CHINA, NATIONAL, SOCIETY, REPORTING/COMMENTARY: We Owe Them Their Due
The Tragic Plight of Rural Laborers
Reporting by Vivian Guo, Leslie Sun and Andrew Lv
A barely subsistence level of living by weaker groups has always been an important problem facing societies everywhere. Rural labor in the new China is a typical representation of these weaker groups. Nowadays, many people say that they are concerned about the problems that rural laborers face everyday. But their words remain only words. Most of them ignore these common people and their problems. Too many of them treat rural laborers badly, which hurts them deeply.
One after another, high-rise apartment buildings mushroom from the ground of big cities in China today, and many people happily move into their new homes. But there is a group of urban dwellers that is inharmonic with the flourishing cities. They wear rubbishy clothing and live beggarly lives. They make great contributions to the development of big cities, but are quickly forgotten when people move into their new house. People pay attention to whether their houses are well-built, not who built them. That's the situation rural laborers are facing. Their lives need our attention.
Basic living
Rural laborers can work efficiently only when they have a nutritious meal; but reality is harsh. Even the basic hygiene of their meals is not guaranteed, how can it be nutritive?
One rural laborer said that he had once accidentally seen how their meal was made in the kitchen: the cook ripped out the yellow leaves of a pile of rotten cabbage, chopped them en masse on the chopping block, and then put them into a big pan to cook. From raw to done, the cook left out the process of washing totally. The rural laborer said it was not that the cooks don't have time to wash the cabbage, it was cut out for their convenience. They themselves would not eat such food.
He also said that the kitchen concessions were mostly contracted to the relatives or friends of the person in charge of the project, which meant that there was no one to stand up for the rural laborers' interests. This rural laborer had thought of dining somewhere else, but the boss had the trick for that: the rural laborers were given dining tickets to eat in the kitchen, with the fee for the tickets taken from their salary. The rural laborer could not dine anywhere else.
After a day's hard work, the rural laborers wish only to have a good rest in a comfortable dormitory. However, the reality is much harsher. Accommodations on construction sites are always in shortage; it is common for 8 to 9 workers to live together in one room of about 15 square meters. One rural laborer said that there was no heat in the rooms on the construction site; apart from beds, only a lamp and an electric plug were provided.
Because they start working early, and rest late, several people only had one plug available. What's more embarrassing is that married couples working together have to live with other laborers. One rural labor said he had the experience of living with a couple. The result was embarrassing for everyone.
Mental Life
Compared with their low standard of living, what makes rural laborers' lives even more unbearable is the discrimination towards them, and their spiritual vacancy. So constantly are they victims of discrimination they just take it for granted. In random interviews with classmates and friends for this report, many of them, especially girls, expressed unjust views towards rural laborers. They in common have fears towards rural laborers. One girl said she dare not walk past the rural laborers' dormitories alone at night. She said she didn't despise them; her fear was out of unconsciousness.
The TV program Law Today told such a story: the boss of a certain company rented a house for the rural laborers in a local community because the houses at the construction site were out of the lease period. It was supposed to be a common event; however, the residents in the community were not happy. They tried to prevent the rural laborers from moving into the community. When they couldn't stop the process, and the rural laborers moved into their houses, the local neighbors continued to make trouble for them. It hurt the rural laborers very much.
We Chinese people treasure dignity more than anything else. No Chinese will ever forget the humiliation we used to bear 100 years ago--signs that said: "no Chinese or dog should enter." Now the foreigners no longer write signs like this, we are writing such signs ourselves. There are signs that read "rural laborers are prohibited" on public facilities. In the cities, rural laborers are still referred to as a group of people who are poor, filthy and uneducated. They are still being cursed, humiliated or bullied by others, even by college students.
Discrimination against rural laborers is seen everywhere. There is no doubt that the rural laborers are not as clean and neat as common citizens, and some of them are not well-educated. But they don't mean to be dirty. They work under dusty conditions. They make the city clean and beautiful at the cost of their neatness. They come from the countryside where education conditions are poor. Is that their fault?
Of course, some rural laborers' behaviors are not appropriate. But they are trying to improve themselves. One rural laborer said that there were no garbage cans in rural areas, so he was used to throwing garbage anywhere. But he found he would be looked down upon if he kept doing this, so he tried his best and changed this bad habit. When talking about this, he was full of pride.
