In western China, the important steel company Shaanxi Hanzhong Iron and Steel Group Co., Ltd. (referred to as Hanzhong Steel Company) has been withholding wages, social security, medical insurance, and other payments from thousands of workers for the past decade, amounting to hundreds of millions of yuan, causing hardship to the workers. For the past month, workers have been going to the local county government to demand their overdue payments, reaching a peak on November 6th and 7th.
Xu Guanjie (pseudonym) is a worker who has been working at Hanzhong Steel Company for thirty years. He has been going to the county government to seek answers. In an interview with Epoch Times, he said that the county government is deceiving the workers by paying less than two thousand yuan for two months’ wages last month, stating that it was for January and February 2022. The workers couldn’t bear it anymore, and on November 6th and 7th, many workers joined the rights protection activities, with up to three to four hundred people at the scene.
Xu Guanjie mentioned that they raised funds to buy a megaphone and organized workers to go to the county government to protect their rights. They shouted phrases like “We want to eat, we want to survive,” including a significant number of retired workers. Due to the company’s failure to submit the workers’ social security funds, many retired workers have not received their pensions.
According to the workers, the company has 3,406 employees. Since January 2015, it has accumulated 369 million yuan in unpaid social security funds, 33 million yuan in unpaid medical insurance from March 2022 to April 2024, 62 million yuan in unpaid wages, 3 million yuan in unpaid unemployment benefits, and the fund for job guarantees has not been paid for ten years.
Xu Guanjie mentioned that his job guarantee fund amounts to over a hundred thousand yuan. In 2015, the company effectively raised funds from the workers, totaling 110 million yuan, claiming a 12% interest rate at the time, but they have not paid any interest. “In 2015, the workers went on rights protection activities for two months. The company finally promised to repay the principal and interest after four years of production, but only paid a small amount within the four years, and nothing thereafter.”
Another worker’s family member, Li Yan (pseudonym), stated that her husband had been working at Hanzhong Steel for over twenty years, but the company often failed to pay wages on time. Financial strains led to strains in their relationship, and they often argued over money. With a son in college and elders relying on them, Li Yan was forced to work in Guangdong to make ends meet.
Li Yan revealed that most factory workers are in their forties and fifties, making it difficult for them to find other jobs outside. With family responsibilities weighing on them, she questioned, “How can ordinary people like us survive?”
Two years ago, Li Yan’s husband underwent eye surgery costing over ten thousand yuan. The company promised reimbursement, but in the end, they did not pay. “They (the company) did not even pay for the medical insurance contributions, so how can they make reimbursements?”
The workers are now reluctantly resorting to seeking justice. Another worker, Zhao Yong (pseudonym), mentioned that they plan to escalate their rights protection activities from the county government to the city government and further up to the provincial government. If no resolution is found, they will consider going to Beijing to petition.
Epoch Times reporters attempted to contact the county government and Hanzhong Steel Company but were unsuccessful.
Public records indicate that Hanzhong Steel Company was initially formed by several state-owned enterprises, including Hanzhong Iron and Steel Factory, Hanzhong Chemical General Plant, Hanzhong Ferroalloy Plant, and Lueyang Cement Plant. After undergoing bankruptcy reorganization in 2000, it gradually became the largest private steel conglomerate in Shaanxi Province, specializing in mining, coking, and steel rolling, producing high-quality steel strips and serving as a significant steel production base in western China.
Workers revealed that despite the seemingly prosperous facade of this steel giant, internally, the company is deeply flawed, using operating losses as an excuse to avoid addressing salary issues. Workers discovered that funds such as social security contributions were misappropriated by the company’s boss, who hails from Sichuan and has several businesses there, diverting Hanzhong Steel’s funds to Sichuan. This has led to the company’s current financial losses, with government departments hesitant to intervene, resulting in prolonged unsuccessful efforts by the workers to seek justice.