The New York Times. 16 March 2021

Below is an article published by The New York Times. Photo:Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times.

The A.F.L.-C.I.O. is urging the Biden administration to block imports of solar products containing polysilicon from China’s Xinjiang region, citing concerns about widespread violations of worker and human rights.

In a letter sent Friday to the secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, and the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, the labor group said that the global solar supply chain was deeply embedded in Xinjiang, and that products made with forced labor should not be used to meet the United States’ climate change needs.

The push comes ahead of the Biden administration’s first high-level meeting with Chinese counterparts on Thursday in Anchorage, Alaska, in which China’s repression of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang are expected to be on the agenda.

The A.F.L.-C.I.O., an influential federation of 55 labor unions, has long lobbied for tighter restrictions on the import of goods made with forced labor and supported a ban on cotton and textile products from Xinjiang during the Trump administration.

The federation began focusing on the solar industry following recent research that showed that polysilicon production in Xinjiang “participates in the same so-called ‘poverty alleviation’ and ‘pairing assistance’ programs that China has used to implement forced labor in the cotton and tomato sectors,” it said. The largest Chinese solar companies also have documented ties to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corp, a state-owned economic and paramilitary organization that has been sanctioned by the United States for human rights abuses, the federation said.

The federation hoped its letter would help “set the tone” for the first engagement with China by the Biden administration, which has promised to take a strong stance on both mitigating climate change and protecting American workers, Cathy Feingold, director of the AFL-CIO’s International Department, said in an interview.

“Are they going to indeed walk the walk of their climate- and worker-friendly commitments?” she said. “I think it’s a really important question to be asked.”

China has come to dominate the global solar supply chain in the last decade, in large part by offering generous subsidies to domestic solar producers. About 40 percent of the world’s supply of polysilicon, an essential ingredient for silicon-based solar panels and semiconductors, is now produced in the Xinjiang region.

As the Biden administration looks to aggressively increase the supply of renewable energy in the United States, progressive groups have begun asking whether fulfilling goals on climate change will come at the expense of human rights.

“As national, state and local governments in the United States — and our global allies like the E.U. — invest taxpayer money and act to increase the role of renewable energy in our energy systems, we must all ensure that the renewable energy jobs of the just transition we are fighting for are not based on inputs produced by slave labor,” Richard Trumka, A.F.L.-C.I.O., president, wrote in the letter.

The extent of the use of forced labor in the region remains unclear, but because the Chinese government restricts travel and access to the region, many companies have had difficulty verifying that supply chains that run through Xinjiang are free of forced or slave labor.

The Chinese government and major Chinese solar companies have denied any presence of forced labor in Xinjiang, saying that all work arrangements are voluntary and accord with Chinese labor law.