Archive for ‘Migrant workers’

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31/12/2012

* Reform plans published for migrants’ education

A good news item to end the year with – moves to embrace migrant workers rather than treat them as a short-term anomaly.

China Daily: “China’s Beijing and Shanghai cities and Guangdong Province on Sunday published plans to gradually allow migrant workers’ children to enter senior high schools and sit college entrance exams locally.

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They are the latest in a total of 13 provinces and municipalities to formulate plans to ensure that rural children who have followed their parents to cities can enjoy the same rights as their urban peers in education.

Beijing will allow migrant workers’ children to attend local vocational schools in 2013 and allow them to be matriculated by universities after graduating from the vocational programs in 2014, said a statement from the city’s commission of education.

The eastern metropolis of Shanghai took a step further, saying it will allow migrant children in the city to enter local senior high schools, vocational schools and sit college entrance exams (commonly known as gaokao) locally starting in 2014.

Guangdong, a manufacturing heartland in south China and a magnet for migrant workers, has asked its cities to start recruiting migrant workers’ children in local senior high schools in 2013.

The province will allow these children to sit gaokao and compete with local residents on an equal footing in college entrance starting in 2016, Luo Weiqi, head of the province’s education department, told Xinhua.

Luo said the restrictions would be relaxed gradually and “step by step” as the province must solve the conflict between its gigantic migrant population and a scarcity of education resources.

Migrant workers, whose children could be benefited by the new plans of the three regions, must have residential permits, stable jobs and incomes, and meet other local requirements, according to the plans.

China’s hukou, or household registration system, used to confine children to attending schools in their home provinces. A 2003 regulation amended this by allowing migrant workers’ children to receive the nine-year compulsory education in cities where their parents work.

But the country has in recent years faced mounting protests from its migrant workers, whose children under current policies had to either return to the countryside for further schooling or risk dropping out of school if they chose to stay with their parents in cities where the parents work.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Education asked Chinese cities to formulate plans before the end of this year regarding the further education and gaokao of migrant workers’ children.

Official figures show that China has more than 250 million farmers-turned-workers living in cities. An estimated 20 million children have migrated with their parents to the cities, while more than 10 million are left behind in their rural hometowns.”

via Reform plans published for migrants’ education |Society |chinadaily.com.cn.

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30/12/2012

* Wealth gap to be cut, Han Changfu tells Central Rural Work Conference

The new regime seems to be determined to make substantial changes for the better.  This is but one of several declared changes in policy or practice since Xi and LI took over in mid-November.

SCMP: “Beijing will look to boost farmers’ income, protect their land rights and seek more equitable treatment for migrant workers in cities, reports from the annual rural work conference said yesterday.

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Agriculture Minister Han Changfu told the two-day Central Rural Work Conference that the government would aim to narrow the gap between rural and urban residents by keeping the annual rate of income growth in the countryside at least 7.5 per cent, according to the People’s Daily. He said urban policies should focus on fostering new sustainable agricultural business models to encourage young migrant workers to return home to farm, Xinhua reported.

Han highlighted a critical “lack of sustainable manpower” in the country’s agriculture sector, with more than 60 per cent of young migrant workers saying they have no plans to return to farming, Caixin reported.

Supporting agricultural development would require maintaining stable land contract management while allowing the orderly transfer of farmers’ land management rights, Han said, according to Xinhua.

The central government would also help expand support to include family farms and specialised co-operatives, he added.

Despite being one of the world’s biggest agricultural producers, China increasingly needs to import food as demand for grain continues to outstrip supply, Han said, according to Caixin. He would not say how much food the country is importing.

The meeting’s participants included academics, businessmen and regulators, and other agriculture sector officials. In addition to ensuring the country’s grain supply, they said steps were needed to ensure farmers can profit during times of rising grain prices and production costs.

The government would also work to better balance urban and rural development, and ensure fair treatment for migrant workers in cities, participants said.”

via Wealth gap to be cut, Han Changfu tells Central Rural Work Conference | South China Morning Post.

