The Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation (BWAF) or Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Union (simplified Chinese: 北京工人自治联合会; pinyin: Běijīng gōngrén zìzhì liánhéhuì popularly referred to in Chinese as gōngzìlián, meaning “the workers’ federation”) was the main organization of workers calling for political change during the Tiananmen Square protests of April, May, and June 1989. The group emerged spontaneously during mourning activities for former General Secretary Hu Yaobang in April, 1989. It denounced corruption and presented itself as a genuinely independent union that would have “the function of supervising the Communist Party,”[1] unlike the Party-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU).
Although the BWAF did not establish branches in individual factories and workplaces, its influence and activities expanded when it resisted the imposition of martial law in May 1989. The BWAF itself was one of the casualties of the People’s Liberation Army’s violent suppression of protesters on the evening of June 3, 1989. After the military crackdown, authorities labeled the BWAF an “illegal organization”[2] and arrested its leaders.
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Even though economic reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping had improved the living standard of many urban workers, by 1988 many such workers considered themselves “losers in the decade of economic reform.”[3] Corruption and inflation especially angered workers, and some responded with work slowdowns and wildcat strikes from 1988 to 1989.[3]
In the days after Hu Yaobang’s death on April 15, 1989, workers and other Beijing residents mourned and talked about politics at the Monument to the People’s Heroes in Tiananmen Square. On April 20, after university students staging a sit-in outside Zhongnanhai said that they had been beaten by military police, a group of workers calling themselves the “Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation” responded by issuing two handbills.[4] The first document, “Letter to People of the Entire City,” decried “out of control” inflation, criticized corrupt officials, and called on “people from all walks of life to come together to fight for truth and the future of China.”[5] The second handbill, “Ten Questions,” began by demanding that top Communist Party leaders reveal how much money Deng Xiaoping’s son had gambled on horse racing and how much Zhao Ziyang had spent playing golf. “Ten Questions” also wondered why “prices have risen without respite as the living standards of the people have dropped precipitously,” and asked top Party leaders to make their incomes public.[6] More workers joined the movement after reading the handbills and hearing fiery speeches at Tiananmen Square, including one by Han Dongfang, a railway worker who would become one of the BWAF’s top leaders.[7]
In late April and the first half of May, between 70 and 80 worker activists met regularly at Tiananmen Square’s western viewing stand, but did not refer openly to their group as the BWAF. In the week following students’ declaration of a hunger strike on May 13, the BWAF operated openly and actively. During this period BWAF members sought assistance from the ACFTU, China’s only officially approved labor union.[8] Even though the ACFTU had encouraged workers to oppose corruption in April 1989 and donated 100,000 yuan for medical aid to the hunger strikers in May,[9] it did not help the BWAF.[8]
Rebuffed in its attempts to register the organization with government authorities, the group proclaimed its founding on May 18.[8] A handbill dated May 20, 1989 declared that the BWAF was:
| “ | A transitional organization that the workers of the capital have spontaneously created during an extraordinary period. Its aims include: fighting for democracy; opposing dictatorship; supporting the students on hunger strike; and advancing, with university students and all other classes of people throughout the country, the course of democratization in the country.[9] | ” |
According to sociologists Andrew G. Walder and Gong Xiaoxia, the BWAF’s demand that it be allowed to independently represent worker interests subsumed specific proposals about workplace issues.[10]
During the final week of May and the first days of June, membership in the BWAF grew, although estimates vary widely: one scholar writes that the group “claimed three thousand members”,[11] while two former BWAF activists said that the group had registered “almost 20,000 members” by June 3, 1989.[12] The BWAF limited its membership to people who could prove Beijing residency and affiliation with a work unit in the city.[12]
Scholars disagree about whether the BWAF cooperated or clashed with student protesters. Sociologist Dingxin Zhao writes that student leaders, including Li Jinjin, a law student at Peking University, and Zhou Yongjun of the China University of Political Science and Law, helped the BWAF by drafting documents and providing legal advice. Students also gave the BWAF broadcasting equipment and banners. Dingxin Zhao therefore concludes that, based on the accounts of former student leaders, the BWAF “was basically only an appendage of the student movement.”[13]
In contrast, Walder and Gong’s interviews with former BWAF members portray significant friction between workers and students, suggesting that workers and students had conflicting goals. A key issue of contention was that workers were more critical of economic reforms (and Communist Party leaders associated with the reforms) than students were. For example, while many students expressed sympathy toward Zhao Ziyang and the reform faction, especially after Zhao’s visit to Tiananmen Square on May 19, 1989, the BWAF remained “consistently critical of Zhao Ziyang even after his fall from power.”[10] In addition, former BWAF members said that they felt marginalized by the students’ insistence on maintaining the “purity” of the movement. At least twice in May, students stopped workers from establishing a headquarters in Tiananmen Square. At the end of the month, students finally allowed the BWAF to move from the western viewing stand into the square itself.[14]
The PLA’s armed crackdown on protesters ended the BWAF’s short existence. Late on the evening of June 3, 1989, a group of young people escorted BWAF leader Han Dongfang away from Tiananmen Square. As the youth tried to persuade Han to leave, they compared him to Polish Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa. Han fled on his bicycle to neighboring Hebei province.[15] On June 8, the Martial Law Command Headquarters issued a public notice declaring that the BWAF was an illegal organization and ordering it to disband. The notice said that BWAF leaders were among “the main instigators and organizers in the capital of the counter-revolutionary rebellion.”[2] Han Dongfang and other BWAF members were arrested and imprisoned.
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