According to the Associated Press, "at least 10,000 protesters have appeared every morning to sit down around the central offices" of the Daqing Petroleum Administration Bureau. As many as 50,000 workers are participating in the actions.

The oil field in Daqing is part of PetroChina, one of China's largest state-run enterprises, with 300,000 employees. Over the past several years more than 80,000 of these oil workers have lost their jobs, as capitalist investors, with backing from the ruling bureaucracy sitting on top of the Chinese workers state, attempt to privatize the country's oil fields.

When they were laid off the workers were promised winter heating subsidies of about $360. After the Chinese New Year, however, this subsidy was eliminated. Each worker was told that they would now be required to pay about $317 a year into their own social security fund. This increased to $439 last year and to $560 this year, reports the web site of the China Labor Bulletin.

The protesters, mostly oil field workers in their 50s and 60s, gather everyday for about six hours and then return to their homes. According to AP, the protesters "claimed company officials received bonus payments of $110,000 at the same time they were cutting benefits to former workers."

Oil workers from Xinjiang, Shengdi, and Liaoche have staged solidarity demonstrations with the protesters in Daqing. Some workers still employed by the company are participating in the demonstrations as well to protest the fact that they are being asked to increase their payments into a pension fund from about $365 last year to $1,219 for the current year.  
 
 
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