Guangdong, known as a "paradise" for migrant laborers, attracts more than a million workers from China's poor regions annually. In order to survive, they leave their families and work away from home.

Huizhou Gutangao is one of the biggest industrial districts in Huizhou city, Guangdong province, and it provides many job opportunities for migrants. But because the laborers are unskilled, they have to take jobs that involve intensive labor or work in dangerous environments. As long as they can make money, they are willing to do anything. This means their fate and health are in their employers' hands.

Huizhou Super Golden Peak in the industrial district is one of the factories owned by the battery branch of GP industries listed in Hong Kong. A cadmium poisoning incident in May and June last year had tremendous impact locally: It drew great attention to high-ranking city leaders and to a well-known central TV station that reported the case. In order to maintain a financially viable environment, city leaders urged the factory to improve working conditions as soon as possible and to develop a compensation deal for injured workers. Workers involved were reportedly very disappointed in the deal.

In 2002, a worker from the factory felt weakness and soreness in her lower back after giving birth. She was told by a doctor her problem was intervertebral disc protrusion. After reading an article on the hospital's bulletin board that said high levels of heavy metals, including cadmium, can cause skeletal distortion, she was scared, because she was in contact with cadmium daily at work, having worked there more than seven years, 30 days a month, 12 hours a day.

She paid for a health checkup in the Guangdong occupational disease prevention and control hospital. The exam showed her blood cadmium level exceeded the standard, so the doctor prescribed a cadmium elimination treatment. Then she wondered: "How is this affecting my baby?"

She presented her health results to the factory, but they were ignored. When another laborer working in the power room appeared to have similar symptoms, all the laborers in the factory became very concerned. So the factory arranged for workers to be checked for cadmium levels in blood and urine. The results indicated cadmium exceeded the standards for nearly 100 workers. However, workers were so worried about the incident, that they paid for checkups at different clinics, where the results showed significantly higher cadmium levels than from the factory clinic. The factory issued a statement that it would not recognize results from different clinics.

One worker confirmed that the cadmium levels in her 5-year-old child significantly exceeded the standard, as well. She had worked at the factory for eight years.

According to the Guangdong Province Occupational Disease Prevention and Control Institute, cadmium poisoning causes serious harm to the skeleton, kidney and other organs.

After the cadmium poisoning incident in Huizhou Super GP, another factory, Xianjin Battery Factory, also owned by GP, found more than 300 workers with blood cadmium levels exceeding the standard.

When some workers developed symptoms such as loss of mobility in the arms and legs, lower back pain and backache, dizziness and headaches, they asked to obtain an occupational disease certificate and demanded that the factory take care of their treatments. Instead, the factory asked them to resume work as soon as possible.

According to the law of occupational disease prevention and control, if the disease is diagnosed as suspicious, harmfully suspicious, or mild, the person can be treated as a patient. If the workers can't obtain an occupational disease certificate, they are not able to apply for the work ability appraisal and therefore they can't obtain any compensation.

On July 5, 2004, the GP group issued a clarification statement in which it claimed that this incident was not caused by industrial cadmium poisoning, and emphasized that the factory met the international requirements in terms of security, health, environment and other areas; every worker accepted training when they were hired; the workers were provided information about the harmful effects of cadmium, and so on.

The workers responded to upper level officials and media saying the company's statement was an insensitive shirking of responsibility.

Facing such a serious threat to their health, the workers chose to go on strike and resign to express their discontent. On July 22, a rainy day, the poisoned workers gathered in front of the factory entrance, and displayed the slogan "return my health, return my human rights!" More than 60 of these migrant workers later filed a lawsuit against the company.

According to an insider, workers had not received any training when this factory hired them; there were no warning signs posted in the area where the cadmium was contacted; and they had not been told that cadmium could cause serious harm.

Under pressure, the factory was forced to conduct some reorganization. On June 1, the nickel-cadmium battery production line was demolished and transferred into a nickel-zinc battery production line. Because of this, a preliminary improvement of the working conditions in the factory was achieved.

But before that, they worked under very poor conditions: poor ventilation resulted from layers of cadmium on the surface of machines and on the floor and cadmium powder in the air; no dust masks or protective suits were provided and drinking cups were placed in the same environment. Working under these conditions for five to eight years, the workers regarded the factory as responsible for the poisoning incident.

The poisoning incident occurred more than a year ago, but both sides are still in a lawsuit battle. More than 60 workers requested the factory to pay their medical expenses and emotional stress compensation, to the amount of nearly 10 million yuan. However GP Company insisted that the workers' bodies were not seriously injured and they asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

A reporter from the Epoch Times recently visited Hucheng district court at Huichou and was told that the court has not decided on how to precede with the case yet and is currently still in the process of mediation. When detailed information was requested, the court declined any further comment.

According to the Chinese ministry of health, there are more than 16 million enterprises with poisonous and harmful working environments in China. The number of workers harmed by their working environment exceeds 200 million.

According to relevant accumulated data, pneumoconiosis cases in China come to more than 580,000, among them, 140,000 have died from the disease. Current cases in China are more than 440,000. According to incomplete statistics, the total number of accumulated pneumoconiosis patients in China is equal to the sum total of all other countries put together.

Cadmium is an important industrial and environmental pollution chemical. It ranks as the sixth most toxic chemical to the human body.

Scientific studies have shown that once cadmium is absorbed into the blood, it rapidly combines with blood plasma, albumin protein and other components, and is then distributed by the blood stream to various organs. Because it can't be biodegraded, cadmium is easily accumulated in the body. Cadmium is toxic to the liver, creates body soreness and eventually causes the chondrification (conversion into cartilage) and distortion of the four limbs.

Cadmium poisoning is a chronic disease and its incubation period is two to eight years. Currently, no medicine can cure cadmium poisoning.

The international European Union Council has published guidelines for the recycling and reuse of batteries and accumulator cells containing such substances. The guidelines request to expand the banned scope for cadmium battery production and to set up a stricter recycling goal. Austria, Finland, Denmark and Sweden completely support the ban on the production of cadmium batteries.