Tag: silicosis

By an incomplete tally, to date 50 people have died in the Daozi village of Leiyang, Hunan. If we include the whole of the Leiyang Municipality, that number is 55. Since the late 1980s, young people from Daozi village have migrated south to work, filled with dreams. In the booming city of Shenzhen, they worked the most lucrative job on the construction site—in drilling and blasting. Ten or more years later, these workers are have been collectively diagnosed with silicosis, and death for them is fast approaching.

The afternoon of May 8, silicosis-afflicted workers from Leiyang demanding their rights at Shenzhen’s Petition Office were violently suppressed by the government. Six workers were taken into police custody and not released until around 12pm. Not only did this not scare workers, it angered them further, strengthening their morale!
Workers wrote a demand letter and affixed their signatures and fingerprints.

On 8 May, workers from Leiyang suffering from silicosis went again to the Shenzhen Municipal Petition Office. To their surprise, police were waiting there to arrest them.