VZCZCXRO6605
RR RUEHGH RUEHVC
DE RUEHCN #0210/01 2720720
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 290720Z SEP 09
FM AMCONSUL CHENGDU
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3428
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
RHMFIUU/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHINGTON DC
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHINGTON DC
RUEHCN/AMCONSUL CHENGDU 4120

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 CHENGDU 000210 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ELAB PHUM PGOV SOCI CH
SUBJECT: CHONGQING LABOR LAWYER SEES LEGAL SYSTEM PROGRESS 
 
CHENGDU 00000210  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
¶1. (U) This cable contains sensitive but unclassified 
information - not for distribution on the Internet. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Summary: After 13 years of advocating for migrant 
workers' legal rights, Chongqing lawyer Zhou Litai says he has 
seen positive progress, especially in the PRC's legal system. 
Zhou's firm faces significant challenges, however, including 
local officials' willingness to overlook the law in favor of 
economic development, official pressure for him to close down, 
and clients' lack of funds to pay legal fees.  The global 
financial crisis hit migrant workers -- and his firm -- 
particularly hard, with many workers suddenly out of work and 
even those whose cases he won often unwilling to pay him out of 
their meager winnings.  Zhou sought USG funding for a worker 
rights legal library based on prior cases.  Guizhou Province is 
an exception to the trend toward progress on worker rights, Zhou 
said, with the provincial government and local courts refusing 
to address even salary-related cases.  End Summary. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Consul General met September 22 with labor lawyer Zhou 
Litai, founder and head of the Chongqing Zhou Litai Law Firm. 
Established in Chongqing in 2001, the firm now employs over 75 
people across three offices, including Shenzhen (added in 2005 
to handle Guangdong cases), and another in Wanzhou, Chongqing 
Municipality (added in 2008).  The firm's Chongqing offices have 
a dormitory-style arrangement and in-house cook, with all 
lawyers living and eating together, which Zhou said allows him 
to keep lawyers on staff that otherwise would not be able to 
survive on the low salary he offers of roughly RMB 2,000 per 
month (USD 300).  Zhou draws his lawyers from rural areas, and 
some are even former migrant farmers themselves.  Lawyers from 
urban areas cannot do this work well, Zhou said, as they lack an 
experience-based understanding of what rural and migrant worker 
life is really like. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Zhou started offering legal assistance to migrant 
workers in 1996 to secure their labor rights, and reports that, 
all told, he has filed more than 13,000 cases.  Though 
originally Zhou accepted only injury or death cases in the 
immediate vicinity of his offices, he now accepts cases from all 
over China except the TAR, and has broadened his practice to 
include workplace injury, salary arrears, social security, and 
disputes involving resettlement in the area of the Three Gorges 
Dam. 
 
Zhou Sees Positive Progress, Yet Challenges 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) After 13 years of advocating for migrant workers' legal 
rights, Zhou told CG he has seen positive progress, particularly 
improvements in the PRC's legal system.  The central government 
has published a series of laws and regulations to protect 
workers' rights and has increased standards for compensation of 
injured workers, he said.  Zhou's firm has helped migrant 
workers realize that they have rights protected under PRC law 
and has helped them increasingly turn to the legal system for 
protection.  These efforts have drawn significant media 
attention at home and abroad, Zhou added, including reports by 
China's CCTV, the BBC, CNN, and others. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Despite these positive trends, Zhou still faces 
significant obstacles in his work.  Local protectionism, for 
example, remains a serious problem as local governments, eager 
to develop the economy, are willing to overlook provisions of 
the law and sacrifice the health -- or even lives -- of workers, 
he said.  The firm itself faces pressure from government 
entities unhappy with Zhou's lawsuits, and often receives little 
to no support from related government departments.  The 
government cannot actually force his firm to close, however, 
because every step he and his firm takes in their cases are in 
accordance with the law, he said.  Financially, the firm faces 
difficulties in that their clients lack funds to pay for legal 
services, and some clients simply disappear after winning a case 
and receiving compensation, leaving the attorney fees unpaid. 
The firm's low paychecks also mean retention of lawyers is 
difficult, he added. 
 
Lawyer Appeals to USG for Grants: Photos of Limbless Workers 
--------------------------------------------- --------------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) Mr. Zhou made a strong appeal for three million RMB 
(440,000) in grant monies from the U.S. Government to establish 
a legal reference library based on the thousands of worker 
rights cases that he has filed since 1996.  Zhou took CG into a 
storage room with piles of boxed documents, from which he took 
out three black shoe boxes filled with dozens of group photos of 
Chinese workers who had lost one or more limbs in industrial 
accidents.  (Note: CG told Zhou that there was often an annual 
cycle for applying for grants of this type, and promised to 
notify Zhou should an opportunity arise to apply for worker 
 
CHENGDU 00000210  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
rights-related grants.  End Note.) 
 
Impact of Financial Crisis, Returning Migrant Workers 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) Despite signs of "recovery" in the financial system, 
Zhou's firm continues to see and feel the impact of the global 
financial crisis on the migrant labor community, he said. 
During a previous meeting with PolEconOff, Zhou described these 
challenges in greater detail, saying that due to the crisis many 
businesses were unwilling to pay overtime as they had in the 
past.  An increased number of bankrupt companies also were 
unable to pay workers as factories simply closed overnight, 
giving workers just enough to get home.  As a consequence, the 
types of cases Zhou's firm saw changed, shifting from a 
predominance of workplace injury cases to issues of 
compensation, social security, and unemployment insurance. 
Moreover, he noted, their success rate declined, and even 
plaintiffs who won their cases were been reluctant to pay the 
firm for its services. 
 
Guizhou Province: Worker Rights Not Protected 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) The province hardest hit by the meltdown in terms of 
the effect on migrant labor, Zhou assessed, was Guizhou. 
"Guizhou is not a legal society," he said, and the labor and 
legal situation there is particularly egregious, with courts and 
local politicians uneager to help workers.  Guizhou courts are 
unwilling to even accept salary-related cases, he told 
PolEconOff.  Zhou stressed his view that unhappiness among 
Guizhou's migrant labor population, combined with lack of access 
to legal remedies, were a significant contributor to the public 
outrage that spilled over in the July 2008 riots in Weng'an, 
sparked by public reaction to local police handling of the death 
of a teenage girl. 
BROWN