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January 26, 2008
Market Forces Swinging More in Favor of China's Migrant Workers
The Sydney Morning Herald has a report:
China's vast migrant labour market is bifurcating. One branch is made up of the old . . . who know nothing about rights, have no sense of entitlement and accept whatever treatment is dealt them. The rest are the worldly, internet-savvy young who know how quickly the world is changing in their favour. . . . [they] are canvassing job options, taking on the system and learning how to wield a transformative asset that ordinary Chinese workers have not known for 5000 years: bargaining power.
Their leverage has partly improved because the Government is starting to enforce its labour laws. Mainly, however, workers are becoming more valuable because China's seemingly endless supply of cheap peasant labour is starting to dry up.
"In every place in China there is a shortage of labour," says Professor Lu Ming, a labour expert at Fudan. "That means employers have to improve workplace conditions and governments have to improve labour institutions - and both of these will lead to higher wages."
The same Fudan University study that showed how bad conditions were also revealed how rapidly they are improving. It said average migrant worker wages rose 20 per cent last year, to 1200 yuan. . . .
Employers have been forced to improve conditions to stop workers going elsewhere. Cities and provinces are also competing to enforce more effective regulations and provide the kind of environment to which migrant workers are willing to return. . . .
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