After more than four years of arguments with Sanhuan Xiangmo New Technology Co., Ltd, a Sino-Japanese joint venture where he used to be employed, Tang Xiaodong has failed in his lawsuit and was ordered to terminate his labor relations with SXNTC.
The 45-year old Tang come into the media spotlight four years ago when he was dismissed for helping to protect the workers' rights by reporting the company's problematic water to authorities. In the past four years, Tang experienced rounds of arbitrations and finally won the case in November last year. Beijing's No. 2 Secondary Court sentenced SXNTC to cancel its dismissal decision and pay Tang more than CNY60,000 for economic losses and back salary. But when Tang brought the court's order to ask for returning to work, his request was turned down. As a result, he had to file another arbitration application.
Soon after he submitted the arbitration letter applying to go back to work at SXNTC, Tang received a letter from the company on terminating the labor relations with him and removing his position as a trade union chairperson which was scheduled to expire in March this year. Believing that the company's dismissal of him was unlawful as it did not undergo any democratic tests or approval of the oversight trade unions, he filed another lawsuit. However, in the recent judgment, the court believed that since SXNTC was approved to have a new chairperson, Tang's duty with the company should terminate on December 12, 2007 and his labor relation with Sanhuan should also end on that day.
