No independent trade unions are allowed. Organisers of workers’ groups or protests are often arrested, and some are sentenced to terms of imprisonment (officially called “reform through labour”, or “lao gai”) after criminal trials that fall well short of international standards. Others can be assigned to terms of “re-education through labour”, an administrative process which bypasses the few safeguards of the criminal justice system. Strikers often are detained for a few days or weeks to avoid any risk of martyrdom for long- term detainees. The fear of detention also makes negotiations between workers’ representatives and the authorities and employers extremely difficult.
The continued use and abuse of extensive state secrets legislation including laws classifying labour-related statistics as state secrets means that labour activists can be charged with “disclosing state secrets” for their work.
