Tong's sword of justice
Tong Lihua distributes his name cards to migrant workers on a train to Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province, in late January. Tong has been struggling to form a national network, which offers legal help to migrant workers. |
months.For Tong, director of Beijing-based law firm Zhicheng, Zheng's case is only one of the hundreds of labor mistreatment incidents he is fighting.
"With the coming of Spring Festival, we were extremely busy. But it is comforting enough to see the satisfactory faces of the migrant workers," said Tong, founder and director of Beijing Migrant Workers' Legal Assistance Working Station (BMWLAWS). Since it began operations in 2005, BMWLAWS has advised more than 6,000 migrant workers, and fought 1,300 cases.
Tong and his colleagues have helped migrant workers retrieve more than 7.6 million yuan ($970,000) in unpaid salaries and compensation for workplace injuries.
In January, with the support of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Belgian Government, Tong has been organizing a national legal assistance network for migrant workers.
Tong, 35, has been involved in public interest lawsuits for a long time. Born in a rural family in Xinglong of Hebei Province, Tong graduated from China University of Politics and Law in 1995 and began his legal career at Zhicheng. The young hard-working lawyer was promoted to deputy director of the Zhicheng firm in 1997.
"But one small case changed my commercial lawyer career," Tong said.
A man, surnamed Wang, who lived in the countryside, came to his office. Wang was owed 50,000 yuan ($6,410) by a bankrupt business partner and had sued the business partner to retrieve the money. He won the case but could not get back the money because of the latter's bankruptcy.
Wang had spent the same money he was owed in suing the partner in different courts, hiring lawyers and lobbying the courts to implement his cases.
"If there was a wise lawyer who could have guided Wang in the beginning of his lawsuit, he would not have had to spend the money in vain," Tong said.
"Seeking an out-of-court settlement in the beginning might have helped him retrieve a little money."
After the case, Tong opened a free legal hotline and operated it in his spare time. Mistreated workers soon discovered the service and Tong's hotline was flooded with customers. Very soon, Zhicheng law firm set up a team to provide free legal advice in order to meet the rising demand.
In his youth, Tong was a fan of heroic stories, and had dreamt of being the sword-wielding hero and rescuing people in distress.
"But when I grew up, I found there was no need for a sword to maintain justice. Law is the best weapon to help the maximum number of people," Tong said.
In 1999, Tong handled a case involving two little girls who were abandoned by their father in Beijing.
The girls, aged seven and 11, were from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in South China. The court ruled the father pay allowance and Tong found the aunt of the two girls to foster them.
After that case, Tong shifted his legal skills to help young people.
"If laws are to become a weapon to help disadvantaged people, these people have to believe in the law in their younger age," Tong said.
But in the Guangxi case, Tong found his law firm had to spend so much money and time sending lawyers to Guangxi. Tong realized the limited strength of just a single law firm, which could hardly cope with the huge number of public interest litigations across the country. "If there were lawyers in Guangxi joining us, the situation would have eased," Tong recalled.
Since then, he has been travelling, calling on colleagues, and even advertising in newspapers in a bid to develop a network of legal assistance to juveniles. His consistent effort resulted in the establishment in 2003 of the Beijing Lawyer Association, a committee designed to provide legal protection for young people. The following year, the All China Lawyers Association set up a professional committee to provide further legal assistance to young people.
"Each day I had to make about 100 calls and talk with different people, urging them to join us," said Tong. By the end of last year, more than 6,000 lawyers voluntarily joined in the informal network. While offering legal assistance, these lawyers have given lectures to millions of school children on safety and legal knowledge.
In 2005, Tong once again shifted his focus to migrant workers.
"In the process of protecting juveniles, I found the biggest injured group is migrant workers' children," he said.
"If there is no protection for their disadvantaged parents, it is very difficult to protect the children."
But the decision was not easy to make. Despite the huge number of labor disputes concerning salary and injury compensation, there was no legal assistance center set up for migrant workers until 2005.
Finally, Tong decided to shoulder the responsibility of forming the BMWLAWS.
Yu Hao, a 15-year-old migrant worker from Tianjin, became one of the earliest beneficiaries of Tong's efforts.
In late 2005, Yu hid his real age - people under 16 are forbidden to work in China - to get a job in a Beijing chemical fibre factory. Disaster soon struck the teenager and he lost his left arm in an accident at the plant. In hospital, the employer learned the real age of Yu, however under the pretext that Yu had hidden his age and violated safety regulations, the employer only paid the initial hospitalization costs and refused to pay the continued treatment costs and compensation.
Tong voluntarily fought for Yu.
After long investigation, Tong proved that the employer had learned of Yu's age before the accident and took no action. After nearly one year of legal fighting, Tong helped Yu and his father win 850,000 yuan ($108,000) for treatment and compensation. By the end of last year, one fourth of the money had been paid.
Most cases Tong and his station are involved in are not settled in court.
"In many cases, the employers who mistreated migrant workers or delayed their salaries feared the law but would not pay the money," said Wo Xingwei, a lawyer at Zhicheng.
"Repeated negotiations for the workers could eventually help them retrieve most unpaid money."
With its heavy involvement with young people and migrant workers, Zhicheng is not earning the revenues of a typical law firm of its size and is forced to work out of a poor quality office building in suburban Beijing.
Now only two lawyers out of its team of 20 lawyers deal with commercial litigations. The rest are involved in the free-of-charge litigations, which are supported by donations and public funds Tong struggles to obtain.
"The income (from the public interest lawsuits) is much less than working for commercial law business, but the kind of self satisfaction cannot be changed with money," he said.
(China Daily 03/22/2007 page20)
