Role of Rural Migrant Workers Hailed

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, January 23, 2003

Role of Rural Migrant Workers Hailed

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"Green Channel" for Rural Labourers

The government should fully understand the significance of the huge flow of migrant workers from rural areas into cities and design better policies to deal with urbanization, the basis of modernization, said Chinese sociologists.

It is an inevitable trend of this process that surplus rural labourers will move to the cities, said Hong Dayong, associate professor with the Department of Social Studies of the Renmin University of China.

He said a population shift would help ease the pressure on the nation's limited cultivatable land and other agricultural resources and much aid rural ecological protection.

Hong was echoed by Li Qiang, professor with Tsinghua University who specializes in social stratification.

"Green Channel" at the Guangzhou Railway Station

Urbanization is a major way to fill the development gap between China's cities and countryside, said Li.

But he said the process could not develop rapidly, as great financial support is needed to create and support the infrastructure and public services of cities, such as the transport and housing.

Rural workers began gravitating to the cities in the late 1980s in search of jobs. Currently some 90 million of them are working in cities across the country.

The flow of migrant workers in China has double-edged significance for its urbanization process, bringing great changes to both the rural and urban areas, said Hong.

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The income of migrant workers has become a major source of finance for their families who remain in the countryside, particularly given the inefficiency of the nation's agricultural industry.

These workers have not only added to the coffers of their home regions, they have enlarged their vision, introduced new ideas, improved working skills and perhaps more importantly, taken back a new and vibrant view of life, which may help to promote the development of rural areas, he added.

Hong defined urbanization as a process in which the population and scale of cities increases, and urban characteristics become incorporated into the life of rural areas.

"It is not only a process of population movement, but also the promotion of an urban culture and lifestyle to rural areas," said Hong.

He said the process also has great bearing on the life of urban residents and their cities.

Rural labour has meant a greater level of conveniences in the daily lives of those living in the cities, as they do many of the menial jobs which urban residents are reluctant to undertake.

Furthermore, the low labour costs of migrant workers has contributed considerably to the economic growth of the cities.

"Contact between urban and rural people, impeded in the past by the residential registration system, is increasing along with the level of mutual understanding, although bigotry still lingers among some people," said Hong.

The process, however, has given rise to serious problems, which require better designed government policies to deal with both the inflow and outflow of migrant workers, he added.

Most of the migrant workers have little awareness when it comes to observing laws and regulations and tend to act on instinct which causes great problems for public security, said Hong, adding that it takes time for migrant workers to readjust themselves and realize the importance of law and public ethics.

He said governments should shift their attitude of restraint and rejection of migrant workers and instead focus on gainfully using their services .

"The sense of feeling that they belong nowhere is not socially healthy and will do little to curb criminal tendencies," Hong continued.

Governments need to provide migrant workers with more information on how to find a job and protect their interests and rights in a strange city, he said. "The management system should be an open and dynamic one," Hong noted.

He also contended that communities also have an important role to play in helping their their countrymen, from the rural areas, better adapt to an urban environment.

Rural-to-town labour force on the rise

The ranks of workers migrating from rural areas swelled to 94 million last year, up 4.7 million over 2001, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Agriculture.

The statistics are based on a survey organized by the Agriculture Policy and Regulation Department under the ministry.

According to the survey of 20,000 rural households in 319 villages, 19.37 out of every 100 labourers were migrant workers last year, 1 per cent higher than in 2001. Among the migrant workers, 21.73 per cent were working away from home for the first time.

Calculated using this sample figure, the number of migrant workers in 2002 was estimated at 94 million.

The per-capita annual income of migrant workers was 5,597 yuan (US$674.3), an increase of 1.7 per cent, or 94.4 yuan (US$11.37), over 2001. These workers altogether earned 527.8 billion yuan (US$63.6 billion) in 2002, of which 327.4 billion yuan (US$39.4 billion) was posted home to their families.

Analysis revealed that the characteristics of the migrant workers in 2002 were as follows:

The proportion of male workers stood at 70.11 per cent, slightly higher than the previous year.

Age was another distinguishing point. The average age of migrant workers was 33.4. For workers who stayed close to their home counties, who worked outside their counties but stayed inside the province, or who worked outside the province, the average age was 36.8, 30.6 and 28.1 respectively.

The number of migrant workers working outside their provinces decreased over the year before, dropping by 7 per cent. This indicates that the development of the rural economy has had a great impact on the transfer of surplus rural labour forces.

Southeast and East China's Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu provinces, as well as Shanghai Municipality, still top the list of migrant workers' destinations.

The number of workers who headed to Guangdong and Fujian was 38.29 per cent, a little higher than in 2001. Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shanghai hosted 16.88 per cent of the workers, and Beijing and Tianjin attracted 10.23 per cent. Workers who went to the northwest and abroad accounted for 7.89 per cent and 1.2 per cent respectively.

The education level of the migrant workers tended to be higher than the remaining rural labour force's common level.

Workers with a junior high school education accounted for 59.5 per cent of the migrant labourers, 16 per cent higher than the common rural level. In addition, the number of migrant workers with a senior high school education was 4.3 per cent higher than the general level, accounting for 12.6 per cent of the total.

Those who are illiterate and semi-literate accounted for 11.1 of the rural population, and those who possess only a primary school education accounted for 37.1 per cent. But among migrant workers the proportion was 4.1 per cent and 23.8 per cent.

Concerning duration and place, the research shows that migrant workers' situations had become more and more stable, and that the average worker spent 8.9 months away from home.

Workers who spent more than 10 months away accounted for 57.8 per cent.

Most of the migrant workers, 67 per cent, were concentrated in manufacturing, construction, and the food and service sectors. The distribution was 28.3 in manufacturing, 20.5 in construction and 18.3 per cent in food and service.

There is a large distribution differential between male and female workers. Among male workers, 27 per cent were in construction and 25.3 per cent were in manufacturing, while female workers were concentrated in manufacturing and food service, at 35.4 per cent and 27.8 per cent.

Better legal protection

Chinese legal scholars are calling for improved labour legislation and enhanced law enforcement to better safeguard the rights and interests of migrant workers.

They should have all the rights guaranteed labourers by the Labour Law, said Chang Kai, a professor with the Labour and Personnel School at the Renmin University of China.

Chang said migrant workers are often in a disadvantaged position in labour relations and are more easily caught up in labour trouble such as their remuneration being in arrears.

A local survey indicated that disputes over pay accounted for 80 per cent of all labour disputes last year in a city in East China's Fujian Province, which the survey did not name.

Delayed payment is most serious in the construction industry where migrant workers are the main workforce.

Current labour legislation is too general and lacks supporting regulations, Chang said. Without specific rules of implementation, the enforcement of the nation's 1994 Labour Law largely depends on the administrative regulations of the labour management authority.

National legislators have yet to come up with laws on remuneration, employment, social security and the resolution of labour disputes, which Chang said are critical to support the implementation of the Labour Law.

Chang urged the labour management authority to strengthen enforcement of current legislation and avoid favouring employers as both they and their employees contribute to national economic growth.

Labour supervisory departments should keep a closer eye on migrant workers' pay to prevent escalating tension between labour and management, he said.

Chang proposed the nation establish a mechanism to safeguard wages to help solve the problem of remuneration in arrears.

The right to earn and be paid a salary in a timely manner, a basic right of labourers, cannot be guaranteed by the labourers themselves because their individual capabilities are limited, he said, adding that it could be ensured by implementing a remuneration safeguard mechanism through administrative power.

Such a mechanism is now on trial in some areas of the nation, including Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong Province.

Every enterprise in Shenzhen is required to render funds in a certain proportion to the local labour management authority. The funds pay the labourers in case the employers delay or even skip town without paying their workers.

Jia Junling, a labour law professor with Peking University, urged migrant labourers to increase their legal awareness when negotiating and performing labour contracts.

Jia said migrant workers can go to the mediation panel of their enterprises or turn to labour arbitration when they have disputes with their employers.

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