To mark China's first Rural Migrant Worker's Day, the Chongqing
Municipality is going to reward 10 outstanding rural migrant
laborers, organize city tour, offer free checkups and initiate a
discounted sale of daily necessities, delegate He Shizhong said
Monday on the sidelines of the 17th National Congress of the
Communist Party of China.
He said that the southwest municipality would also ask staff of
educational departments and schools to advice on the schooling of
the children of rural migrant laborers.
Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality has designated upon the
approval of local legislature the first Sunday of every November as
Rural Migrant Worker's Day to honor the builders of much of its
modern infrastructure with the country's first ever Rural Migrant
Worker's Day.
China has more than 120 million migrant workers, mostly farmers
from west China seeking work in east China's boom towns and cities.
They mainly work in construction, mining, cleaning and catering
industries, or the kind of jobs usually labeled "dirty", "heavy",
"hard" and "exhausting."
Discrimination and prejudice against migrant workers were still
common among urban Chinese, and news organizations reported
frequent infringements of their rights, such as unpaid wages, said
Sun Yuanming, a research fellow with the Chongqing Municipal
Academy of Social Sciences.
He proposed extending the welfare routinely offered to urban
residents to include migrant workers.
The number of migrant workers is steadily rising, prompting
China's legislature and government to consider improving their
welfare conditions, health care and education rights.
The government and city administrators have been gradually
easing unreasonable restrictions on migrant farmer workers in
recent years.
In Chongqing, one of the major source areas for migrant workers,
a statute on safeguarding their rights and interests took effect in
June 2005, the first of its kind in China. It states that migrant
farmer workers are entitled to free job counseling, legal aid and
free immunizations for their children.
He said that Chongqing was also considering initiating a field
survey and drafting a guideline document to secure the benefits of
rural migrant laborers.
Since September 2004, Beijing has included migrant farmer
workers into the social insurance system.
In 2003, Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to help migrant workers
retrieve unpaid wages during his inspection of the rural areas of
Chongqing after a housewife complained that wages of her husband
were always in arrears.
Some observers have said bias against migrant farmer workers
comes fundamentally from political discrimination. But in March
this year, the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top
legislature, adopted a resolution providing for rural migrant
worker representatives in the national parliament for next year's
session, which was viewed as a major step for China's political
reform.
(Xinhua News Agency October 16, 2007)