China's most unlikely heroine, Xiong Deming, drew media's attention once again with her recent trip to Wenzhou in eastern Zhejiang province, to seek compensation for peers suffering from silicosis, a lung disease doctors say they contracted at their jobs in pottery mills. Her efforts were largely unsuccessful.

Pottery workers in Wenzhou, the city with China's most prosperous private economy, turned to Xiong for help after failing to get compensation for their illnesses.

The 42-year-old woman from an outlying village of southwest China's Chongqing Municipality became a heroine in eyes of millions of migrant rural laborers in China after complaining about a local construction company defaulting on payment of her husband's 2,240 yuan (US$270) wages.

She relayed her tale of woe to Premier Wen Jiabao in October 2003 when Wen made a surprise inspection of Xiong's Longquan Village of Yunyang County, Chongqing.

After talking with the premier, Xiong got her husband's wages within six hours. More importantly, Xiong's complaint to the premier became the fuse to a nationwide drive to retrieve defaulted payments for migrant workers.

Xiong's latest move has put the rights of those workers in the spotlight once again.

Last Tuesday, at the request of her cousins Zhang Zeben and Zhang Renhe, Xiong flew to Wenzhou at her own expense, hoping to use her fame to retrieve compensation for more than 50 silicosis victims.

A medical checkup cooperatively made by industrial disease prevention and control centers of Chongqing and Wenzhou this spring on 2,834 workers in pottery mills of Longwan District of Wenzhou found that 108 had contracted silicosis, a disease resulting from the chronic inhalation of silicon dust and leading to persistent cough, shortness of breath and tuberculosis.

By the end of November, 53 victims had received one-time compensation including wages and medical fees while the other 55 are still in the waiting list of the district government because of reasons such as high compensation sum, contracted causes of unidentified disease or the bosses' refusal of paying the compensation.

Xiong's two relatives are among the 55 victims hungering for an early settlement to their mishap.

"My original purpose was just to help my two cousins. But I know that behind them there are over 50 fellow villagers. Contracting the disease and losing their ability for physical labor, their future will be dim. I will try my best to help them to retrieve their deserved compensation," said Xiong.

Having the support of the local government and confidence that her fame would help resolve the problem, Xiong was disappointed to find that the whole process was not as simple as she had thought.

With the help of the local government, Xiong, representing Zhang Renhe, reached a compromise with the owner of the pottery company on a compensation of 105,000 yuan (12,700 US dollars), less than the 170,000 yuan (20,560 US dollars) the victims should have received according to the regulation on insurance for industrial injuries of migrant workers issued by the Zhejiang provincial government.

The compromise was finally voted down by the directorate of the company. They said that although Zhang worked at the company for three to four years, he left the company some one and a half years ago, there is no evident proof that he contracted the disease when he was working in the company.

As for the other cousin, Xiong's request for compromise was rejected by the company outright for the reason that Zhang Zeben has only been working in the company for nine days and it was impossible for one to get such a disease within nine days.

The same occasion repeated when Xiong trying to reach a compromise for the other 11 workers who entrusted Xiong to ask for their compensation.

The third day when she began her drive of compensation retrieval for migrant workers, Xiong disappeared from the visual field of the media, many of whom had accompanied her to Wenzhou to report the process of the heroine's move.

"I'm too tired of being besieged by the media. Without their interference, I hope the compensation for my consigners could be solved sooner," she said.

After five days of striving, Xiong left Wenzhou Saturday with only two of the 13 cases settled, the compensation of which are 26,000 yuan (US$3,144) and 48,000 yuan (US$5,804) respectively, far less than the deserved sum of 40,000 yuan (US$4,837) and 90,000 yuan (US$10,883) in compliance with the regulation on compensation.

The other cases, failing to reach a compromise, will have to go through judicial proceedings, which will take at least a half year, acknowledged Li Yi, deputy director of the district personnel and labor bureau.

"Xiong has the right to help her fellow villagers to retrieve their deserved compensation by using her fame, as it is the tradition in China's rural society that one should help his or her neighbors if he or she has the power," said Fan Ping, a researcher with the Institute of Sociology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"But the failure of Xiong's trip to Wenzhou is to be expected," he said.

"A good market economy needs the negotiation of a third party, which should be taken by the government. Xiong represents that the man in the street can change the status quo of China's economy, but fundamentally, the protection of migrant workers' interests hinges on the laws and the highly effective administration of the government rather than top leaders' concern," he said.

According to the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, China has about 94 million migrant rural laborers. Since Premier Wen' meeting with Xiong, a series of regulations and policies have been issued by the central government to ensure those migrant workers to get their deserved payment. But those workers going to cities to earn a living are still a vulnerable group in China whose interests demand for more attention from both the government and society at large.

When arriving in Wenzhou and seeing her fellow villagers, Xiong wept for their mishap. When having to leaving Wenzhou with a disappointed result, Xiong shed tears again.

"The failure of Xiong's mission to Wenzhou may be a good thing for her," Fan said. "Since having her problem solved by Premier Wen, the common countrywoman has attracted too much attention from the media and the public, which is too heavy for her to endure. The fact is that Xiong is just a symbol. The promise she got from Wen is not just for herself but to all migrant workers suffering from defaulted payments."

Since becoming famous, Xiong has been being pestered by migrant workers around the country asking her to retrieve their payments. As an escape, this spring, Xiong left her village to go to work in Chongqiong but went home recently, apparently unable to adapt to city life.

(Xinhua News Agency December 11, 2004)