Marginalized by city life, the main threat that migrant workers face is being refused payment of earnings after working hard for the whole year. As there is a dearth of laws safeguarding migrant workers' rights, wage payment defaults are an ongoing and common problem. In 2002 one in every four migrant workers experienced defaults in wage payment sociologist Li Qiang said.

Gui Yanchao, a 43-year-old farmer from Daxin Town, Dawu County, Hubei Province, is an example. Ten years ago, he went to Shenyang with 25 fellow villagers and contracted for the plastering of a construction project. He signed a formal contract with the first party, who later refused to pay him. Cui then worked as a trishaw driver and pressed for payment of the money owed to him. He has not once seen his wife and children in the past ten years.

Xiong Deming is woman farmer of of Yunyang County in Chongqing. Her honest disclosure of a local employer's defaulted payment of her husband's wages brought the passing of an act that helps migrant workers obtain their salaries. Governments at all levels have since been urged to help migrant workers, and companies in default are severely punished. Beijing municipal government has announced that any building enterprise failing to pay migrant workers' wages would be driven out of the Beijing market.

Payment default is not merely a matter of employment ethics, but an economic problem stemming from migrant workers' low status. Urban citizens can demand a government guarantee of their rights and interests, but migrant workers cannot. The solution to the problem is to abolish discriminatory regulations formulated during the planned economy era that restrict farmers from staying in cities.

Recent media concern for migrant workers has raised the issues of improving their status, relaxing restrictions on them, and bestowing on them the same rights as those enjoyed by urban dwellers. The Chinese government's passing of acts that show solicitude for and protect migrant workers was sparked off by Xiong's honest disclosure.

Recently, the State Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance announced that migrant workers would no longer be required to pay sundry fees.

"We firmly believe that deeper reforms and social advancement will eliminate the pejorative connotations of being a migrant worker," the Worker's Daily said in its article "An Important Signal for Social Change."

(Shenzhen Daily August 25, 2004)