Chine’s Government and it workers "The Honey Moon is Over"

Thousands of migrant workers in the Zengcheng district of Guangzhou have been involved in three days of protests and battles with police from last Friday. The eruption in the capital city of southern Chinese province of Guangdong is another sign of mounting social tensions, fuelled by declining living standards for workers.

Several thousand police were deployed to Zengcheng, a satellite industrial town where one-sixth of the world’s jeans are manufactured. The riots were triggered by urban administration security personnel who pushed Wang Lianmei, a 20-year-old pregnant street vendor, to the ground as they tried to clear her stall from a road last Friday.

The woman and her husband are from Sichuan, a major “labour exporting” province. Corrupt security officers have long treated migrant workers as second-class citizens, demanding fines and bribes for minor offences. Because of China’s urban household registration system, the country’s 150 million rural migrant workers have no basic rights such as access to education for their children.

The attack on Wang quickly led to rumours that she and her husband had been killed. The incident ignited pent-up anger among factory workers, who have been hit by sharply rising food prices and housing costs.According to Hong Kong’s Singtao Daily, a group of Sichuan migrant workers attacked police cars when Wang was taken away by ambulance. Large crowds joined in. At least three police cars and an ambulance were destroyed. 

Many Chinese executives and government official are getting rich of the back of these migrant works while the work suffers under less than ideal condition for very low wages. The technology boom have mage china a very wealthy country but for the most part the average standard of live has risen  form average anal income of  2o00 US dollar in 2000 to 7500 as of 2010 but is rise in wage is no share by most migrant work,    (Socialist News) DGH

Brief History of   migrant works in China

Migrant workers in China are mostly people from impoverished regions who go to more urban and prosperous coastal regions in search of work, hence they are the main force for urbanization in the People's Republic of China. According to Chinese government statistics, the current number of migrant workers in China is estimated at 120 million, approximately 9% of the population. China’s urban migrants sent home the equivalent of US$65.4 billion in 2005.China is now experiencing the largest mass migration of people from the countryside to the city in history. An estimated 230 million Chinese (2010) a number equivalent to two thirds the population of the United States —have left the countryside and migrated to the cities in recent years. About 13 million new people join the legions every year. The number is expected to reach 250 million by 2012 and surpass 300 million and maybe reach 400 million by 2025.

DGH