As negotiators in Paris creep closer to a deal on moving the world towards a low-carbon energy system, Chinese coal towns, already hit by a slide in prices, are facing a crisis.
In Jixi, a coal town less than 20 miles from the Russian border, mines lie abandoned and workers say they haven’t been paid for months.
“Coal these days is not doing well, it’s all going down, the price is really low, workers’ salaries are really low, it’s all low,” said coal trader Zhao Liyan, as she watched her few remaining workers loading up coal at a depot in sub-zero temperatures.
Most of the mines in Jixi are owned by the Longmay Group, a state-owned enterprise that has been making losses since 2012.
It said in October it would adopt a “wartime work atmosphere” and cut its 248,000 headcount by as much as 100,000 by year-end, more than the entire labour force of the U.S. coal sector.
Even those fortunate to have held on to their jobs say life is increasingly difficult.
Residents at a now-dilapidated dormitory town built in the 1980’s to house workers from the nearby Xinghua mine, say the company has been paying them in arrears and cutting their salaries for months.
“For our salaries, normally speaking they should give it to you at the end of the month, but they keep putting it off. Putting off and putting off, so for our normal salary we’re now only getting September’s, they’re putting it off for three months, now it’s already the middle of December, and they’re not just not paying us like normal they’re also cutting our salaries,” said Xinghua mineworker, Mrs Song.
“Us old people we have no (social) welfare. My son, his wife and their kid, my grandson who’s studying don’t have any (social) welfare either, there’s not enough money. There’s not enough money for the adults to feed and clothe themselves and for their son to go to school,” said 67-year-old Li Yide.
With Chinese economic growth dipping to a 25-year-low and government waging a “war on pollution”, the plight of Jixi, is echoed across China’s coal belt.
Wang Xianzheng, head of the China National Coal Association, said in July that coal firms throughout the country have been slashing wages by as much as 30 percent. His association surveyed 85 coal firms and found 40 were struggling to pay staff, and many had failed to keep up with mandatory pension and health insurance contributions.
The association estimates that more than 80 percent of Chinese mines are losing money because of plummeting prices.
Labour rights activists are concerned that many of the workers are likely to find it difficult to transition into other forms of employment.
“Allegedly the government is trying to put schemes in place, but I don’t really think those schemes are going to be very helpful. A lot of these workers are probably going to be in their forties, fifties when they’re laid off, they don’t have a skill set that’s very useful for alternative employment, retraining is going to be difficult. A lot of them I think are probably going to end up in insecure, poorly paid and probably quite hazardous employment,” said Geoffrey Crothall, communications director at China Labour Bulletin, a labour rights advocacy group.
Despite the grim future faced by the miners in Jixi, many like Fan Delin said he would happily leave the coal fields if he had any other option.
Fan was made invalid in an accident while working in a local mine and is now unable to do physical labour. Unable to find another job, and having received no compensation from his employer, Fan says he now survives by borrowing money from friends and relatives.
While desperate to work again, Fan said he supported moves by politicians to limit the use of coal.
“This is really good for mankind, it’s really beneficial if they don’t let the mines run because of the pollution. If you ask me, they’re correct to say this, even though there’s nothing else for us to do here.”
Many of Jixi’s miners said they hoped that as their country charts a path towards a energy future, their plight would not be forgotten. (Reuters)