When Ma Jixing contracted the fatal lung disease pneumoconiosis his former employer refused to pay any compensation claiming Ma had never worked for the company

Han Dongfang talks to a young couple fighting an obstinate employer and buck-passing officials to get unpaid social security contributions who finally got some help after posting an account of their struggle online.

When railway conductor Zhu Chunsheng discovered that he had been secretly demoted while at the same time being required to perform additional duties, he decided to fight back with an unusual strategy.

A former miner with third-stage pneumoconiosis tells Han Dongfang about the terrible cost of working in the lead and zinc mines of Sichuan for two decades with no protection from the clouds of deadly mineral dust enveloping him.

After her brother’s death at a coal mine in Xinjiang was covered up, a young migrant worker, Wang Huiping, embarked on a decade-long quest for justice, which eventually resulted in a court awarding her family 150,000 yuan in compensation.

A university graduate employed as a “village official” in rural Sichuan for three years was denied unemployment benefit because the local government refused to pay his social security contributions.

An elderly community teacher talks to Han Dongfang about his attempts to get a just and decent pension for himself and his colleagues after the authorities basically abandoned them after decades of service. Photo Han Dongfang at Radio Free Asia

An electrician from Heilongjiang spent more than a decade battling with his boss, local government officials and the courts trying to get compensation for a work-related injury that left him with severe burns and a Grade 5 disability.

Han Dongfang talks to a public broadcaster in Liaoning about his attempts to petition the central government in Beijing and file a lawsuit against the local authorities after he was downgraded to temporary worker status in 2006.

Han Dongfang talks to the family of a construction worker left crippled by carbon monoxide poisoning at his former work site about their long struggle for adequate compensation and company’s refusal to accept responsibility.