At the end of the year, Chinese migrant workers continue to suffer tragedies due to wage claims, and they are getting more and more intense. The picture shows workers who are collecting wages in the 20 million tpy refining and chemical integration project of Dalian Hengli in January 2019. (Courtesy of the interviewee)
As the year comes to an end, the problem of Chinese migrant workers’ tragedies over wage claims has been emerging and is getting worse. Yet the Chinese Communist Party said late last year that zero wage arrears was a solemn promise. Some migrant workers say that the source of the problem is the CCP. Now the contradiction between the government and the people is so sharp that the official’s bullying of the people has reached a point where the blood feud cannot be solved.
On February 11, the New Year’s Eve in Ping Yi County, Shandong Province, a tragic Family murder occurred. Liu, a local villager, brutally murdered the family of Lin, a debtor, to collect 6,000 yuan in arrears. Liu committed suicide on the day of the crime.
On February 9, a murder case also occurred in Chenxi County, Huaihua City, Hunan Province. The local villager He Moumou (cement worker) beat the wife and son of the unpaid contractor to death with a hammer and killed his two young grandsons for 10,000 yuan of wages. He was arrested by the police in the afternoon of the 10th.
On February 5, a video was circulated in the WeChat group, a painting worker in Hubei took a video of himself stating that he was doing colorful paintings for the Longnu Temple in Chenzhou, Hunan Province, and was going Home for the New Year, but could not get paid for his work. “Now he died and said no money no money, looking for the government, labor bureau, religious bureau, street office are looking for, the city are looking for, ran all over, now is no one care about this matter. I don’t know what to do, my heart is very saddened, I am now a bit unable to think, I intend to lightly forget, I feel that the world is very unjust.” After that, the news of the suicide of the painter spread online.
Mr. Cai, a migrant worker in Hubei, said, “This video is a two-minute video sent by a 21-year-old Hubei Huanggang boy in a WeChat group before he committed suicide. At that Time it was not confirmed that he had committed suicide, but today the message came that he had done so.” He said that including the previous 2 cases, there will be more and more cases of such extreme wage demands by migrant workers, and the source of the problem lies with the government (the Chinese Communist Party).
Mr. Cai said, “Most of it is that the official did not give the money to the contractor. Generally a contractor has to hire workers directly, and if he doesn’t keep his word, it’s hard for him to hire migrant workers, so the contractor is basically reasonable, and he doesn’t dare to default on the wages of migrant workers.”
The most serious delinquent wages are government public works projects undertaken by government departments, “such as the construction of schools and sports grounds, which are very dangerous, will occur in arrears, these public works are the government, the government is not afraid to make things bigger. It did not give the money to the developer, the developer will not have money to the big contractor, the big contractor he has no money, so he can only owe the contractor money. The contractor didn’t get the money, so the problem is still with the government, not the developer. But official reports often say it is an economic dispute between the contractor and the contractor.”
Mr. Cai said, Gansu Gannan climbing tower crane contractor that news is the case, in fact, because the contractor did not get the money, “you think about it, the contractor has to jump the tower crane, he where to get the money to migrant workers, because (the contractor) no money to the contractor, the contractor is not able to give migrant workers, the source or in the government.”
He said that migrant workers can not get their wages is a very universal problem, those who go to extremes (to defend their rights) are (forced) no way to live, but where there is a way to live, they will live on. “I am also a migrant worker, to today as long as to less than 1/2 of the salary, it is very difficult very difficult, very difficult.”
The official so-called “malicious wage collection” triggered the backlash of civil opinion
On Feb. 5, a contractor in Gannan, Gansu, climbed on the arm of a 50-meter-high tower crane at a construction site to demand money for the project, otherwise he jumped to his death. In the end, the man was successfully demanded for his salary, but was administratively detained for 10 days by the Chinese Communist Party officials for “malicious salary collection.
The official announcement said that there would be zero tolerance for such malicious ways of collecting wages. The official statement sparked a backlash from civil opinion: “It’s only right to pay back what you owe.” Subsequently, Gansu officials came forward to say that the police report inappropriate wording.
The term “malicious wage collection” has been widely used by officials in the media in previous years, and is a qualitative term for those who are forced to take extreme measures to collect their wages when they have no way to do so.
Mr. Cai said, “I know a few contractors, the government does not pay, the government on the twentieth day of the lunar month, surrounded the government, surrounded you will be arrested and locked up for a few days. The official then beat the table and scolded the contractor, you let your workers besiege the government, the contractor said, you do not pay how we work, the boss immediately pay the salary, the contractor will go to the detention center for a few days, this has been interpreted many times, only this time blatantly fermented in the big media.”
Mr. Cai said that the official detention of the wage collector in the name of so-called harming public order and illegally defending his rights is to kill the chicken and honor the monkey, “Migrant workers can’t get outside attention like he did.” And, this contractor will also be isolated by all the bosses, “not only is now detained for 10 days, after he looks for work again is estimated to be difficult, all the bosses do not use him, that is, you (by the government that) go ‘extreme’, that are afraid to use you.”
On January 8, Guangxi Yulin Fumian Airport construction site with the crane (engineering vehicles) owner Liang Moumou was to disturb the order of the unit, administrative detention for five days. The report said that Liang and other migrant workers pulled banners at the exit of the construction site of the project builder, China Yimei Group Co., Ltd. to demand more than 30,000 yuan for the construction work. on January 9, the airport project builder settled the remaining payment for Liang’s work while Liang was detained for five days.
