Labor – Trial against workers might turn against Taiwanese employer

In an emotional plea defense trial lawyer Gao Zhisheng summerizes arguments in favor or one of eight workers on trial, after a massive incident against Taiwanese shoe producer Stella International shoe factories in Dongguan turned ugly earlier this year. The Asian Labour News pointed me at this report of the China Labour News (proxy needed).
On 21 April thousands of workers staged a mass protest against their employer, because of poor payment and poor working conditions. Since then the labor situation in the whole region has deteriorated and the government has started nationwide actions to encourage migrant workers to keep on going to work in the factories in the Pearl Delta.
The incident turned ugly two days later during a protest of about 1,000 workers and twenty of them were arrested. Their trial behind closed doors is over, but no verdicts have been announced.
Lawyer Gao pleaded with the court: “Your Honour, when I met with my client Chen Nanliu [in jail] on 18 August, I saw before me an extremely thin and poorly looking young man of just over 20 years of age; and three times during our meeting he had to rest his head on the table out of sheer exhaustion and ill-health. Frankly speaking, I was utterly shocked by his general condition. I appeal to this Court to take full notice of the social factors I have outlined in my statement here today, and to show sympathy toward my client for the high spiritual and psychological price that he has already had to pay. I ask you – on the basis of law, humanity and conscience – to find the defendant Chen Nanliu innocent of all charges, in order that the judgment of this Court may stand the test of history.”
His plea might have more chance now working conditions in general have become a restraint for China’s economic growth.