Homesickness and the disconnection with family is another problem of rural laborers. They especially need family after the hard work. But the fact is visits home are infrequent. One rural laborer said he hadn't been home for a year, and he missed his two sons deeply. This year the project ended early and he had gotten his salary; he wasted no time buying a ticket home. For the ticket he went to the railway station a few days in advance. Although he only got a "no seat" ticket, he said as long as he could see his sons, nothing else mattered.
Rights
Migration into the cities is the main way of transferring rural laborers. It is the trend of industrialization and modernization. It has proved to be an efficient way to increase the income of rural laborers, reduce the large income disparity between urban and rural areas, and keeping the society secure.
No matter what the rural laborers have contributed to the prosperity and development of cities, these days their rights are being seriously infringed upon. Some rural laborers even commit suicide in despair at having to demand and wait so long for their wages. Many rural laborers' wages are defaulted. This is the problem that draws the most attention of rural laborers. "I don't care how tired I can be or how dirty the place is," a laborer said. "I worked, and I demand my pay. How am I supposed to live if they don't give me my money?"
Their very right to life is threatened. Some companies take advantage of rural labors because of their lack of awareness of how to use the law to protect them selves. Rural laborers usually don't know they can sue their employers, or if they do they don't know how. When a reporter asked if they knew how to protect their rights, most of them didn't really understand the concept. That's why they are still waiting for their wages, which should have been paid them a long time ago.
What rural labors care about are: 1) When will the unjust policies of restricting their entrance to cities be abolished? 2) Whether they will get their pay? 3) Will their life standard be improved? 4) Will their kids' rights to an education be guaranteed? If the government solved these problems, rural laborers' lives would be highly improved, and many intractable problems would be easily solved.
Till now, hundreds of laws have been made to protect rural laborers' rights, and there are no obvious blanks in these laws. Then why are rural laborers' rights still so infringed upon? When asked about this, a rural laborer said: "It means nothing if the government only talks without doing anything helpful." To protect rural laborers' rights does not need more useless lists in law books. It's no longer a matter of making law, but of executing the law.
Rural labors need our care and help. They make our life more convenient, and we have the responsibility of making their life easier.
Reporting by Vivian Guo, Leslie Sun and Andrew Lv
A barely subsistence level of living by weaker groups has always been an important problem facing societies everywhere. Rural labor in the new China is a typical representation of these weaker groups. Nowadays, many people say that they are concerned about the problems that rural laborers face everyday. But their words remain only words. Most of them ignore these common people and their problems. Too many of them treat rural laborers badly, which hurts them deeply.
One after another, high-rise apartment buildings mushroom from the ground of big cities in China today, and many people happily move into their new homes. But there is a group of urban dwellers that is inharmonic with the flourishing cities. They wear rubbishy clothing and live beggarly lives. They make great contributions to the development of big cities, but are quickly forgotten when people move into their new house. People pay attention to whether their houses are well-built, not who built them. That's the situation rural laborers are facing. Their lives need our attention.
Basic living
Rural laborers can work efficiently only when they have a nutritious meal; but reality is harsh. Even the basic hygiene of their meals is not guaranteed, how can it be nutritive?
One rural laborer said that he had once accidentally seen how their meal was made in the kitchen: the cook ripped out the yellow leaves of a pile of rotten cabbage, chopped them en masse on the chopping block, and then put them into a big pan to cook. From raw to done, the cook left out the process of washing totally. The rural laborer said it was not that the cooks don't have time to wash the cabbage, it was cut out for their convenience. They themselves would not eat such food.
He also said that the kitchen concessions were mostly contracted to the relatives or friends of the person in charge of the project, which meant that there was no one to stand up for the rural laborers' interests. This rural laborer had thought of dining somewhere else, but the boss had the trick for that: the rural laborers were given dining tickets to eat in the kitchen, with the fee for the tickets taken from their salary. The rural laborer could not dine anywhere else.
After a day's hard work, the rural laborers wish only to have a good rest in a comfortable dormitory. However, the reality is much harsher. Accommodations on construction sites are always in shortage; it is common for 8 to 9 workers to live together in one room of about 15 square meters. One rural laborer said that there was no heat in the rooms on the construction site; apart from beds, only a lamp and an electric plug were provided.
