Insufficient Welfare
Many of these workers not only face lower salaries and poorer working
conditions than their city counterparts, but do not receive social benefits,
including pensions, schooling for their children and health care.
Chinese migrant workers head back to work in
the construction site of the 2008 Olympic venues in Beijing Friday, April
21, 2006. [AP] |
Although central authorities have issued reams of policy guidelines on
protecting the rights of the migrant workers, experts say the local governments
seeking higher growth rates and bigger local profits routinely ignored the law.
Even in Beijing, there is little evidence that the laws for protecting
migrant workers rights are being enforced, according to an AFP report.
"If we asked for social insurance and pensions, we would be fired," said
Zhang Duanqi, 38, a construction worker from northeastern Heilongjiang Province
working on a site in Beijing's Chaoyangmenwai business district.
"In China you don't have a choice, you have to take what you can get. Very
few workers are complaining, it doesn't pay to complain."
But Zhang, with salaries ranging from 1,200 yuan to 1,800 yuan (150 dollars
to 225 dollars) a month and including board and lodging, gave the impression the
workers with his team were better off than other migrant laborers.
He Xiao, 21, a security guard from central Henan Province working at a busy
shopping center in Beijing's Chaoyangmenwai business district, provided perhaps
a more accurate picture of the plight of China's rural migrant workforce.
"The labor law is a big mirage," He said, explaining he would be working
throughout the holiday period with no extra pay.
"The reality is I have a job. I'm paid about 700 yuan a month, they give me
neither a food subsidy nor a place to live, so they are not going to give me
social security insurance."