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A campaign in support of at least 300 workers poisoned by cadmium at a battery factory in China is calling for international support. Campaigners, whose protest against the company has been running for over a year, say the Hong Kong and Singapore-based Gold Peak Industrial Holdings Ltd (GP) has ruined the health of hundreds of workers.
The poisonings occurred at two GP factories in Huizhou, southern China. When Gold Peak Industries opened its Huizhou factories in 1994, Chinese workers were not warned of the dangers of handling highly dangerous cadmium and were initially refused masks. In the last two years several dozen GP workers have been hospitalised, some complaining of intense pain. The company has refused to respond to calls for compensation, sickness insurance and better medical checks.
Gold Peak batteries are widely sold over the world, for use mostly in toys, but also in laptop computers and cameras. The International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF) has called on its affiliates worldwide to join the campaign and has written to GP Batteries' worldwide headquarters in Hong Kong and its European headquarters in the Netherlands in support of the workers. The magazine Globalisation Monitor and trade unions and NGOs in Hong Kong are coordinating the protest.
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