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22/12/2012

* China opens second railway to Kazakhstan

China’s “go west” policy now extends even further west than its most western province! This is good news for Xinjiang, long deemed by its Muslim residents to be looked down upon and mistreated by the majority Han Chinese, for Chinese migrants who would otherwise have headed east into heavily crowded and over-competitive eastern sea board, and for Kazakhstan and countries beyond. A win-win-win situation, indeed.

Xinhua: “A second cross-border railway between China and Kazakhstan opened Saturday.

The railway is composed of a 292-km section in China and the remaining 293-km section in Kazakhstan. They were joined at the Korgas Pass in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Contruction of the Chinese side of the railway cost 6 billion yuan (962 million U.S. dollars), railway officials said.

The rail line is expected to ease the burden of the Alataw trade pass, where the first China-central Asia railway traverses. It handles 15.6 million tonnes of train-laden cargo a year.

Industry observers expect the Korgas pass, which now connects China and Kazakhstan by a railway, a highway, and an oil pipeline, to handle 20 million tonnes of cargo a year by 2020 and 35 million tonnes a year by 2030.

The railway launch followed the meet of Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan and his Kazakh counterpart Kairat Kelimbetov in Astana earlier this month, vowing to enhance bilateral cooperation in energy, trade, communication and other fields.

Wang suggested enhancing the China-Kazzkhstan interconnection by the rails and a trans-continental highway that links China with Europe.

China and five central Asian countries have been deepening trade and economic cooperations in recent years. The total trade volume between China and central, west, and south Asian countries increased from 25.4 billion U.S. dollars to more than 370 billion, up about 30 percent annually.

In particular, trade between Xinjiang and five central Asian countries reached a historical high of 16.98 billion U.S. dollars last year, according to the customs figures.

Observers said the railway will also help the border city of Korgas become a key logistics hub with a network of highways, railways and pipelines.

Since 2010, the central government has been redoubling the efforts to build Xinjiang into a regional economic center, eyeing its geological closeness to central Asia and the region’s abundant natural resources including oil, coal and natural gas.”

via China opens second railway to Kazakhstan – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

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20/12/2012

* Foxconn Workers Say, ‘Keep Our Overtime’

An unintended consequence of enforcing ‘fair’ worker treatment – reduced income for migrant workers more than willing to work excessive overtime!

WSJ: “Nets to catch would-be jumpers still sag ominously from Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.’s  buildings.

But two years after a spate of suicides at the Apple Inc.  supplier’s campus here, workers are more concerned about another measure designed to protect them: limits on overtime.

Hon Hai in March said it would change its workplace practices after an audit by a U.S.-based nonprofit worker-safety group found widespread breaches of Chinese law and Apple policies at three plants, including the excessive use of overtime. Hon Hai responded by pledging that it would bring its overtime policies into alignment with Chinese law by next year, allowing workers to work no more than nine hours of overtime a week. The Taiwan-based company, also known as Foxconn, pledged to improve health and safety conditions at its campuses across China as well.

But more than 15 workers on the Shenzhen campus said in interviews that they work more than the legal limit of nine overtime hours a week. A majority said they work 10 to 15 overtime hours and would prefer more, having left their distant homes to make money in this southern Chinese boomtown on the border of Hong Kong.

“I think a lot of the more experienced people from the technology production lines will leave” if the policy to limit overtime goes into effect, said a worker who asked to be identified only by his surname, Ma. “We don’t know how much our salary will go up. But after being here three years, I don’t have much incentive to stay, since my wage probably won’t rise much.”

Mr. Ma, who earned roughly 3,400 yuan ($540) a month including overtime when he arrived three years ago, said he now earns about 5,000 yuan. To make extra money, the 26-year-old buys used car parts cheaply on an e-commerce website and then resells them.

Basic pay at the Shenzhen Longhua plant is 2,200 yuan, before overtime.

Keeping Mr. Ma and its 1.5 million other Chinese workers satisfied, while manufacturing complex, time-sensitive consumer electronics profitably is becoming more challenging for Hon Hai. The company’s labor costs will rise by roughly $1.4 billion when the new labor policies roll out next year, according to a Bernstein Research estimate. Hon Hai’s operating profit margin had declined since the second quarter of 2010 because of rising wages. The figure rose to 3.4% in this year’s third quarter from 2.2% a year earlier as the company raised what it charged customers, analysts said.

