A new regulation issued by Beijing Municipal Construction Committee on May 12, gives farmer workers on Beijing's building sites conditional permission to move to other construction projects if necessary, and even back to their homes following a health check.

"To prevent infection of SARS among farmer workers, Beijing government authority have carried out a policy to persuade them to stay in the building site where they work. But some contradictions have appeared. As the undertaken project has been finished, workers can't go out to find new work due to the restrictions. At the same time, some new opened projects also can't recruit enough labor. This has resulted in a progress delay on some projects, even some being shut down partly," Wang Lichen, vice director of Beijing Municipal Construction Committee said.

The newly laid out regulation gives four conditions for farmer workers to move to other building sites. First, farmer workers have no SARS symptoms and are examined to be in health. Second, the input building site must attain the six standards of SARS prevention and control regulation. Third, the transportation of farmer workers must be managed by the general contractor unit, while special vehicles are needed for their transit. Forth, the input and output labor list must be warranted by the district or county construction committees where the building site is located.

If SARS case is found among those transmitted workers within two weeks, the major leader of output unit will be charged according to investigation results.

To those farmer workers who have finished their project, without new tasks undertaken, they may ask for leave from Beijing to their homes with a health certificate permitted by their construction unit and local construction authorities. Their construction unit is responsible to notify the workers' local government authorities and local construction management authorities as well.

(China.org.cn by Wang Zhiyong, May 18, 2003)