Unrest signals time to improve welfare of migrant workers
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Xinhua, June 18, 2011
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On June 11-12, some people gathered around the public security station again, vandalizing vehicles and automatic teller machines and attacking police officers. |
One young woman has been working in a factory about 30 kilometers away from the prosperous city of Guangzhou for two years, but the only place she has ever visited in the city is the railway station.
"I go back to my hometown once a year before the Spring Festival, so the railway station is the only impression I have of Guangzhou," said 18-year-old Tong Mengshi, who comes from southwest China's Sichuan Province.
Tong works in the township of Xintang in Guangdong's city of Zengcheng, which has been dubbed as China's "capital of jeans," as it produces 800 million to 1 billion pairs of jeans a year, accounting for 60 percent of China's jean production and 40 percent of the country's jean exports.
But the small city of Zengcheng recently became well-known for another reason.
Last weekend, hordes of migrant workers, allegedly angered by the mistreatment of a pregnant migrant vendor, took to the streets, with some hurling bottles and bricks at government officials and police vehicles.
Some experts believe the unrest was triggered by the mounting anger of migrant workers, many of whom left their hometowns to seek fortune in the cities, but found several years later they were still "outsiders."
"Handshake buidings"
There are many factories in Xintang, with workers hailing from the provinces of Sichuan, Hunan, Henan and Guangxi. Walking on the township's streets, one can hear a variety of different accents and dialects.
Official statistics show that Xintang has a local population of about 200,000, but as many as 500,000 to 600,000 unregistered migrant workers. In the village of Dadun, which boasts the most denim factories in the town, the number of local residents is barely 7,000. However, there are 60,000 migrant workers living in the village as well.
Unlike migrants in years past, who typically came to cities by themselves, many migrants like Tong Mengshi have brought their families with them.
Tong's 10-square-meter room is separated by a curtain into two bedrooms, where she lives with her parents.
Li Xiangyin, who came to Xintang from southwest China's Sichuan Province in 1992, now works and lives with his children and grandchildren in Xintang.
Li and his 10-member family lives in a 60-square-meter apartment, just a short walk away from his factory.
Local people refer to the area where these workers live as the "village inside the city." Many of the locals who used to live there have moved out, renting their former homes to the migrant workers.
In these "villages," buildings are lined up like dominoes, sometimes so close together that they are called "handshake buildings," implying that people in two separate buildings can shake hands with each other through their windows.
Li rents his apartment for about 650 yuan (about 100 U.S. dollars) a month. There are more than 30 other migrant families living in his apartment building.
This means that the family that owns the building earns more than 20,000 yuan just for renting the apartments, an amount equal to the total combined salaries of Li and his other family members.
"The gap between the rich and poor gives local people a sense of superiority and gives migrants a sense of inequality," said Liu Mengqin, a vice research fellow with the Guangdong provincial academy of social sciences, adding that the two groups are kept apart by an "intangible barrier."
Li knows that in the eyes of his neighbors and relatives in his hometown, he and his family are "city people."
"But our life is still like it was in the village, and the people in the community here are our fellow villagers. Nothing has changed, except that we are working in factories now," he said.
Last straw on the camel's back?
China began implementing its "hukou" system, or household registration system, 52 years ago. The system was intended to reduce the mobility of China's citizens and maintain social order. Many basic rights and social welfare systems became attached to the hukou at that time.
In the 1980s, after the country's reform and opening-up, extra laborers in rural areas started migrating to cities to seek jobs with large companies and factories. Large-scale migration began in 1992, when China was developing a market-based economy.
The number of migrants soared from 60 million in 1992 to 120 million in 2003, making another great leap to 220 million in 2009.
However, these millions of migrants have been met with a slew of problems related to the hukou system.
In a survey of migrant workers conducted by the Guangzhou trade union, 48 percent of those polled hoped the government would help them improve their social status, while 45 percent believed they were unfairly treated at work.
Social facilities in cities have largely been unable to meet the needs of the migrants.
"Migrant workers don't have much to entertain them during their leisure time," said Feng Yushu, director of the office of education, science, culture and public health in Xintang.
"They don't have too much money to spend in this area. The government has failed to provide cheap social services such as gyms, libraries and movie theaters for them," he said.
Under this circumstance, any incident can attract the attention of migrants, such as a dispute that occurred between a pregnant migrant vendor and local security personnel on June 11 in Xintang.
"I get excited whenever something happens in the street," said 24-year-old Li Xiaopeng, who was among the spectators when the incident occurred.
But experts tend to believe that the unrest was simply an outlet for the mounting dissatisfaction of the country's migrants.
"It is now time to reform the migrant worker welfare system," said Lu Xueyi, a renowned sociologist who has paid great attention to the problems of rural people, including migrant workers.
Lu refers to the young workers as "migrants of the second generation," who are more interested in contemporary culture and entertainment than their predecessors.
"On the other hand, they are not as tolerant as their fathers when faced with inequality," he said.
Slow but necessary move
Lu advocates speeding up reforms in the household registry system for rural and urban citizens alike as a way to eliminate their differences.
His view is shared by Chi Fulin, executive director of the China (Hainan) Institute for Reform and Development.
"The key is to make migrant workers real citizens, so that they can enjoy the same public services and political rights as urban residents," he said.
To this end, the Guangdong provincial government unveiled a "scoring system" for migrant workers in June of last year.
Migrant workers can qualify for urban household registration if their "scores," which are based on educational background, skill level and participation in charitable activities, reach a certain level. Their children are also be able to register under the scoring system.
To date, 104,000 migrant workers have qualified for urban registration through the system. Although this number is quite small in comparison to the larger population of 26 million migrant workers, it is growing all the time.
Hu Xiaoyan, one of China's first migrant workers to serve as a deputy in the National People's Congress, has been a beneficiary of this kind of reform.
"It's not just changing from being a farmer to being an urban resident," she said.
"More importantly, it means that migrant workers can enjoy the same services as everyone else, such as education for their children, medical care and social insurance," she said.
But Tong Mengshi, the young factory worker from Xintang, is not sure when she will receive these rights.
"I want to become a citizen, but this is too hard," she said. "But there is no way back to the countryside, either."
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