International

They paid the price for reforms

BEIJING Feb. 24. Managers at three state-owned factories have been killed in separate cases that highlight the difficult reform process China's state enterprises are undergoing, state media reported today.

The murders, all three of which occurred last year in Hubei province in central China, were reported for the first time today in the national media. In all three cases, the workers or their families were dissatisfied with the compensation they received for lost jobs, according to the China News Service (CNS).

The earliest case occurred at the the Huanggang City Aluminium Group Co. Manager Qi Song was killed by the son of a worker in the equipment department. In the most recent case, a relative of a worker killed the deputy manager of the Xiangfan City Xiangyang Material Company when the manager was trying to divide up the fuel company's assets during bankruptcy proceedings, the report said. CNS provided little detail about the two cases and the factories could not be reached for comment. But details available in the third case, at the Xianning City Chemical Fibre Factory, reveal the frustrations state workers go through.

The factory _ a major employer in Hubei _ had been in the red since it was set up in 1993 with money borrowed from banks and other enterprises. It was losing about $ 1.2 millions a year, CNS quoted the factory's Communist Party head as saying.

Forced to make cuts, the factory put workers on early retirement or temporary work suspensions and made them compete with each other to keep their jobs.

The accused killer, Xu Yudong (28), had in 1998 signed a contract with the factory to stop working for three years in exchange for his job back at the end of the term. — AFP

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