Hon Hai isn’t alone in facing such challenges. Employee protests over working conditions and the willingness of staff to change employer for more pay have forced electronics manufacturers to raise wages throughout China. Hon Hai and other companies have moved some operations to countries such as Vietnam and Mexico, where costs for labor or transportation to end markets are lower.”

via Foxconn Workers Say, ‘Keep Our Overtime’ – WSJ.com.

Posted in China alert, Economics, employment, Low income, Manufacturing, Migrant workers | Leave a Comment »

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17/12/2012

* Testing time for China’s migrants as they demand access to education

If 1/3 of the population of Beijing consists of migrant workers, then the city authority better watch out. Sooner rather than  later the anger and frustration will erupt into something very violent.  That applies equally to central government unless it reforms the Hukou system that is at least two if not three decades out-of-date.

SCMP: “Dozens of frustrated parents crowded into a Beijing office, surrounding an education official and brandishing copies of the constitution to demand their children be allowed to take an exam.

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Mothers and fathers around the world fight to send their children to the best schools they can, in the hopes of drastically improving their futures.

But China’s migrant families are victims of a decade-old residency system that denies urban incomers equal access to advantages from jobs and healthcare to the right to buy a home or car – and education.

Chinese university admission is based on a single test, the “gaokao”.

Cities such as Beijing that host China’s best universities – and large incomer populations – only allow those with official residency permits, or “hukou”, to take their exam and benefit from preferential quotas for places.

Around a third of the capital’s 20 million population are migrants, but many of their families become split by rules requiring their children to go to their “home” provinces – even if they have never lived there – sometimes for years, to study for and take the test, which varies by location.

Even then, because of the quota system they will have to score higher to win places at top schools.

“Either you let the country share in your education resources or you accept the reality that outsiders are stuck in your education gutter,” said Du Guowang, a 12-year Beijing resident from Inner Mongolia.

He and dozens of parents packed Beijing’s education bureau each week hoping – in vain – it would let their children take next year’s exam. But registration closed last week.

“This will directly affect their studies and their future prospects so of course it’s unfair,” said Xu Zhiyong, a prominent legal activist who has assisted the parents.

Over the past three decades more than 230 million people – four times the entire population of Britain – have moved to China’s cities in a phenomenal mass migration.

The hukou system restrictions date back to 1958, when the government sought, among its many controls, to designate where people should farm in rural areas, and work or live for those in towns.

It has loosened the rules in recent decades to encourage urbanisation, and acknowledges the need to better accommodate newcomers – especially as resentment mounts over China’s widening rural-urban inequality.

At a key gathering of the ruling Communist Party last month, President Hu Jintao urged officials to “accelerate” hukou reform and work to “ensure that all permanent urban residents have access to basic urban public services”.

But bigger cities are less willing to share residency or benefits, fearing doing so would burden their already strained resources and spur a new influx.

Some point to congested roads and overcrowded hospitals to argue that cities cannot handle larger loads.

But critics say the system is discriminatory.

Full reform would need years, but should begin sooner to defuse resentment, said Wang Zhenyu, deputy director of a public policy research centre at China University of Political Science and Law.

“From the basics like education and healthcare to social security to employment to buying a home or car, hukou-based discrimination covers every aspect,” he said. “Your hukou will affect you your entire life.””

via Testing time for China’s migrants as they demand access to education | South China Morning Post.

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10/12/2012

* China wealth gap continues to widen, survey finds

This is the kind of disparity that is most worrying to the Party. Unless it gets the support of the majority, including the poor, its mandate is suspect.

SCMP: “The chasm between China’s rich and poor has widened to alarming levels, according to survey results released by the Survey and Research Centre for China Household Finance.

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The survey, released on Sunday, reported a rise in China’s Gini coefficient, a key yardstick of income or wealth inequality, to 0.61 in 2010, the latest year for which there is data on China.

