Owners detained in protest over shoe industry overhaul
Print Edition
At least 48 shoe-factory owners in Wenling, east China’s Zhejiang Province, were detained and 184 summoned by police for protesting against the government’s move to crack down on fire hazardous factories in the local shoe-making industry, 21st Century Business Herald reported yesterday.
The Wenling government carried out a thorough work safety overhaul, shutting down 4,559 shoe factories having potential fire hazards or having no legal licenses. A blaze in one such factory killed 16 people on January 14, said the newspaper.
A total of 3,805 private properties rented by factories were also closed. Also demolished was building covering about 262,600 square meters of illegal, or fire hazardous or unsafe structures, the report said.
Factories can resume production after they get legal licenses and solve their work safety problems. They can also relocate to proper structures, according to the newspaper.
The action provoked a backlash from thousands of factory owners, who gathered at the gates of the local government office on Monday, it said.
Some of them told the newspaper that the crackdown had cut off all sources of their income because they totally depend on the factories.
Experts believe that fire hazards and other work safety problems have prompted the Wenling government to rethink the local industry structure and economic growth pattern.
Insiders said that shoe manufacturing is the pillar industry of Wenling, but it has a low-entry barrier, with a large number of small workshops operating in disorder. A family can start a business in their own house with a few machines. More than 80 percent of the city’s 6,000-plus shoe firms are small workshops.
Some shoe firms are in “3-in-1” style, which means a house serving as the employees’ residence, workshop and warehouse with many work safety risks.
The government hopes that the January 14 blaze would lead to local shoe enterprises upgrading in Wenling, the newspaper reported.
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