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China plans to draft and improve a relevant mechanism to ensure
that rural immigrant workers in cities be paid on time and in full
in 2004, a senior official said at a news briefing at the ongoing
session of its top legislature Tuesday.
Wang Dongjin, vice minister of labor and social security, said
his ministry is to expedite the drafting of regulations on labor
supervision and salary payment in 2004. In addition, an
early-warning system will be instituted to deter payoff default and
help rural migrant workers to get back their defaulted
salaries.
"We will exert our utmost to tackle farmer workers' wage arrears
issue and provide them with the same social security protection as
their urban peers," said the minister.
Labor and Social Security Minister Zheng Silin said that the
Chinese government will do away with local regulations that
discriminate against rural migrant workers and set up a labor
market with urban and rural laborers competing on the equal
footing. Individuals and enterprises infringing upon lawful rights
of rural workers will be penalized harshly, Zheng added.
From 2003 to February 2004, China had helped rural migrant
workers to get back defaulted wages of more than 25 billion yuan
(about 3 billion US dollars), or over 90 percent of the total wage
arrears.
Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to tackle the thorny issues
concerning defaulted construction costs and wage arrears for
migrant workers in the construction sector within a span of three
years in his government work report at the opening of the Second
Session of the Tenth NPC last Friday.
"The goal is achievable," said Wang Dongjin.
At present, there are some 93 million rural migrant workers in
China, mostly working in the construction and service sector.
(Xinhua News Agency March 10, 2004)
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