Teachers in wealthy south China protest low wages

BEIJING, Jan 4 (Reuters) Hundreds of middle school teachers in a south China town staged a New Year's Day sit-in outside government offices to protest stagnating wages and poor welfare benefits, participants and an official said today.

The teachers in Huadu, a satellite city north of the metropolis Guangzhou, used the Internet to organise the Monday protest in front of the local government, participants said.

''The gap between our salaries and those of civil servants is just too big,'' a female teacher who answered the phone at the Huadu No 2 Middle School told Reuters. ''It is a long-standing resentment.'' Another teacher at the Chini Middle School said many Huadu teachers did not receive medical insurance and housing subsidies, which schools had to offer under Chinese law.

''It's even worse than the treatment peasants receive. They are covered by medical care now,'' he said.

He and the first teacher, both of whom asked not to be named, said the monthly pay of Huadu teachers averaged only 1,800 yuan (231 dollar) in one of China's wealthiest and most expensive areas.

State media reported today that Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province and at the heart of the booming Pearl River Delta manufacturing hub, became the first city in mainland China with a per capita GDP higher than 10,000 dollar in 2006.

Internet postings about the sit-in said there were police beatings and arrests at the scene that also attracted thousands of onlookers.

But the Chini school teacher said that he only saw minor clashes and the officers geared with shields and helmets were only there to maintain order.

He said that officials eventually came out and after negotiations with the teachers promised to ''study the situation'' and come up with a plan to resolve the issue.

An official at the Huadu education department told Reuters that there would be no reprisals against the organisers and a strike threatened by the teachers did not happen.

''The incident was on a small scale and everything has returned to normal,'' she said when reached by telephone.

Chinese officials are obsessed with stability and frown upon dissent, but groups such as laid-off workers, peasants suffering from polluting factories and urban property owners are becoming increasingly assertive in collective actions to defend their rights and interests.

REUTERS PDM SSC1308