CHINA / Background
Protect pay for migrants
(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-02-05 17:45
The government should further improve the rules and regulations
protecting migrant workers, says a commentary in Dazhong Daily. An
excerpt follows:
The government of Dalian, Liaoning Province in Northeast China, has
established a special fund for migrant workers. The government will pay
workers out of this fund if employers do not pay these workers on time.
The government will then retrieve the money from the employers.
After the central government issued several files on protecting the
rights of migrant workers, many provinces asked migrant worker' employers
to hand over some money as a guarantee for these workers' salaries.
The practice of Dalian made the headlines because it uses public money to
pay the workers, making the delayed salaries a debt owed to the
government.
The local government has obviously done so out of goodwill, but it is not
in accordance with the law. This discrepancy should be evaluated.
Migrant workers have often been cheated out of their pay because they
were not well organized. Also, the rules covering labor disputes are not
well established, making it both costly and difficult for migrant workers
to get their pay.
The government paying the workers, then requiring reimbursement from
employers, greatly helps largely powerless workers.
However, the public funds come from taxpayers and the government should
not put the money at risk over employers' failure to pay migrant workers.
The primary responsibilities of the government should be to establish
regulations for safeguarding migrant workers' interests, impose strict
supervision on migrant workers' employers, make sure workers have proper
employment contracts, and improve migrant workers' awareness of their
rights.
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