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6. Entangled in Lawsuits

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Tales of Hope, Tastes of Bitterness
This chapter is in the book Tales of Hope, Tastes of Bitterness
Liu Deye sped through town in his four-wheel drive, the car brushing past the cows that plodded over the freshly laid asphalt. His eyes were fixed on the road, his hands clamped around the steering wheel. Every time someone stepped out in front of him he gave an angry blow on the horn and cursed. Liu and I had just come from a court hearing in which two former Ethiopian workers had sued his company. The two workers had been dismissed in the aftermath of a strike. Liu Deye, however, still did not know what he had been charged with. The court summons and the copy of the complaint, which the former employees had brought to the asphalt plant the week before, had been drawn up in Tigrinya. Moreover, Liu had not understood what had been said in the court hearing. He used the sleeve of his camouflage jacket to wipe sweat off his forehead and spoke up suddenly: “Please tell the NewYorkTimes how much we suffer in Africa, when you get back home.” Liu remained silent until we arrived at the compound of Golden Roads, where he disappeared into his room.Since the beginning of the road project, the number of lawsuits filed by Ethiopian workers against Chinese employers had surged. In Raya Azebo Wereda Court in Mehoni the number of lawsuits involving Chinese compa-nies had gone up steadily. A combination of disrespect for or ignorance of Ethiopian labor regulations and mounting pressure to keep financial losses to a minimum meant that the Chinese companies routinely sidestepped legal procedures. Ethiopian workers were dismissed at will and wages docked capriciously. Employment contracts were rare, as were rest days for the workers. As the road project advanced, however, the Chinese employ-ers came to pay for their neglect of workers’ rights. Ethiopian laborers used a variety of methods, some subtle, some less so, to keep their Chinese managers in check and to improve wage levels, employment conditions, and contractual procedures. They did so either on their own accord, as discussed in the previous chapter, or with the assistance of local state institutions, such as the courts and wereda or kebele administrations, as I will explore in this chapter.6Entangled in Lawsuits
© 2019 Hong Kong University Press

Liu Deye sped through town in his four-wheel drive, the car brushing past the cows that plodded over the freshly laid asphalt. His eyes were fixed on the road, his hands clamped around the steering wheel. Every time someone stepped out in front of him he gave an angry blow on the horn and cursed. Liu and I had just come from a court hearing in which two former Ethiopian workers had sued his company. The two workers had been dismissed in the aftermath of a strike. Liu Deye, however, still did not know what he had been charged with. The court summons and the copy of the complaint, which the former employees had brought to the asphalt plant the week before, had been drawn up in Tigrinya. Moreover, Liu had not understood what had been said in the court hearing. He used the sleeve of his camouflage jacket to wipe sweat off his forehead and spoke up suddenly: “Please tell the NewYorkTimes how much we suffer in Africa, when you get back home.” Liu remained silent until we arrived at the compound of Golden Roads, where he disappeared into his room.Since the beginning of the road project, the number of lawsuits filed by Ethiopian workers against Chinese employers had surged. In Raya Azebo Wereda Court in Mehoni the number of lawsuits involving Chinese compa-nies had gone up steadily. A combination of disrespect for or ignorance of Ethiopian labor regulations and mounting pressure to keep financial losses to a minimum meant that the Chinese companies routinely sidestepped legal procedures. Ethiopian workers were dismissed at will and wages docked capriciously. Employment contracts were rare, as were rest days for the workers. As the road project advanced, however, the Chinese employ-ers came to pay for their neglect of workers’ rights. Ethiopian laborers used a variety of methods, some subtle, some less so, to keep their Chinese managers in check and to improve wage levels, employment conditions, and contractual procedures. They did so either on their own accord, as discussed in the previous chapter, or with the assistance of local state institutions, such as the courts and wereda or kebele administrations, as I will explore in this chapter.6Entangled in Lawsuits
© 2019 Hong Kong University Press
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