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Headlines : InternationalBeijing labourers dying in race for Olympic deadline
He is one of 8,000 labourers who have been working for over three years on the stadium and the other main buildings on the Olympics site in north Beijing: the Olympic village, the media centre, the gymnasium and the huge Olympic pool, all of it hidden behind thick blue fences.
He does this in all weathers, bare-handed and in worn-out trainers – many sub-contractors do not issue gloves or construction boots to their workers.
Junle and other ordinary workers are housed just outside the site in office buildings transformed into dormitories. They live 12 to a room in unheated white prefabricated buildings, with no running water.
[Posted By Judy]Republished from The Independent (UK)
Labourers from poor rural areas of China, some in their teens and often lacking the most basic safety equipment, are working seven-day weeks for less than £20 to complete the facilities for next year’s Beijing Olympics, an Independent on Sunday investigation has revealed.
Six workers were killed late last month on an Olympics project, the construction of a subway tunnel. The state-owned company carrying out the project was accused of a cover-up after the six were buried in a partial collapse of the tunnel, waiting eight hours to report the accident while carrying out its own rescue attempt.
According to the Beijing Times, supervisors took away workers’ mobile phones to prevent word leaking out. The first the authorities learned of the accident was when a worker from nearby Henan province secretly called police in his home town, and they relayed the information to Beijing.
Posted by Judy
Born and raised in Toronto, I'm now heading over to the UK to pursue an MA in Russian Politics, Security and Integration. I'm crazy about feminism, multilateralism, peacekeeping, the Toronto Maple Leafs and puppies.
