Chip Starnes, the president of the America-based Specialty Medical Supplies who was held hostage in his factory just outside of Beijing for six days, has been released.
Spurred by fear for their jobs and salary owed to them, employees at the factory prevented Starnes from leaving after he arrived at the plant last Friday. Starnes had come to the factory, located in the suburb of Huairou, to finalize severance payments for 30 workers who had been recently laid off due to their division being moved to India.
The remaining 100 employees, fearful the entire factory would be closed, also demanded similar severance packages, and complained about unpaid wages, a claim Starnes has denied. To force his hand, they barricaded Starnes inside the plant.
A deal was reached by early Thursday morning, when 97 workers received two months’ salary and compensation that together totaled almost $300,000, reported the Beijing News, a local tabloid. Starnes told the Associated Press he was forced to give in to the workers’ demands, and described his experience over the past six days as “humiliating, embarrassing.” — USA Today
Foreign workers being held in China due to labour disputes are not entirely uncommon.
The U.S. State Department’s consular information sheet on China notes cases of civil business disputes in which U.S. citizens have been prevented from leaving the country for months or years, been harassed or intimidated by “debt collectors” or physically detained as leverage.
Charles Scholz, managing director of Big Bear Safety & Security Management, said illegal detentions typically happened in the construction and manufacturing sectors.
He described a case in which a manufacturer in Suzhou, near Shanghai, had completed 80 percent of the work contracted to it, but the foreign partner cancelled the contract after a quality dispute and told the contractor to leave the site. The Chinese partner claimed it was still owed 20 million yuan ($3.25 million) and refused.
“They locked in the foreign general manager and three of his clients as well as 60 of the staff, blockaded them into a factory for three days… they wouldn’t let them leave,” said Scholz. — Reuters
As well, in 2012, Missouri businessman Steve Fleischli had his passport confiscated by a Xiamen court after finding himself in the middle of a dispute between his employer and his Chinese suppliers.
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I wonder what Chinese law says about detaining people? Is it legal to keep someone locked up because they pissed you off? Could I lock my boss up in her office or in my flat until she gave me a sack of cash? Are kidnapping and ransom legal or is it only legal to do these things to evil laowai.
I was thinking the same thing. Seems odd (as odd as anything seems here) that the police just sort of let them resolve it — through kidnapping and extortion.
The article is very unclear about whether Starnes did in fact owe wages to the workers and whether he was planning to fire them without severance pay. You have to remember that there have already been a couple of cases in China where workers didn’t receive their due payments and were left with nothing. It’s not surprising that someone would consider taking drastic measures when they’re left with no money to pay their bills or feed their kids and no faith in the justice system to resolve the issue
If I were one of the defaultees, instead of going through an incredibly long legal process for my due wages, detaining the defaulter is probably an express way that represents natural justice in absence of an efficient legal system.
BTW, I have always been supporting the legislation to outlaw intentional wage defaulting as a felony, and impose at least 10 years imprisonment on such.