FORCED LABOUR IN $30 M CHINESE HOUSING FIASCO?

DID a Chinese State-owned company use exploited workers on the Trinidad and Tobago housing project for which it has been ordered to pay $30 million?

Were the workers taken advantage of through lack of documentation, long hours on the jobs, even physical violence and other forms of abuse?

These and related questions are being asked by knowledgeable people in the midst of the revelation about China Jiangsu International Corporation.

The company has been ordered by the T&T High Court to pay $30 million to the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) for a fiasco at Las Alturas project at Morvant in which two buildings crumbled.

Land slippage ruined the buildings in 2010, and they were demolished two years later.

HDC filed a legal claim for breach of contract and negligence.

The Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration initiated a high-profile commission of enquiry into the failed project.

Experts are pointing to an international report which indicates that State-owned Chinese construction firms have been overworking employees, and, in many cases, not providing job contracts.

A United States-based non-profit group China Labour Watch reported recently that deceptive advertisements are sometimes placed for international infrastructure jobs.

The International Labour Organisation has described those conditions as forced labour.

The US State Department has also revealed forced overtime, physical violence and contract irregularities by Chinese companies.

China Labour Watch reported on projects in several countries that are part of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global Chinese strategy.

The group found clear patterns of labour abuse on several international job sites.

About half of the employees said they were not receiving any income at the time of the investigation and 60 per cent said they were working illegally on business, tourist and investment visas.

It was revealed that employers took advantage of the high cost of airfares in order to deter workers from returning to China at the expiry of their relevant contracts.

The agency called for ratification of certain international labour treaties.

T&T had not signed the BRI at the time of the Las Alturas project, but Chinese State-owned companies were involved in several key projects.

China Jiangsu, which formed a T&T subsidiary, had a $500 million contract for construction of the southern campus of University of the West Indies, at Debe.

The company was also involved in the billion-dollar Tamana InTech Park.

More than a decade ago, some 150 Chinese nationals complained of “slave-like” conditions imposed by their employer Beijing Liujian Construction Company on T&T projects.

They said they lived in deplorable conditions and were underpaid.

There were calls by business, labour and civic organisation for an investigation into the employment conditions of Chinese workers in T&T.