(Corrects typo in spelling of province in third paragraph)
BEIJING Feb 22 (Reuters) – Hundreds of Chinese
retirees who worked for a company which built the massive Three
Gorges Dam have blocked streets in protest about pensions over
the past three days, China’s official Xinhua news agency said on
Wednesday.
The pensioners, who worked for Gezhouba Group, are
complaining that their pension payments have been calculated
unfairly, Xinhua said in an English-language report.
The protest has now entered its third day, and hundreds of
people have blocked traffic on the streets in Yichang in central
Hubei province where the company is based, it added.
“Most of the protesters are aged between 60 and 70, and
relatives and onlookers have joined them at the site of the
protest,” Xinhua said. “The protesters have also complained
about unreasonable terms in the company’s medical care policy.”
Gezhouba has promised to look into their complaints and
increase pension payments, the report added.
A company official reached by telephone declined to comment.
Xinhua said the company has over 20,000 retirees. It has a
Shanghai-listed unit called China Gezhouba Group Corp
.
The 185-metre tall Three Gorges Dam began operations in 2005
and is the world’s largest hydropower project.
China’s ruling Communist Party worries that the tens of
thousands of sporadic protests over land grabs, corruption and
economic grievances that break out across the country every year
could coalesce into a national movement and threaten its
control.
China saw almost 90,000 such “mass incidents” of riots,
protests, mass petitions and other acts of unrest in 2009,
according to a 2011 study by two scholars from Nankai University
in north China. Some estimates go even higher.
That is an increase from 2007, when China had over 80,000
mass incidents, up from over 60,000 in 2006, according to an
earlier report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Most protests are either dispersed by security forces, or by
officials promising demonstrators their demands will be heeded.
None have so far even come close to becoming national movements
which could challenge the central government.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
