China is trying to force employers to pay back wages totaling 100 billion yuan (US$12 billion) to migrant workers, state newspapers reported yesterday, highlighting official worries about possible unrest by the country's vast mobile work force.
The amount is due to 94 million workers, and 70 percent is owed by construction companies, which are among the biggest employers of migrants, the Shanghai Daily and China Daily said. Restaurants are the second biggest debtors, they said, citing data from the official All-China Federation of Trade Unions.
The report suggests that official concern is growing about the possibility of unrest among the hundreds of millions of Chinese who have been left behind by their country's economic boom.
Delays in wages of months or even years are common both among heavily indebted state companies and smaller export-oriented firms whose profits rely on low labor costs.
The new Chinese leadership that took power earlier this year has made improving the lives of farmers and workers a priority, though they have yet to propose major policy changes. The question of late payments has aroused "massive concern" among Chinese leaders, including Premier Wen Jiabao (
Construction, where many projects are financed by speculative investment, has a reputation for paying workers late.
In Beijing alone, workers at 3,407 construction projects are owed a total of 3 billion yuan (about US$370 million), the Shanghai Daily said.
Nationwide, worker protests ranging from impromptu roadblocks to hunger strikes and suicide threats are frequent.
The news reports yesterday didn't give details on how the government would compel employers to pay migrant workers. But the Shanghai Daily said China's labor law allows for companies to be fined up to five times the amount owed to workers.
The payment push comes ahead of the annual Lunar New Year holiday, when millions of migrants return to their hometowns with money and gifts of clothes and appliances. The holiday falls in January this year.
Money sent home by urban workers is vital to the rural economy, where incomes have stagnated for years.
Urban wages average about 800 yuan (US$100) per month in China, although construction and restaurant work often pays much less.
"Laborers are entitled to just compensation for their honest work, which is the most direct and important reflection of their rights," the paper quoted Li Jianfei, a scholar at Beijing's People's University who helped draft the labor law, as saying.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese