China’s Migrant Workers Ask for Little and Receive Nothing

Angry and desperate, they spilled out of the International Shoe and Hat City construction site hoping to be heard. They shook their fists. They seethed over the beatings they say they have suffered at the hands of the developer’s guards.

Mostly, the 250 or so migrant workers banded together in shared misery, brought from China’s far-flung provinces by economic necessity. After months of working and sleeping together far from their loved ones, they were a family of sorts -- a strange, mostly male family, but the only one most would see this Chinese New Year.

Labor is cheap in China. Sometimes it’s free -- 1,500 workers at this massive retail project say they’re owed a year’s worth of back wages.

Every worker has a story to tell, of sick parents, dispersed families, malnourished children, and why they need to return to their villages for the most important holiday of the year. Most have little money in their pockets. They’re not asking for much, they say, just the $4.87 a day they earned. The developer and contractor acknowledge that they haven’t paid the workers but squabble over who is at fault.

And Beijing is a big, cold city without much pity. After all, there are too many similar stories. China has an estimated 94 million migrant workers, a vast army on the move, with Beijing a prime destination. Even the government’s notoriously unreliable statistics peg unpaid migrant wages at $12.1 billion.

In recent months, concern for the migrant workers’ plight has been fashionable. Premier Wen Jiabao started it all in October when he traveled down a dirt road in Sichuan province and asked farmers how they were faring. Just fine, said 42-year-old pig farmer Xiong Deming, except my migrant-worker husband hasn’t been paid in a year, and we could really use the $273. Within hours, the money was in her hand.

Provinces started tripping over themselves to strengthen their migrant-worker welfare programs. The state-controlled press stepped up its coverage. Politburo member and Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan proclaimed this month that all back wages should be paid by Thursday, the start of New Year.

But China’s command economy days are over. Even if Beijing had the political will, the issue is far more complex than a few admonitions. China’s headlong rush to build tall buildings has left a tangle of interlocking debts, with developers holding out on contractors who don’t pay subcontractors who don’t pay workers. Or contractors do pay subcontractors, who run away with the money.

More to the point, experts say, is how easy it is to exploit migrant workers. Every day they pour by the tens of thousands into Beijing, Shanghai and other big cities, desperate for a job, any job, and quick to believe promises by even the most unscrupulous of employers. Most are farmers with little education, little knowledge of contracts, little recourse if things go wrong.

Down a perilous ladder, through a makeshift tunnel and into a concrete pit, Li Zhongyun, a 46-year-old from the Emei Mountain region of Sichuan province, shows where he sleeps. A few bare lightbulbs hanging from wires dimly light a makeshift maze of sleeping platforms made of old pipes, flat lumber and clamps. There’s no heat, and men lie on dirty bedrolls when they’re not working up to 18-hour shifts. Many have only one change of clothes and wear everything they own against the cold. A puddle on the floor is frozen in spots.

Li says he came to Beijing in March and, after working for two months at the “Modern City” luxury apartment project without getting paid, asked for money to visit his sick father. That branded him a troublemaker, he said, and he was blacklisted and fired. Now he scrapes by trying to get redress from government offices. Most tell him to try someplace else.

An official at Beijing’s Shijingshan district labor office who would identify himself only as Tian said it faces a huge number of claims, but has helped more than 1,000 migrant workers recover more than $240,000. He insisted his office doesn’t give workers the runaround.

Workers are eager to detail the range of tactics and excuses designed to keep them separated from their paychecks. Companies make big promises when they hire you, they say, and dole out just enough to keep you alive while you’re working even as they overcharge you for food at the company store. Bosses have you sign contracts but make sure you don’t keep a copy. You’re encouraged to go home to the provinces when the job is over with a promise that the money will be mailed to you. Predictably, it never arrives. Not all contractors play these games, they add, but too many do.

Some workers say they receive small amounts, $10 or $12 a month, largely spent on company and government charges that make it difficult to buy even necessities. Wu Shisong, a migrant worker from Hubei province, said this can include a $1.82 charge for a health certificate “even though no one checks us,” $10.95 for a work suit “that’s worth $1.20,” a $2.50 charge for a hard hat, $1.20 for a temporary residence card and $4.50 for a SARS checkup.

As frustration among migrant workers has intensified and the gap widened between rich and poor, rural and urban, coastal areas and the interior, the Communist Party has become increasingly worried about the potential for political instability. Suicide attempts, violence against bosses, destruction of property and mass protests by migrant workers are increasingly common.

“I still hope the government will help me solve my problem,” said Chen Guangping, a 34-year-old farmer from Sichuan province, who’s petitioning the government for $105 owed for work done in Beijing, pointing a large, calloused finger for emphasis. “Society is really dark and wrong. If I lose hope, I may have no option but to kill myself.”

Some provinces have started pressuring private contractors to pay their workers, threatening to disclose company names in the media if they balk.

But experts say the government is often a willing party. Not only are many real estate projects closely linked to government officials, but a large number of vanity projects funded by local governments are owned outright by the governments.

“Government officials aren’t beholden to ordinary people, only to their higher bosses,” said one rural development expert affiliated with the State Council, who asked not to be identified. “Building boondoggle projects is a way to get promoted, and not paying workers is all part of it.”

Out in her Sichuan village, pig farmer Xiong is delighted that her meeting with Wen allowed her to get the family’s money. But she says all the attention -- including one major television program that named her person of the year -- has its downside. She’s now besieged by desperate people across China hoping her magic will rub off on them.

Xiong said she had no idea when she headed out to her fields that morning that she’d be famous by nightfall. Heading home, she was accosted by several local party cadres who told her someone important was visiting and warned her not to say anything controversial.

Her hands dirty from the fields, she sat some distance from Wen, but when no other villagers spoke up to answer his questions, she decided to speak her mind. “That’s my personality. I’ve always since a small child believed in telling the truth. But I never dreamed one sentence would make me so famous.”

Social activists and rural development experts say they welcome the government’s new kinder, gentler approach and herald the example Wen set. For many workers, however, an unfortunate lesson drawn from the chance meeting is that it takes someone very well-connected to make sure you get paid.

“She was very lucky to get her money back,” migrant worker Li said. “But someone as important as the premier doesn’t have the time to go around collecting money for people.”