Hand Wound Monday: Kaisi Worker InjuriesCasey Sorrow

Hand Wound Monday: Kaisi Worker Injuries

Published by C. // On 11:22 PM // 0 comments

Found on the National Labor Committee site:

Dai Kehong was just 24 years old when both his hands were crushed—leaving him maimed for life—while working a punch press molding machine at the Kaisi factory at 9:00 p.m., 13 hours into his shift the night of March 10, 2005. Dai Kehong was producing furniture side drawer rails for export to U.S. companies when he was injured.

Zhu Zhenghong and his wife, like millions of other rural migrant workers from across China, left Sichuan Province traveling hundreds of miles south to look for factory work in Guangzhou. Zhu’s wife found work in an electronics factory in the Panyu District. Zhu started working at the Kaisi factory on June 20, 2006. When he signed on he was told he would be working in the welding department. However, with no safety training at all, Zhu was put to work stamping name plates. After two months he was moved and put to work operating a stamp molding machine. Then on September 9, 2006, at 11:00 a.m.—just a little over two and a half months after he started working at the Kaisi factory—Zhu Zhenghong’s right hand was crushed in the mold. Zhu lost two fingers nearly down to the knuckle and the top of a third finger.

Lei Shengke’s right hand was severely crushed in a machine accident on September 27, 2005, at 11:00 a.m., in workshop #2 at the Kaisi Metals factory. Other than his thumbs, all four fingers on his right hand were smashed. The first and middle fingers on the right hand were destroyed and severed. Both joints of the small finger were crushed, and the ring finger was also damaged.