Will the Chinese Communist Party solve the problem of unpaid wages?
On December 4 last year, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang stressed that “governments at all levels and state-owned enterprises and institutions must not default on the wages of migrant workers for any reason.”
In November, the CCP launched a so-called winter campaign to eradicate unpaid wages in all provinces to solve the problem of unpaid wages in a time-bound manner. It requires that from Nov. 6, 2020 to the yellow calendar New Year in 2021, all cases of unpaid wages in government investment projects, state-owned enterprise projects and government and social capital cooperation projects be cleared by the end of 2020, and other cases of unpaid wages be dynamically cleared by the yellow calendar New Year in 2021. Officials say that zero wage arrears is a solemn commitment made by the government.
However, the aforementioned wage tragedy happened in this period. Mr. Cai said that the officials “sang too many high tones, all of which were to fool the people.”
Another example is that, starting last winter, the Communist Party’s State Council ordered the Labor Bureau to enforce a new policy to supposedly eliminate unpaid wages. The specific operation is to give each migrant worker entering the construction site a bank card, on the list of payroll, the contractor put their respective ID card numbers, phone numbers, bank card numbers (each construction site corresponds to a different bank, all wages of the construction site can only be continuously approached with the corresponding bank, migrant workers are mobile, so, migrant workers have to do many cards.) The company’s payroll will be recorded, how much each person’s salary, and finally, the Finance Department will take the payroll to the labor department for the record, and the money will be paid directly by the bank to the workers’ bank cards, not to go to the contractor’s side, in order to eliminate unpaid wages.
Mr. Cai said that this policy is ostensibly to ensure that migrant workers can get their salaries, but what purpose behind this policy is difficult to say, “in fact, if the government can give the money (in a timely manner) to the contractor, the contractor is happy to give the workers, so that the workers are also highly motivated.”
Now engage in this policy, “there is a point, which person has a monthly income how much can not run away, are in their hands, the next is not to impose a personal income tax on the high salary of migrant workers, how much tax, its policy is not thorough to migrant workers, but they do not give us pension insurance, tax extraction is unreasonable and unfair, migrant workers are uneducated and knowledgeable At the bottom, they haven’t thought about the tax extraction layer, they only think about getting the money first.”
Of course, the migrant workers’ ID numbers, phone numbers and bank card numbers are handed over to ensure that they get paid every month, but all the information of the migrant workers is also in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. Mr. Cai said, “In fact, this policy was piloted in the first half of last year, and it was implemented in June last year at a construction site in Huanggang City, Hubei, a public project, and the bank hit me with a total of 8,000 yuan, but according to the contract I gave to my boss (verbally), it should be more than that amount of money for work.”
“We all agreed verbally, without a contract, which is far from Western civilization, this is more than the sheep eating people in England at that time. The Communist Party’s dualistic urban-rural household registration system is more disgusting than the racial discrimination in South Africa.” He said.
The sharp confrontation between the government and the people has reached a blood feud
Mr. Cai said that Chinese migrant workers’ salaries, contracts and other payments are settled for a fiscal year according to the yellow calendar, that is, from the first day of the first month of the year to the night of the 30th of the waxing moon, “at which time the migrant workers’ salaries are to be paid to them so that they can go home for the New Year; contracts (public works contracts and residential contracts) are also signed at this time, and also include machinery costs, material costs (cement, stone, asphalt, vehicles, and wear and tear), etc., but these payments, as well as farming payments, can be in arrears.”
He said, why say the government and the people contradict each other sharply, the government is not trustworthy, there is no contract spirit, “always delay until New Year’s Eve to give workers off the pay, it deliberately level down the salary, for example, at the beginning of the agreement of 100 yuan, now give 90 yuan. You have to accept it even if you don’t. The whole society does not keep its reputation not because of the contractor, it is the Chinese Communist Party that does not keep its contract.”
In addition, its law is well set, how many hours a day, a few days a month off, but this is divided into the system and outside the system, urban and rural areas are also different, “the system of the Communist Party members, etc., work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, all outside the system, including high-paid technology companies is ‘996 ‘, while the majority of migrant workers is to do 1 day 9 hours to give you 8 hours of pay, most of them are like this, public works are like this.”
Also, only the money of the government offices can not be defaulted, “anyone’s money can be defaulted, the tax department’s tax money can not be missing a single point. The Communist Party is completely shameless, and there is absolutely no chance for migrant workers to turn around if Chinese society is not transformed.”
Mr. Cai said, “Do you know how acute the confrontation between the government and the people has become? For example, in the case of Wuhan pneumonia (the Chinese Communist virus), “it was clear that the plague had already started, but it blocked the news, insisted that it would not be passed from person to person, and was still singing and dancing, not letting the people know that there was a plague, and also staged the Banquet of Ten Thousand Families in Baibuting, and also staged that 400,000 people went to Huanghelou, a large mass gathering event, and encouraged the two meetings, and finally the whole city of Wuhan was closed, and the whole province of Hubei was closed. The whole city of Wuhan and the whole province of Hubei were closed, making the people’s Life worse than death, for months!
“It cheats us every day, this kind of natural disaster it cheats, the people can let it go? This kind of blood feud can be solved? It is impossible to reconcile this contradiction, the confrontation between the government and the people is very sharp, what it says and what we actually feel are two different things, is another matter.” Mr. Cai said that 80% of Chinese people do not believe in the Communist Party now.
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