By Cheng Zhuo
Translated by Hou Ye
In July 2012, the Avic Chengdu Engine Group Company in Chengdu, Sichuan hired 300 new employees, and required them to go through a mandatory health examination as part of the company’s orientation. After eight college graduates tested positive for hepatitis B virus (HBV), the company refused to hire them. When these eight individuals appealed to the Labor and Social Security Bureau, they were told, “You’d better go home to recuperate from your illness, and don’t make trouble.” Chengdu E Road Working Group, a non-profit organization dedicated to defending of the rights of people with hepatitis B, took the case on, and drew on the power of domestic allies and media to persuade the company to change its policies and accept its social responsibility.
Unfortunately, what happened in Chengdu is not an isolated or unusual case. There are 93 million people living with HBV in China, or one out of every 14 people. Discrimination against this population has a long history in Chinese society, where children with HBV are not allowed to attend kindergarten; students with HBV worry about receiving higher education; and job-seekers worry about being turned down because of their HBV status. Among these many forms of discrimination, employment discrimination is the most serious problem facing people with HBV in China, pushing almost 100 million people to the margins of society.
At the policy level, the rights of people living with HBV are protected. The “Medical Standards for Civil Service Employment” has officially removed items that formerly excluded people with HBV from civil service jobs. Another policy document, “Opinions on the Protection of the Right to Employment for People Living with HBV,” also states that the right to employment of people with HBV must be protected. The national Food Safety Law also removed previous legal restrictions against people living with HBV who work in the food service industry.
Without support from the Labor and Social Security Department, the eight graduates had no alternative but to contact the media. Chengdu Evening Paper tried to interview the victims, but when they went to the company for an interview, the company turned them away. As a large military enterprise, Avic Chengdu Engine Group has a great deal of political influence, so Chengdu media remained silent.
Finally, the victims turned to Chengdu E Road Working Group for help. As the director of Chengdu E Road, it is my opinion that mandatory HBV tests are illegal, and that firing employees on the basis of HBV status is also against the law. Although the national government has ratified a number of relevant laws and regulations, the cost of breaking the law is too low to affect the company practice of testing for hepatitis. According to the current laws, if a company has an illegal program of testing for hepatitis, the company can be “ordered to reform” and will only be fined 1000RMB or less. Chengdu E Road saw this case as a good opportunity to push for relevant agencies to strengthen the laws and policies, to strengthen monitoring of employer compliance and to reinforce sanctions against employers that break the law. It’s also a good opportunity to better educate the general public on HBV.
Although Chengdu E Road has experience providing legal assistance in cases of discrimination against people with HBV,
the great challenge in this case was collecting evidence. After establishing trust with the eight victims, Chengdu E Road began to collect evidence, and gave each a copy of our handbook, “Defend Your Right to Employment–Hepatitis B Discrimination,” and had them review it.
The handbook incorporates all our experience in dealing with employment discrimination. It includes guidance on evidence, describes the types of evidence used in anti-discrimination cases, templates to use in discrimination cases, and instruction on how to obtain evidence. After studying the handbook, we trained the eight college graduates in how to negotiate with their former employer, and we trained them in how to make audio recordings. After obtaining some basic evidence, we created a dossier, including documentation of the process and transcripts of recordings. Finally, E Road’s peer working group reviewed and analyzed these materials, supplementing and editing them. Then the working group began to prepare for litigation.
In fact, we do not consider litigation to be the best strategy for all cases. Sometimes, we use litigation to bring employers to the negotiating table with employees so that they can reach an agreement. Harnessing the pressure of the media can exert a lot of pressure on employers. We often collect media reports and stories to hand to senior management officials, since lower-level staff persons often try to hide problems from them. Once senior managers know the facts and understand the severity of the situation, they are more likely to take responsibility for solving the problem.
Before World Hepatitis Day on July 28th, a reporter from Xinhua News Agency tracked me down through other organizations and said he wanted to do a story on recent developments in rights protection for people with HBV. I immediately raised this employment discrimination case, and was pleasantly surprised by how interested he was. Eventually Xinhua published an article, “When will HBV discrimination end? –Investigating Avic Chengdu Engine Company’s refusal to hire 8 recent university graduates.” Many more reports followed Xinhua’s, which stirred up a lot of public attention. Under the pressure of public opinion, a company spokesperson issued a statement on their website. The statement said that they would thoroughly investigate the case and would quickly solve it. After extensive meetings and communications with the eight graduates, on August 2nd, they were re-hired and returned to work. The company also publicly promised to meet its social responsibilities in the future.
The success of this advocacy cannot be separated from the close collaboration we had with our allies. We did not give up when local media came under pressure and did not report the case. Instead, we tried other methods and avenues, and were able to find allies who led us to other media agencies that could report it. This garnered wider public attention to the case, leading to the report by Xinhua. In the legal area, we also received invaluable guidance from Yirenping’s office in Zhengzhou, especially in some questions that came up about legal evidence, so that if we did have to go to court, we
would have been fully prepared. Above all, the trust and collaboration of the eight college graduates was clearly essential.
About Chengdu E Road Working Group
Founded on April 28, 2008, Chengdu E Road Working Group is a nonprofit organization dedicated to public education on hepatitis, prevention of the epidemic, and elimination of discrimination against people living with HBV. It provides legal support to people with HBV who have experienced discrimination and advocates for policy changes to protect the employment rights of people with HBV. In November 2009, the organization successfully sued the Chengdu Municipal Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Sichuan Provincial CDC, in order to obtain health certificates for people with HBV who work in food service. At the same time, the organization did policy advocacy aimed at pushing for reforms to national laws and promoting effective implementation. In February 2009, the group published an open letter to the Sichuan Provincial Labor and Social Security Bureau and the Bureau of Health, successfully advocating that they issue a policy, “Opinions on the Protection of the Right to Employment for People with HBV.”
Cheng Zhuo (pseudonym) of Chengdu E Road Working Group is one of the participants in the Asia Catalyst 2012 Nonprofit Leadership Cohort.
