Migrant+Workers



__**History:**__

In 1958 the hukou system was set up by the Chinese government to control rural to urban migration, and since the formation of the system, migrant workers are faced with injustice and a lack of rights. Migrant workers are a community of laborers who migrated from their rural hometowns to the cities of modern China in hopes of getting higher paying jobs and sending money back to their families in the rural parts of China. Over half of migrant workers are men, migrating during their teenage years, often with a friend or neighbor, and these workers make up the majority of the work force. They take up unwanted jobs such as construction workers, manufacturing employees, and coal miners, in search of money. The growth of China’s economy is mostly because of these workers, yet while the first generation of migrant workers were less picky, only happy to get money, the second generation is more demanding. They are not content with the bad living conditions that are provided, if any are provided at all, or with the constantly late payments, if any payment at all. Last year, 41,904 migrant workers were not paid on time, solely in Beijing, and that was a reduction of 63 percent on the number of tardy payments the year before that. Migrants are treated similar to the untouchables, they are exploited constantly, and this lack of payment has caused violent protest and a rise in suicide displays how they are treated by their employers. Premier Wen Jabao recently met with some Migrant workers, ensuring them of better living conditions, but when asked by a migrant worker why the workers son could not go to school with the rest of the kids in the city Jabao replied, “Things will change slowly.” With Migrant workers refusing to do the low jobs that make the average city worker grimace, China is finding itself struggling to get its jobs filled, resulting in a desperate economic situation. Believe it or not, the people of China need the migrant workers more than they know.

__**How serious is this issue currently in China?**__

With the increasing rioting and lack of workers to fill needed, undesirable, jobs, China finds itself in an economic crisis. The ever growing economy in the past has been the work of the migrant workers or the “factories without smoke”, as they drive the labor force in China, contributing 16 percent of Gross Domestic Product growth. With the migrants living 12 to a room in bunk bed dorms, working six and seven days a week for months, earning sometimes only $5 a day, and not getting paid on time, if at all, its no wonder that migrant workers are beginning to resist their low conditions. The only day off for a migrant is the Chinese New Year, usually one of the few times a year that they get to go home and visit their family. Recently segregated schools have been set up for the children of the migrant workers in an attempt to make living conditions better, and more favorable; however, segregated schools won’t be enough to convince migrant workers to stay working their needed jobs. What is really necessary is a higher pay, better living conditions, no segregation, and being assured that they will get payed on time.

The newer generations of migrant workers are realizing that their lifestyles are not fair and could be better. They watched their older ancestors suffer, rarely seeing their families, segregated from the rest of society, working for very little, and living in dirty facilities. Now they want to change that.

__**What appear to be the long and short term effects of this issue?**__  Roughly 15% of the migrant labor force may have lost their jobs according to a survey carried out in 15 provinces of China, some 20 million migrant workers. Rapidly rising unemployment in China's rural areas may lead to social protests and may undermine China's economic and political stability. Today's global trade flows and financial connections are linking together developing and developed economies to a much greater extent that a few decades ago. Migrant workers have been suicidal lately due to the pressures of being a young second generation of workers who work long and hard hours in cities they have never been welcomed into. As shown, the migrant worker issue has become an increasing problem and threat to China both politically and economically.  __**Are there any solutions?**__ The government is raising the minimum wage and strengthening labor laws. As well factory managers are forced to compete for workers for the first time, so there are new additions to the facilities, including basketball courts and libraries, installing air conditioners and improving their cafeteria menu and other aspects of living conditions. While these minimal changes are a step in the right direction, these changes have not occurred throughout China yet, and we wait to see if these changes can fix the problems. 

__**Should America get involved?**__ America should not get involved with the problems Chinese migrant workers have been facing. I believe that it should be the Chinese government's responsibility to deal with this problem that directly affects their own country's most devoted and hard working group. The poor treatment and lack of respect directed towards migrant workers has been increasing every year, and China's treatment of the problem has been almost nonexistent. I think that it shouldn't be up to another nation to fix the problem, and that if we took care of it the Chinese government would not truly learn anything about treating

[|__http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAKFR5uksgo__] More than two hundred million Chinese citizens illegally moved from their rural hometowns into the city. A Chinese migrant worker, Kejun, who came from one of the poorest provinces of China into the city hoping for a better life, and a job, works for five dollars a day, 7 days a week at a construction company, and he like many other migrant workers, want better and higher paying jobs.
 * __Video:__**