a mong her belongings, folded and wrapped in plastic, he said.
He also found a stack of laminated snapshots, taken at local photo parlors for 5 0 cents apiece. They show Li with her friends, standing in front of false landsc apes, dressed up in costumes: a military uniform, a traditional Chinese gown. Sh e looks surprisingly young, just a teenager with long black hair, holding flower s, or saluting, or sitting with an ID tag pinned to her blouse.
She was smiling in only one picture.
'We Were Trapped'
Two months before she died, Li Chunmei was transferred from the main Kaiming fac tory to a new plant down the street, the Bainan Toy Factory, a featureless brown building. She and about 60 other Kaiming employees began making toys in a third -floor workshop under the supervision of her manager at Kaiming, Wu Duoqin, co-w orkers said.
There, conditions got worse. The peak season had arrived, and Wu pressed her emp loyees to work longer and longer hours, sometimes past 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., workers said. They worked every day for more than 60 days.
"Everyone has to work overtime. You have no choice. Even if you're sick, you hav e to work," said one of Li's co-workers, who asked to be identified only by her surname, Zhao.
"But we don't even get paid for all of the overtime," she added. "For example, w e might work six or seven hours extra, but then they just put down three or four hours on the timecards."
Less than a week before she died, Li begged her line manager for a day off, sayi ng she was exhausted. He refused. Then Li skipped a night shift to catch up on s leep and was docked three days' pay, co-workers recalled.
Friends said Li often spoke of quitting and returning home. But the factory had not paid her for two months, and if she quit, she was afraid she might not get t he money. Several workers were in similar situations. "We were trapped," said on e, a 17-year-old girl from Sichuan province. "All we could do was keep working."
Many of the conditions described by Li's co-workers violate Chinese law. The min imum wage in Songgang is about 30 cents per hour. Overtime is limited in China t o no more than 36 hours per month, and it must be voluntary. Arbitrary fines and pay deductions are prohibited. But enforcement of the law is weak.
"It may be illegal, but it's normal," said Wu Chunlin, 25, a migrant from Sichua n who said he has worked in a half-dozen different factories in the region over the past five years. "It's more or less the same wherever we go."
One Chinese journalist who has investigated working conditions in the Pearl Rive r Delta said the problem is a "merger of interests" between local government off icials and factory managers. The officials are eager to stimulate investment and generate taxes and bribes, so they are often willing to overlook labor rights a nd safety violations, he said.
Li Qiang, a former labor organizer in China who fled to the United States two ye ars ago, described helping a group of 400 migrant workers in Shenzhen file a com plaint about factory conditions, only to be turned away by local officials.
"They said, 'Go back to the factory.' They said, 'You should know better. It's l ike this everywhere,' " Li Qiang recalled. "The problem is a lot of these local officials have relatives or friends who are hired as managers in the factories. There's a network of connections, and migrant workers are on the outside."
In many ways, migrant workers are among the most vulnerable in China's working c lass. Under a government system intended to restrict population movement, migran ts enjoy fewer rights and welfare benefits than workers in the old state factori es, and police can arbitrarily arrest and repatriate them to their hometowns.
It is also more difficult for them to organize protests or follow through with a complaint in the slow-moving courts. "The state workers have been together a lo ng time. Sometimes they grew up together, so it can be easier for them to stick together," Li Qiang said. "But migrant workers are from different places, and th ey don't have deep roots. They're easily scattered."
The migrant workers usually are less educated than their urban counterparts, and largely unaware of their rights. Very few belong to government-controlled trade unions; in interviews, many had never even heard of the Chinese word for labor union.
In the private factories where migrants often work, managers are primarily conce rned about profit. By contrast, despite new market pressures, managers of state factories in China often resemble political leaders, responsible for the overall welfare of their workers.
Foreign outcry over sweatshop labor has led some multinational firms to monitor conditions in their factories and among their direct suppliers. But a system of subcontracting has undermined such measures.
For example, Kaiming Industrial receives orders to produce toys for a variety of brand-name companies, but their inspectors rarely visit the company and always announce visits in advance, according to a senior manager who spoke on the condi tion of anonymity.
He said the factory maintains good labor standards. It can afford to do so, he s aid, because it farms out the least profitable and most difficult orders to fact ories with lower standards, including Bainan, and then just takes a commission. The Bainan factory, in turn, distributes some of its workload to subcontractors such as Wu Duoqin, the supervisor who employed Li Chunmei, he said.
"So you see, she wasn't working for us," he said. "It's not our problem."
A woman who answered the phone at the Bainan factory but refused to give her nam e said the same thing: "Yes, we heard about that. But she wasn't working for us. It's not our responsibility."
Wu Duoqin could not be located. Officials at Kaiming and Bainan said they had lo st touch with her, and a phone number she once used was disconnected.
A Father's Sorrow
Immediately after learning of his daughter's death, Li Zhimin traveled to Songga ng. For 28 days, he said, he tried to get someone to take responsibility for wha t happened.
The police sent him to the offices of the local labor bureau, which sent him to the Bainan factory, where managers refused to see him. Then he tried the distric t-level labor bureau, which sent him to the local commerce department and the Sh enzhen city labor bureau.
Finally, police gave him a letter that said a district medical examiner had conc luded Li Chunmei "suddenly died because of an illness while she was alive." Ther e were no other details, and the local labor bureau declared her death "non-work -related."
Li said he was unhappy with the finding, but was helpless to do anything about i t. Eventually, he said, Kaiming Industrial pressured Wu Duoqin to pay for his da ughter's funeral, for the expenses he incurred while in Songgang and for his bus ticket back home. His eldest daughter, Li Mei, returned with him.
Now, the family is again struggling to make ends meet. Li Mei is planning to return to the factories next year.