Because they start working early, and rest late, several people only had one plug available. What's more embarrassing is that married couples working together have to live with other laborers. One rural labor said he had the experience of living with a couple. The result was embarrassing for everyone.
Mental Life
Compared with their low standard of living, what makes rural laborers' lives even more unbearable is the discrimination towards them, and their spiritual vacancy. So constantly are they victims of discrimination they just take it for granted. In random interviews with classmates and friends for this report, many of them, especially girls, expressed unjust views towards rural laborers. They in common have fears towards rural laborers. One girl said she dare not walk past the rural laborers' dormitories alone at night. She said she didn't despise them; her fear was out of unconsciousness.
The TV program Law Today told such a story: the boss of a certain company rented a house for the rural laborers in a local community because the houses at the construction site were out of the lease period. It was supposed to be a common event; however, the residents in the community were not happy. They tried to prevent the rural laborers from moving into the community. When they couldn't stop the process, and the rural laborers moved into their houses, the local neighbors continued to make trouble for them. It hurt the rural laborers very much.
We Chinese people treasure dignity more than anything else. No Chinese will ever forget the humiliation we used to bear 100 years ago--signs that said: "no Chinese or dog should enter." Now the foreigners no longer write signs like this, we are writing such signs ourselves. There are signs that read "rural laborers are prohibited" on public facilities. In the cities, rural laborers are still referred to as a group of people who are poor, filthy and uneducated. They are still being cursed, humiliated or bullied by others, even by college students.
Discrimination against rural laborers is seen everywhere. There is no doubt that the rural laborers are not as clean and neat as common citizens, and some of them are not well-educated. But they don't mean to be dirty. They work under dusty conditions. They make the city clean and beautiful at the cost of their neatness. They come from the countryside where education conditions are poor. Is that their fault?
Of course, some rural laborers' behaviors are not appropriate. But they are trying to improve themselves. One rural laborer said that there were no garbage cans in rural areas, so he was used to throwing garbage anywhere. But he found he would be looked down upon if he kept doing this, so he tried his best and changed this bad habit. When talking about this, he was full of pride.
Homesickness and the disconnection with family is another problem of rural laborers. They especially need family after the hard work. But the fact is visits home are infrequent. One rural laborer said he hadn't been home for a year, and he missed his two sons deeply. This year the project ended early and he had gotten his salary; he wasted no time buying a ticket home. For the ticket he went to the railway station a few days in advance. Although he only got a "no seat" ticket, he said as long as he could see his sons, nothing else mattered.
Rights
Migration into the cities is the main way of transferring rural laborers. It is the trend of industrialization and modernization. It has proved to be an efficient way to increase the income of rural laborers, reduce the large income disparity between urban and rural areas, and keeping the society secure.
No matter what the rural laborers have contributed to the prosperity and development of cities, these days their rights are being seriously infringed upon. Some rural laborers even commit suicide in despair at having to demand and wait so long for their wages. Many rural laborers' wages are defaulted. This is the problem that draws the most attention of rural laborers. "I don't care how tired I can be or how dirty the place is," a laborer said. "I worked, and I demand my pay. How am I supposed to live if they don't give me my money?"
Their very right to life is threatened. Some companies take advantage of rural labors because of their lack of awareness of how to use the law to protect them selves. Rural laborers usually don't know they can sue their employers, or if they do they don't know how. When a reporter asked if they knew how to protect their rights, most of them didn't really understand the concept. That's why they are still waiting for their wages, which should have been paid them a long time ago.
What rural labors care about are: 1) When will the unjust policies of restricting their entrance to cities be abolished? 2) Whether they will get their pay? 3) Will their life standard be improved? 4) Will their kids' rights to an education be guaranteed? If the government solved these problems, rural laborers' lives would be highly improved, and many intractable problems would be easily solved.
Till now, hundreds of laws have been made to protect rural laborers' rights, and there are no obvious blanks in these laws. Then why are rural laborers' rights still so infringed upon? When asked about this, a rural laborer said: "It means nothing if the government only talks without doing anything helpful." To protect rural laborers' rights does not need more useless lists in law books. It's no longer a matter of making law, but of executing the law.
Rural labors need our care and help. They make our life more convenient, and we have the responsibility of making their life easier.
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