China's strength lies in its workers. Millions of migrants leave their homes and villages to work in factories and cities at low wages, for long hours, making the products that are snapped up and sent to every part of the globe. It is an unbeatable process that has been instrumental in catapulting China to the verge of superpower status as the 21st century unfolds. Most of these workers can expect to see their families only once a year, when they have to brave the spring break rush, which FT.com depicted on Thursday as the world's largest human migration (bigger even than the Islamic Hajj pilgrimage). Yet the worst snow and ice storms in 50 years have played havoc with China's power grid and transportation network, meaning that millions of migrant workers in southern Guangdong province greeted the start of the year of the rat still away from their homes. Desperate to relieve the strain on the country's rail network, the Chinese government attempted to entice workers to cash in their tickets and return to their factories for the holiday. Overworked, underpaid, and now even deprived of their holiday, China's migrants can take a bow.

In the face of such challenging conditions Chinese labor organization is politically weak and largely unorganized; the most explosive labour grievance in China, however, is simply not getting paid. Workers will endure very demanding conditions and the lack of independent unions, as long as they get paid, yet rampant problems of nonpayment of pensions and wages have led to persistent unrest among migrant workers. In its 2007 report on the Workers' Movement in China for 2005-2006, The China Labour Bulletin concluded that

China's workers' movement in 2005-2006 was characterized by continued disputes and protests by urban workers laid off from privatized former SOEs and also predominantly by migrant workers in the private sector... [T]he inability of the government and unions to enforce the law or effectively implement their own policies meant that the lives and working conditions of workers across the country for the most part failed to improve; indeed for many workers, the situation worsened... For migrant workers employed in the private sector, disputes and protests arose largely from specific and blatant violations of their rights. The single most important cause of labour disputes in this period was the failure of management to pay wages on time. Often an entire factory could go for months on end without being paid, and this led to widespread strikes, protests and street blockades.

Interestingly, Ching Kwan Lee* contended that although Chinese workers are aware of their common predicament and aspire to legal rights as citizens, they find the public identity of the "unprivileged masses" the most empowering and effective:

[T]he mode and logic of worker activism in China deviate from what are conventionally conceptualized as class citizenship struggles. Chinese workers' cellular activism is predicated not on horizontal social solidarity or the idea of a judicial, rights-bearing, individual subject, but on the moral and economic entitlements of the subordinate masses in a hierarchical political community led by the central state authority. As disadvantaged masses, workers want more, not less, state intervention and regulation to restrain the market.

Eventually China's seemingly endless supply of migrant labourers willing to work for long hours and low pay (and without even Spring break holidays) will recede. In fact, China Success Stories has listed rising labour costs as a major reason why souring from China will be more expensive in 2008, and FT.com on Tuesday quoted the chief financial officer of Hasbro (the world's second largest toymaker) saying the company expected a 14-15% increase in the costs of made-in-China products in 2008 due to higher labour-, commodity- and currency costs.

So at least China's migrants are getting a bit more pay, IF they get paid at all.  


* Ching Kwan Lee, "Made in China": Politics of Labor, Law and Legitimacy, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Asia Program Special Report, No. 124, September 2004. (link)