Chinese women exposed to cadmium sue battery maker

BEIJING, Dec 14 (Reuters) More than 100 women who say they were exposed to toxic cadmium while working at battery factories in China are suing their former employer after three co-workers were reported to have died and others fell sick.

Cadmium, when vaporised and inhaled, can cause flu-like fever, and with more extreme exposure can damage the kidneys and intestinal tract.

In mid-2004, several hundred employees of GP Batteries International Limited were found to have abnormally high levels of cadmium after working at factories in the southern province of Guangdong, state television reported this week.

The Singapore-based company told Reuters it was unaware anyone had died, and promised it would look into the matter.

Some workers were quoted in the report, carried on the official China Central Television, as saying they were offered severance payments of up to 20,000 yuan (2,557 dollar) if they voluntarily left the company.

''It was a scam to trick us workers into leaving the factory and so they would not be responsible for anything,'' the report quoted Liu Hongmei, a worker, as saying.

Three workers had since died, the television report said, including one who suffered kidney failure in January this year.

GP Batteries said in a statement to Reuters today that it was unaware of the deaths of the factory workers.

''GP Batteries will look into this immediately and provide due care as needed,'' GP Batteries Executive Director Wing Sun Hui said.

Hui said some employees, when offered tests in 2004, had shown abnormally high levels of cadmium. He said the company had offered them money as compensation, and hundreds had accepted.

''It is with regret to note that, despite many repeated reminders through phone, mail and newspaper announcements, a number of workers did not take the tests,'' Hui added.

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