Workers

Carrying a Heavy Burden: Migrant Women Workers in China

Life in rural China is hard. In addition to the unpredictability of the weather and therefore the harvest, farmers face numerous and diverse tax burdens. In rural China there is no welfare safety net to provide for the elderly and sick. The burden of providing for their elderly parents falls to boys who generally receive the benefit of more education and skills training so as to compete better in the job market.

Rural girls will generally marry out so parents are reluctant to make an investment in their education beyond primary or junior high school level. Girls start to work away from home to supplement their family income at the age of 15 or 16 – the minimum working age is 16 – and by the time they reach 24 years of age are considered “too old” (read ‘too slow’) by factory owners. After marriage, women workers carry a double burden: farm work and child rearing.

Factory life in an EPZ

There are more than 800 EPZs around the world, employing approximately 30 million workers. EPZs in China employ some 20 million people, accounting for two-thirds of the total number of EPZ workers worldwide.

Employers often ignore regulations on employment contracts, insurance, benefits and any compensation for termination of employment. Despite a legal limit of 36 hours overtime a month, workers in EPZs often put in 12-hour days and even have to work round the clock to complete orders on time. While factories often provide workers with dormitory accommodation, this apparent benefit can serve as a tool of control that facilitates enforced overtime.

Employers argue in their defence that Chinese workers want overtime work and pay. But the fact is that basic salaries are too low for workers to subsist on. According to one 19-year-old woman worker:

“With overtime work in the evenings and weekends, we can earn about 600-700 yuan a month. Without overtime work, we only make 300-400 yuan. Where’s that going to get us? It’s not nearly enough to cover my cost of living in the city.”

Another said, “Yes, you might say we prefer to work long hours. What’s wrong with that? We sell our own labour to earn money. We travel long distances to find work. If we can’t even make enough to feed ourselves, what’s the point of having a day off on Sunday?”

At the same time, women workers often find it difficult to refuse overtime because it may result in firing or other penalties. To prevent workers from job-hopping in search of better pay and conditions, some factory owners confiscate workers’ ID cards and retain wages. Workers may also be required to pay a deposit for production tools and living utensils, an illegal practice.

The Labour Law stipulates that women workers be provided with three periods of protection: during pregnancy, delivery and the post-natal period. However, many employers require all women workers to sign a guarantee that they will not become pregnant. Those who don't sign are asked to resign. Anyone who gets pregnant will almost always be dismissed. Some local governments, such as the Pingshan township in Guangzhou province, even provide local regulations that enforce this clear violation of a woman’s right to control her own body.

Rights and human dignity

One serious violation of worker rights that has come to light in recent years is body searching:

• On 30 July 2001, 56 women migrant workers at a Korean-owned wig factory in Shenzhen were forcibly subjected to a full body search. The ordeal lasted more than an hour in the presence of male managers and factory security guards and occurred after an anonymous tip-off letter claiming workers had stolen raw materials.
• When a paper-manufacturing factory located in also Shenzhen discovered the loss of 5,000 yuan on 27 November 2002, 15 women workers on the nightshift were subject to strip searches, carried out in front of male managers, as part of management’s investigation into the matter.
• In yet another instance, 103 workers (including 80 women workers) were strip-searched in a Guangzhou diamond-processing plant in August 2002 on suspicion of stealing raw materials from the plant. The search results yielded nothing.

Workers’ health not part of the equation

Despite new laws and central government promises of enforcement, the issue of occupational safety and health is largely ignored in the EPZs. There is rarely provision for sick leave, and restricted toilet breaks and a heavy workload put women workers under stress, often leading to menstrual problems. According to a survey carried out in Nanshan Industrial Zone, Shenzhen, southern China, one-third of women workers are under weight, and many are short-sighted, especially those working in electronics plants. With doctors’ consultation fees as high as 60-70 yuan per session, women workers are frequently reluctant to seek early medical treatment.

A much more severe problem for EPZ workers is exposure to toxic chemicals. When they become sick, workers may not even be aware that they have been poisoned, and certainly do not know they are entitled to compensation from their employers. Employers may even simply refuse to accept any responsibility for what has happened.

Two 18-year-old women workers employed in different factories in the Pearl River Delta EPZ in southern China were both victims of chemical poisoning. One committed suicide by jumping from a hospital balcony on 2 November 2003, after her factory refused to pay compensation, and she realised she was too ill to find another job to support her family. The other died of benzene poisoning on 3 November, after 11 months in hospital. The factory she had been working for stopped paying her medical bills and the hospital stopped providing her with sufficient medication. She eventually died. (So, 2003)

Flashback to Zhili

The death of 87 young women in Zhili toy factory in Shenzhen on 19 November 1993 illustrated the potential fatal consequences of global production that exploits workers in developing countries in the pursuit of profit. The factory was a chain supplier of Chicco, a famous Italian brand name for toys and baby accessories. Most workers were young women from rural China. The fire broke out at 1:40 pm at the warehouse and spread quickly to the assembly line on the first floor. All factory exits were sealed and the windows barred. Apart from the 87 lives lost a further 47 workers were severely burnt. At least one victim, who has since set up a support network for physically disabled people in her hometown, has called for more compensation from Chicco. She argues that the many of the survivors are now unable to work as a result of their burns and are consequently an economic burden on their already poor families – the direct opposite of their original reason for leaving home to find work.

Why Rural Workers Need Social Security

Mrs. Zhou Dailian has two sons. Until recently one was in college studying to become a teacher and the other was working as a construction worker. Mrs. Zhou’s husband died ten years ago. The loss forced the remaining family members to hatch an investment plan for old age in order to make up for the almost complete lack of social security in the Chinese countryside.

The plan was simple: The son who was doing better at school would aim at getting into college and train to become a teacher, hopefully getting a job in a state school after graduation. The other son and mother would migrate from their farm to work in Shanghai earning wages that would pay for their university education.

A high risk investment strategy that Wall Street’s high rollers would no doubt applaud. Everything was going well for the Zhou’s until Mrs. Zhou wrecked her back in an accident while working as a maid for a Shanghai family.

Their investment strategy had no way to cope with the huge medical fees and lack of regular income. The son working in construction dropped his job to look after his disabled mother. Everything now depends on the son at college – but a huge question mark remains over how the college fees can be paid.

Unionisation?

Until the 14th All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) Congress in November 2003, migrant workers were not considered full members of the working class and, as such, actively excluded from the ranks of the only legal “trade union”. At the same time, the lack of freedom of association denied migrant workers the right to organise outside the ACFTU. Their recent access to the ACFTU will possibly entitle some women migrant workers to the odd picnic, some welfare benefits and even legal representation in a dispute. However, only genuine freedom of association will encourage women workers to organise in what will inevitably be a long battle against the dual oppression of gender and class.

It is therefore necessary for us, once again, to call on the Chinese government to ratify ILO Convention No.87 and permit full freedom of association to all China’s workers.

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References:

Pun Ngai (2003) "The Moral Economy of Capital: Transnational Corporate Codes of Conduct and Labour Rights in China", presented at the Chinese University conference Chinese Trade Unions and the Labour Movement in the Market Economy, 23-25 Oct, 2003

Juliana So (2003)"Women workers in Chinese Sweatshops" delivered in HKCTU conference on Chinese Workers and China Accession to WTO, 29-30 Nov, 2003

Media Sources: SCMP, Liberation Daily, Shanghai Star.