That number is significantly higher than the global average of 0.44 and 50 per cent above the “risk level” for social unrest, the Beijing Times reported.

The figure was 0.56 for urban households and 0.60 for rural households.

Measured on a scale of 0 to 1, a Gini coefficient of 0 represents perfect equality in which everyone has the same income, and 1 represents maximal inequality in which just one person holds all the wealth.

Since China first published data on the Gini-coefficient in 2000, the official figure has stayed level at 0.412. In 2005, the World Bank data put the figure at 0.425, the last year it published a Gini index for the country.

Li Shi, executive dean of Beijing Normal University’s China Institute of Income Distribution, who compiled his own Gini survey in 2007, told Bloomberg News in September that a poll of 20,000 households gave an index of 0.48.

“A high Gini coefficient is a common phenomenon in the process of rapid economic development. It is the natural result of the market allocating resources efficiently,” said Gan Li, the director of the research centre, at a briefing in Beijing.

“Relying on market forces alone can’t narrow the gap so China must change the structure of income distribution and rely on massive fiscal transfers to narrow the yawning disparity.””

via China wealth gap continues to widen, survey finds | South China Morning Post.

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24/11/2012

* Guizhou man who broke tragic story of dumpster boys sent on ‘vacation’

Two steps forward, one step back OR is it one step forward , two back?

SCMP: “A former journalist who broke the story of the deaths of five street children in Bijie, Guizhou, a week ago has been sent on “a vacation” by local authorities trying to contain the fallout from the tragedy.

Li Muzi, the son of Li Yuanlong, said his father had been taken away by the authorities at 1pm on Wednesday and put on a plane at Guiyang airport for “a holiday” at a tourist destination he did not want disclosed.

“My father told me he received several phone calls before he was taken away from home,” said Li Muzi, who is studying in the United States. He keeps in contact with his father over the internet and by phone. “Apparently they are trying to prevent him from helping other reporters follow up on the incident.”

Li Yuanlong, a former Bijie Daily reporter, has written four postings on Kdnet.net  – a popular online bulletin board on the mainland – since last Friday  detailing the circumstances that led to the five boys’ deaths in a wheeled refuse bin in Bijie’s Qixingguan district that morning.

The victims, all brothers or cousins aged nine to 13, died of carbon monoxide poisoning after lighting a fire in the bin to escape the cold, according to an initial investigation by the city government.

Follow-up reports by mainland media that accused the local authorities of failing to act on parents’ pleas about the five missing boys for more than a week triggered a huge outcry.

Li Muzi said he spoke to his father around 9am yesterday and his father had asked him to delete a microblog entry he had written about  the  disappearance. He said his father was worried it could have a bearing on how long he would be kept away from home.

Li Fangping, a Beijing-based lawyer who has asked the Bijie city government to provide more information on its handling of the  boys before their deaths, said the local authorities had violated the law by  ordering Li Yuanlong’s disappearance.

“It’s the same kind of overkill in the name of stability maintenance that we saw in the lead-up to the Communist Party’s 18th national congress,” he said.

“What we’re seeing now is at odds with the harmonious and beautiful China that new leadership tries to project to the world.””

via Guizhou man who broke tragic story of dumpster boys sent on ‘vacation’ | South China Morning Post.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/2012/11/23/assistance-mechanism-set-up-after-street-kids-death/

Posted in China alert, Economics, Household registration, Human rights, Justice, Migrant workers, Rule of law | Leave a Comment »

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12/11/2012

* Hu’s calls on household registration reform face opposition

As usual, local authorities go against national strategy and interests.

SCMP: “President Hu Jintao’s calls for faster reforms to the out-of-date household registration system face strong resistance from local government officials, the Jinghua Times reported on Monday.

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Household registration, or hukou, which covers every family in mainland China, records people as either town dwellers or rural peasants. Many blame it for causing discrimination against peasants who move to cities, where their identity prevents them from gaining access to services like health care and education for their children.

At the 18th party congress, which continues this week in Beijing, Hu has called for faster reform of the registration system and expanded public welfare coverage for all citizens, whatever their household origin.

