Chinese factory workers have released their US boss whom they had held captive for a week over a compensation dispute, a company official said.
Chip Starnes, president of Specialty Medical Supplies, was allowed to leave
the factory in northern Beijing and was resting in a hotel.
"As of now my boss Chip feels exhausted after two harsh days and has gone
back to a hotel, OK?" Speciality Medical General Manager Xing Shuang
said. "This is all I have to say."
The workers had demanded severance packages identical to those offered to 30
employees who were recently laid off, even though the firm planned no
further layoffs, Mr Starnes said earlier.
Mr Starnes, who said he was "saddened" by the experience, told the
Associated Press that a deal had been reached overnight to pay the workers.
Remaining workers at the medical supply plant in Huairou district, on the
outskirts of Beijing, had said they believed the entire factory was shutting
down, that the company owed unpaid salary and that they saw equipment being
packed and itemised for shipping to India.
Mr Starnes said the workers' demands were unjustified. Neither he nor district labour official Chu Lixiang gave details of the agreed compensation.
Mr Starnes, a co-owner of Florida-based Specialty Medical Supplies, has now returned to his hotel in Beijing.
"Yes! Out and back at hotel," Mr Starnes wrote in a text message. "Showered ... 9 pounds lost during the ordeal!!!!!!"
Mr Starnes spent the week inside the plant, which produces alcohol pads and plastic blood lancets for diabetics, behind barred windows. He could not be immediately reached for comment.
The stand-off highlighted one of the lesser-known risks of doing business in China – that trust between workers and management, and faith in the legal system, is often low.
Starnes, whose company is based in Florida, flew to China on June 18 and his detention started on Friday.
The workers' demands followed rumours that the entire plant was being closed after the company's plastic injection moulding division began a move to India to lower production costs.
Mr Starnes said the workers' demands were unjustified. Neither he nor district labour official Chu Lixiang gave details of the agreed compensation.
Mr Starnes, a co-owner of Florida-based Specialty Medical Supplies, has now returned to his hotel in Beijing.
"Yes! Out and back at hotel," Mr Starnes wrote in a text message. "Showered ... 9 pounds lost during the ordeal!!!!!!"
Mr Starnes spent the week inside the plant, which produces alcohol pads and plastic blood lancets for diabetics, behind barred windows. He could not be immediately reached for comment.
The stand-off highlighted one of the lesser-known risks of doing business in China – that trust between workers and management, and faith in the legal system, is often low.
Starnes, whose company is based in Florida, flew to China on June 18 and his detention started on Friday.
The workers' demands followed rumours that the entire plant was being closed after the company's plastic injection moulding division began a move to India to lower production costs.
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