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LABOUR-CHINA: Lure of Cities Often Ends in Despair
By Eli Clifton
WASHINGTON, Mar 1, 2007 (IPS) - China's rapid development and modernisation has
come at a terrible human cost for the country's millions of domestic
migrant labourers, who are living in cities in appalling overcrowded
conditions and are exposed to dangerous working environments, says a
report released Thursday by Amnesty International.
Migrant workers in cities are not eligible for the state health care
system and state education and are forced to work long stretches of
overtime.
Amnesty International says there are between 150-200 million rural workers
who have relocated to cities to find jobs - in some cities the migrant
workers make up the majority of the population.
The discrimination faced by migrant workers stems from the "hukou"
(household registration) system which requires all temporary residents to
register.
Those workers who complete the difficult process of registering still find
themselves facing discrimination in housing, education, health care and
finding employment due to their temporary resident status.
Less fortunate migrant labourers, who do not register under the hukou
system, find themselves vulnerable to exploitation by the police,
landlords and employers.
The central government has passed reforms to improve the living and
working conditions of migrant workers, but the hukou system continues to
discriminate against migrants based on their rural origins.
"The reforms have not been implemented in a meaningful way but (even if
implemented) they are not enough to solve the problems (facing migrant
workers)," T. Kumar, advocacy director for Asia and Pacific Islands at
Amnesty International, told IPS.
Managers in Chinese cities use a variety of methods to prevent workers
from quitting despite poor working conditions and exploitive contracts.
Internal migrants are often owed back pay of up to two or three months to
keep them from leaving. If they leave before their contract expires, they
lose whatever back pay is owed.
Another common practice is for managers to withhold pay before the lunar
New Year festivals to ensure workers will return to their jobs after the
holiday - often making it impossible for migrant workers to purchase
train tickets to visit their families.
The report, "Internal Migrants: Discrimination and Abuse, the Human Cost
of an Economic 'Miracle'", emphasises that although many of the exploitive
practices employed by managers are illegal, the migrant labourers are put
in a legal limbo by the hukou system, leaving them no course of action to
contest their treatment.
Such tactics allow managers to deal with increasing labour shortages in
urban areas without raising wages - as is evidenced by negligible wage
increases in a period of strong economic growth and increased demand for
unskilled labour.
During the Maoist era, access to the benefits of living in cities was
strictly limited to permanent urban residents. But the economic reforms of
the 1980s brought waves of migrant workers to fuel the industrial booms
surrounding Chinese cities.
"It's a push-pull factor as collective farms collapse while at the same
time cities need labourers and workers," Kumar said.
The demand for an unskilled, migrant labour force has ballooned since the
1980s when the population of migrant labourers was just two million, with
some estimating that the number will grow to 300 million by 2015.
While migrant workers are responsible for building China's growing
cosmopolitan cities, most will never gain permanent residency in the urban
areas and will return to the countryside after their work in the cities is
done.
The work performed by these migrant workers is directly responsible for
the rapid growth and improvement of infrastructure in urban areas. They
work in "factories to road building to (you) name it...," said Kumar.
Wang Yuancheng, a former migrant labourer and now a member of the National
People's Congress, says in the report, "(T)he lives of migrant workers are
miserable. They have to live in makeshift shelters, eat the cheapest bean
curd and cabbage. They have no insurance and their wages are often
delayed. And most of all, they are discriminated against by urban people."
Migrant workers often live on the outskirts of urban areas where
infrastructure is inadequate, in extremely crowded and unsanitary
conditions. One 21-year-old man describes living in an underground
storehouse without windows, showers or ventilation with 30 people sleeping
on bunk beds. They were only permitted to take a shower once a week in a
nearby building.
Amnesty International is calling on the Chinese government to eliminate
all forms of discrimination against internal migrants which are prohibited
by international law, including reforming the hukou system to remove
discrimination based on social origin, removing barriers to health care
access - especially those based on hukou status - and ending
discriminatory closing of private schools dedicated to the children of
migrant labourers.
(END)
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