Chinese migrant laborers toiling in the factories of two major firms won unusually hefty raises in recent weeks, as Honda sought to end strikes and Foxconn, maker of the Apple iPad, tried to stave off criticism over a spate of worker suicides. But multinationals that find themselves backed into a corner are not the only ones starting to heed the demands of increasingly emboldened employees. In some instances government officials here in China’s southern factory belt, Guangdong Province, have also made small concessions as more workers stage sit-ins and pursue legal channels for compensation.

A retired miner from Sichuan with stage-three pneumoconiosis, who has been seeking occupational illness compensation from his former employer for the past three years, has finally been awarded 136,000 yuan in a court mediated settlement Xiao Huazhong had been seeking 190,000 yuan, the amount he should be legally entitled to, but accepted the lower award because he is currently seriously ill in hospital, has already spent his entire life savings of around 80,000 yuan on medical care, and is faced with additional hospital bills of several hundred yuan a day.

Yang Renbing is still in his 30s, but already his body has suffered damage from which it will not recover. For more than a decade, he worked in a jewellery factory in southern China where he inhaled dust that has permanently damaged his lungs. Mr Yang, 34, is one of what campaigners estimate to be more than one million people to have developed an often deadly condition called pneumoconiosis as a result of his working conditions.

Beijing-based journalist, David Yang recently investigated the case of a battery factory worker in the northeastern province of Jilin who was diagnosed with acute lead poisoning and renal failure but could not get adequate compensation because the authorities, apparently in collusion with his employer, refused to classify his injury as work-related.

Han Dongfang talks to a group of migrant workers who contracted the deadly lung disease pneumoconiosis whilst working as explosives and drill operators on Shenzhen’s construction sites in the 1990s.

CLB’s latest research report The Hard Road: Seeking justice for victims of pneumoconiosis in China was highlighted in the print edition of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on 8 May 2010.

Next month, amid the usual hoopla, Apple is expected to officially unveil its latest gadget: the much-awaited iPhone 4G. But halfway round the globe from the company's California headquarters, a young worker who has spent months in an eastern Chinese hospital wants consumers to look beyond the shiny exterior of such gadgets.

Two Chinese government ministries yesterday pledged to improve working conditions for migrant workers and ensure that enterprises that currently refuse to pay compensation to injured workers can no longer evade their legal responsibilities. Ministers confirmed the key finding of CLB’s new research report The Hard Road: Seeking justice for victims of pneumoconiosis in China, published 26 April, that employers routinely refuse to pay compensation and that migrant workers encounter numerous delays and obstacles in their quest for legally mandated compensation.

Over 10,000 workers in China are diagnosed with a deadly lung disease each year from breathing in dust from cutting gemstones and drilling rocks, but only a few manage to get compensation, said a rights organisation.

It is the number one work-related disease in China, with an estimated more than one million cases. It is contracted by inhaling mineral dust, most common among coal miners and those who work on building sites, sand-blasting, welding and gem and jade processing. It has no cure and in nearly all cases, is fatal.