Chinese officials announced today that an embarrassing labor scandal involving hundreds of workers that were kept in slave-like conditions at brick kilns in Shanxi Province would result in just a handful of prosecutions, provoking widespread public criticism and anger among people who worked at the factories. Shanxi Province announced the punishment of dozens of officials in the scandal, but said criminal prosecutions would only be launched against six officials, all low-level figures in the Communist Party or in local government. The punishments for the other officials ranged from firings and demotions to expulsions from the party or administrative warnings.
See "Chinese Response to Labor Abuse Draws Criticism", Howard J. French, The New York Times, July 15, 2007