The top legislature should urgently create a law to protect
migrant workers' rights, a deputy to the National People's Congress
(NPC)
has said.
Zhou Xiaoguang said the contents of the law should include
specifying migrant workers' basic rights and social status, and
protect their personal and property rights.
He added it should punish the act of delaying their wages, and
ban any form of prejudice against the group.
Zhou, now chairman of Zhejiang Neoglory Jewellery Co Ltd, was
himself a migrant worker a dozen years ago.
"The violation of migrant workers' rights, such as arbitrarily
deducting or delaying their wages, is still a common occurrence,"
Zhou said. "Why not make laws to stop it?"
Zhou, who once ran a novelty item stall in a city in northeast
China and made a living in Yiwu in
Zhejiang Province as a migrant worker, knows clearly the
hardships sometimes suffered by the group.
"It is a shame that so many people still look on migrant workers
as a 'dangerous group'," Zhou said.
With a rapid economic and social development, more and more
rural residents are flowing into cities, greatly accelerating
China's pace of urbanization.
"In contrast with migrant workers' contribution to the cities'
economies and social life, they receive too much prejudice and
injustice," Zhou said.
According to statistics in 2002 by the Ministry of Labor and
Social Security, 13,000 cases of migrant workers suffering delays
or deductions in wages were investigated and prosecuted, involving
6.26 million workers. The delayed wages totaled 350 million yuan
(US$43.2 million).
Most of the migrant workers also work for longer hours and in
harsher conditions, but receive no compensation or protection
stipulated by governmental regulations.
"The most fundamental cause behind the problems is a lack of
legal protection," Zhou said.
Zhou said legislation on protecting migrant workers' rights is
urgent as it concerns the social stability, as well as the economic
development.
According to a Xinhua report in October last year, the Ministry
of Agriculture estimated that Chinese farmers will migrate to
cities at a speed of 8.5 million per year in 10 years, and the
total migrant population will reach 300 million in 20 years.
(China Daily March 14, 2006)