But scholars say the reform effort is encountering strong opposition from local government officials, because it would unleash financially ruinous demands for social welfare spending, the Jinghua Times newspaper said.

Hu Xingdou, a professor of economics at the Beijing Institute of Technology, said the state council has issued several orders for reforms since 2001, but they were blocked by fierce resistance at the local government level.

Reforms bring heavy financial pressure on local governments, says agricultural economics scholar Zheng Fengtian. The social welfare costs needed to cover tens of millions of rural migrants, when they arrive in big cities, are too heavy for local governments to handle, he said.

A blue paper from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences forecasts that 500 million peasants will move from the countryside to the mainland’s cities within the next 20 years. Including them in social welfare programmes will cost between 40 trillion and 50 trillion yuan (HK$49 trillion and HK$62 trillion), it estimates.

This situation will be especially intense in coastal regions, where the mobile population will surpass the number of city residents, Zheng added.

Professor Hu said market mechanisms would solve the problems that concern local officials. “When [rural migrants] find cities overcrowded, and the unemployment rate and housing prices too high, they will eventually leave the cities,” he said.

He warned that delaying reforms will only increase the risks, saying “what matters most is the central government’s determination on reform”.

There are currently 271 million people in the mainland who are not living in the location of their household registration, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Dang Guoying, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said “without proper reform of household registration, peasants cannot benefit from urbanisation, which will intensify social disparities and eventually bring stagnation to China’s development”.”

via Hu’s calls on household registration reform face opposition | South China Morning Post.

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28/10/2012

* Top China official urges residency permit reform

Given that Chinese manufacturing is almost entirely dependent on migrant labour, it is about time the government recognised the rights of this segment of the population.

Reuters: “China’s top security official called on Friday for the government to relax the controversial residency permit, or hukou, system to ensure the army of migrant workers can enjoy better services like health care and housing.

Migrant labourers work at a demolished residential site in Shanghai October 18, 2012. REUTER/Aly Song

The 230 million-strong migrant workforce drives China’s economy, but a lack of access to education, health and other services tied to the country’s strict household registration system forces massive saving, restraining Beijing’s efforts to shift the focus of growth to consumption from investment.

It also causes social tensions, something the stability-obsessed ruling Communist Party is desperate to avoid.

In comments to a work meeting cited by the official Xinhua news agency, security tsar Zhou Yongkang said China should establish as soon as possible a new “national residence permit system” to improve services for migrant workers.

The system would cover help with employment, health care, housing, social security and education for migrant workers’ children, said Zhou, a member of the party’s decision making inner circle, the Standing Committee.”

via Top China official urges residency permit reform | Reuters.

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25/09/2012

* Working Conditions: The Persistence of Problems in China’s Factories

WSJ: “A riot involving 2,000 workers at a factory in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan on Sunday night has once again shined a light on conditions at factories owned by Apple Inc. supplier Foxconn. The cause of the riot appears to have been a fight between workers that somehow escalated into larger-scale unrest. While the precise dynamics that led workers in the factory to run rampant remain unclear, it’s noteworthy that news of the incident comes with Apple recently announcing that advance sales of its iPhone5 have broken all previous records.

The success of the iPhone and similar products means competition among companies like Apple and Samsung, both of which rely heavily on Chinese factory supply chains, is likely to increase. This increase in competition, in turn, will crank up pressures in factories whose workers are already struggling under harsh conditions.

Associated Press

In this Monday Sept. 24, 2012 mobile phone photo, police in anti-riot suits cordon off a road near Foxconn’s plant in Taiyuan, capital of Northern China’s Shanxi province. The company that makes Apple’s iPhones suspended production at a factory in China on Monday after a brawl by as many as 2,000 employees at a nearby dormitory injured 40 people.

Recent reports have not only described the difficult conditions for full-time workers who are hired directly by these factories, but have also spotlighted the treatment of two other classes of employees– “dispatch labor” and “student interns”– in factories that manufacture components for both Apple and Samsung.”

via Working Conditions: The Persistence of Problems in China’s Factories – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

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