By Analía Rojas | 2025-03-17

MONTEVIDEO -- The death of a China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC) worker in Uruguay has once again highlighted forced labor practices and labor law violations by Chinese companies operating in Latin America.

Jun Sheng, a 53-year-old Chinese worker, died on February 7 when a CMEC truck crashed during electrical connectivity work on the transmission line linking Tacuarembo and Salto in northwestern Uruguay.

The truck was transporting seven personnel from the project, which employs 700 workers, including 200 Uruguayans. The rest are Chinese and Ecuadorians.

Citing multiple irregularities, the National Construction and Related Workers' Union (SUNCA) has filed a criminal complaint against the company.

Inhumane conditions

In mid-February, SUNCA filed the complaint after 20 negotiation sessions and 55 unresolved cases with the Ministry of Labor.

The complaint cites allegations of forced labor and violations of the Corporate Criminal Liability Law.

CMEC workers endure inhumane conditions, including overcrowding, lack of drinking water, insufficient refrigeration and inadequate safety measures, according to SUNCA President Mathias Machuca, who spoke to the media last April.

CMEC withholds wages from its Chinese and Ecuadorian employees and, to block unionization, actively prevents them from interacting with their Uruguayan counterparts, the union said.

Wage withholding

Gonzalo Castelgrande, president of the National Administration of Power Plants and Electric Transmissions (UTE) Union, which represents the employees of state-owned UTE, has repeatedly condemned the dire working conditions faced by 500 Chinese workers.

In a November interview with La Mañana, he highlighted "many irregularities" at the construction site of a UTE station near a biomass electricity plant, particularly involving Chinese laborers.

"Many workers are undocumented, meaning they enter the country with only a passport," Castelgrande stated.

This lack of proper documentation prevents them from accessing health care and other labor rights guaranteed to workers in Uruguay.

CMEC has defied numerous complaints to the Labor Ministry by failing to address the reported violations, Castelgrande said.

"The Chinese workers labor 12 hours a day seven days a week ... and receive no overtime pay," he said.

Following an October inspection, the Ministry of Labor found that all 500 Chinese employees had gone unpaid for five months.

CMEC is a subsidiary of Sinomach (China National Machinery Industry Corp.), a Chinese state-owned conglomerate.

This is not the first time it has been involved in a legal case.

Last August, the General Labor Inspectorate closed three facilities after verifying that 80 Chinese and Ecuadorian citizens were sleeping there in conditions that "violated human dignity."