Zhang Zheyue | Member of the Chinese branch of IYFL (China)
Dear friends, good day.
International Workers’ Day on May 1 is observed in most countries around the world. Back in 1886, more than 130 years ago, laborers in Chicago, the United States, took to the streets to demand an eight-hour workday. Though this struggle ended in bloodshed, it crystallized the shared aspirations of workers across the globe and gave rise to a holiday belonging to all working people. Today, I will trace the course Chinese workers have traveled over the past century along a chronological timeline.
This journey has been intertwined with the struggles of workers in Chicago, London, and every corner of the world from the very beginning. The earliest demands of all underprivileged laborers were simple and universal: enough food to eat, freedom from crippling workplace injuries, and basic human dignity. Over a hundred years, Chinese workers have undergone a profound transformation of fate. From an oppressed group stripped of any voice, they have evolved into skilled builders capable of independently welding carrier rockets and developing high-speed railways.
A century ago, workers in old China endured desperate living conditions. The Beijing-Hankou Railway enforced a cruel “life-and-death contract”: upon being hired, every railway worker had to sign a document stating that any death caused by train collisions or falls on the job would be deemed the laborer’s own fault, with employers bearing no liability for compensation or funeral expenses. Beneath every sleeper lining the railway might lie the body of a worker. During the line’s construction, many collapsed and died from relentless overwork; others sustained severe injuries yet received no medical care, their bones eventually buried alongside the rails and ties.
In February 1923, more than 20,000 workers on the Beijing-Hankou Railway launched a general strike, condensing all their demands into six concise characters: Fight for human rights, fight for freedom. Modern communication tools such as telephones and telegrams were nonexistent, so an elderly worker climbed aboard a locomotive and opened the boiler valve to release a long, wailing steam whistle. Its resonant blast echoed across the entire city, serving as the unified signal for all fellow workers to down tools. Peaceful appeals, however, were met with violent suppression by military police. Fifty-two workers were killed, over three hundred wounded, and more than a thousand expelled from their jobs. Lin Xiangqian, a labor union leader, was tied to a station pillar. Troops held a blade to his neck and threatened to kill him unless he ordered the strike to end. Facing the knife, he stood firm: “Without orders from the General Labor Union, you may cut off my head, but I will never resume work.” He was stabbed seven times and sacrificed on the spot.
This was the stark reality of resistance for Chinese workers a hundred years prior. They possessed nothing but an unyielding spirit to reject humiliation. Across the globe, laborers in the early industrial era endured comparable suffering: British miners crawled through cramped mine tunnels for work, while factory owners in the United States locked fire exits to control their staff, trapping female workers inside burning buildings with no escape. The origins of every labor movement worldwide are stained with workers’ blood. That single steam whistle along the Beijing-Hankou Railway carried the same cry for fairness as the shouts of demonstrators on Chicago’s streets.
The founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 brought a fundamental shift to the nation’s destiny. Industrial laborers once dismissed contemptuously as “coolies” were legally recognized as masters of the country—a title far from empty rhetoric, validated step by step through the sacrifices of countless working people.
In the early days of the new nation, China faced an acute shortage of oil. Foreign experts claimed no large oil fields existed within Chinese territory, meaning oil supplies would have to rely permanently on imports. Refusing to accept this verdict, drilling worker Wang Jinxi led his team to Daqing in northeast China, carrying out exploration and drilling amid frigid winters with temperatures dropping below minus thirty degrees Celsius. Midway through construction, a severe blowout erupted. Crude oil and mud gushed violently, creating an imminent risk of explosion, yet no professional mixing equipment was on site. Still recovering from a leg injury, Wang Jinxi tossed aside his crutches and leaped into waist-deep mud to stir cement with his own body and contain the surge. His teammates followed suit, wading into the mire beside him. After three hours of relentless labor, the blowout was brought under control. When asked why he would risk his life, he uttered words that would endure through generations: “I would rather cut twenty years off my life to wrest a major oilfield for our motherland.” He passed away at only forty-seven, devoting his entire life to China’s petroleum industry.
During this same period, countless workers at steel mills, coal mines, and railway construction sites labored with the same unwavering resolve. Their devotion stemmed not from external coercion, but from heartfelt conviction. To them, this land now belonged to laborers themselves; with the nation in ruins, the burden of reconstruction rested squarely on their own shoulders. This forged a unique trait that distinguishes Chinese workers from labor groups in many other nations: while labor movements elsewhere largely centered on shorter hours and higher pay, workers of that era in China chose first to shore up the country’s destitute foundations. Relying on their flesh and blood, they built the initial framework of China’s complete industrial system without counting personal cost.
As time advanced, profound transformations reshaped the social standing and career prospects of contemporary Chinese workers. Today, China boasts nearly 300 million trade union members, forming the world’s largest labor organization by scale and membership count. A comprehensive legal framework safeguards workers’ legitimate rights and interests, with systems covering workplace injury compensation, overtime pay, and retirement pensions that provide stable, reliable security for all laborers. Most importantly, workers are no longer reduced to mere operators performing repetitive manual labor. Mastery of a craft can elevate laborers to core backbones supporting the country’s high-end manufacturing sector. Gao Fenglin, a senior aerospace welder, has spent forty years specializing in welding rocket engines. The fuel pipelines he fabricates are thinner than ordinary paper, and at welding torch temperatures reaching 3,000 degrees Celsius, he must limit fabrication error to a width slimmer than two human hairs. Over 130 carrier rockets have passed through his hands without a single welding fault. A European airline once offered him an annual salary of one million euros to recruit him, yet he declined the offer without hesitation, holding fast to his creed: The sparks from my welding torch shall only bloom for Chinese rockets. Very few people worldwide have mastered this ultraprecision welding technology, and Gao Fenglin stands among this elite group.
Li Wanjun, a master welder for high-speed rail, represents another model craftsman of the new age. He independently overcame multiple core welding technologies for high-speed rail bogies previously monopolized by foreign firms, laying the self developed structural framework of domestic high-speed trains and enabling stable operating speeds of over 300 kilometers per hour. Meanwhile, China has introduced an eight-tier skilled worker promotion system, establishing a complete career path from apprentices to chief technicians. Top chief technicians can earn salaries exceeding those of senior enterprise executives. Workers’ dignity is no longer a slogan hung on walls; it is tangible, materialized through professional expertise and rewarded with widespread social recognition.
Reviewing a century of history reveals a clear shift in the core logic of China’s labor movement: a hundred years ago, laborers took to the streets to fight for food, survival, and basic human rights; after the founding of New China, workers dedicated their lives to rebuilding a devastated nation without demanding immediate rewards; in the present day, skilled artisans earn global respect through exceptional craftsmanship, achieving a mutual fulfillment of personal value and national progress.
Recalling the labor cries echoing across the world a century ago: workers in Chicago demanded an eight-hour workday, dockworkers in London hoped for a few extra pence in wages, and railway laborers in Beijing-Hankou fought to the death for human rights and freedom. Though these demands sound different on the surface, they share an identical core: anyone who contributes labor deserves equal treatment and human dignity.
A hundred years on, the hands of Chinese workers now forge high-speed trains that race across the land and weld rockets bound for the stars. These hands are no different from those of the laborers who struggled to survive beneath railway sleepers and inside factory workshops a century ago—yet the horizons they can reach have broken free from old chains, stretching all the way to the boundless starry sky.
From chains to stars: this is the complete century-long journey of Chinese workers.
Thank you!