The emergence of a new generation of migrant workers poses a serious
challenge to China, both politically and economically.
By Yu Xiaodong
On the surface, everything has returned to normal. The series of sudden and unprecedented wildcat strikes that spread throughout workplaces across China has seemingly dissipated, with many large corporations agreeing to increase workers’ salary levels.
But look closer, and all is not as it appears. The strikes, although over for now, have pulled back a veil rarely lifted, and in doing so revealed the true extent of the problems now posed by the marginalization of an estimated 100-million so-called “second generation migrant workers,” about 7 percent of China’s total population.
Despite its apparent lack of organization, this group now constitutes perhaps the most energetic, volatile and unpredictable population in all of China. With so much at stake, the question of whether this group can be successfully integrated into urban communities is now dominating policy discussions. For better or worse, the outcome of such a challenge is likely to have significant and lasting political implications for the future of China.
A New Political Landscape
Dubbed “the workshop of the world,” China’s economic successes have stemmed largely from its manufacturing industries, which in turn have relied on a seemingly endless supply of cheap labor, drawn mostly from the country’s vast rural areas. It is estimated that the workers employed in these sectors contribute as much as 30 percent of China’s annual GDP.
Commonly referred to as mingong “farmer” or “migrant workers,” this group have traditionally been considered as temporary urban residents, meaning that once their period of employment has expired, they are obliged to return to their homes outside of the city. The result is what sociologists call “a rift between industrialization and urbanization.”
While China has experienced rapid industrialization, the process of urbanization has lagged far behind. Under a dual institutional system that defines social policies according to a rigid dichotomy between urban and rural societies, migrant workers are institutionally tied to their homes in rural areas, despite spending most of their time working in cities, and therefore denied most of the benefits gained from living in urban areas.
Now, 30 years after the instigation of economic reforms, a new generation of migrant workers, who now account for 40 percent of China’s current 250-million strong migrant workforce, have emerged. Better educated and skilled, and physically and emotionally detached from rural life in the countryside, these workers remain trapped in jobs with substandard pay, while institutionally alienated and denied full access to urban services such as pensions, education, medical care, and childcare.
The recent eruption of strikes gives a glimpse of how in the future this relative deprivation may become the major source of much-feared social instability.
“It is politically dangerous that such a large social group whose political requests cannot be represented or realized should remain alienated from political institutions and be forced to live on the periphery of society,” warned Lin Laifan, vice-president of the Chinese Association of Constitutional Law, earlier this year.
The government has long been aware of the issue, and has tried to solve the problem within a preexisting institutional framework, resisting the move to launch drastic political reform.
One such example would be the expansion of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), the sole legal government-backed labor union permitted under Chinese law.
Having previously existed exclusively within State-owned companies under the planned economy, the ACFTU has conducted various reforms in recent years, and now has a presence in both the private sector and within foreign companies operating inside of China. In a high profile case in July 2006, the ACFTU requested that Wal-Mart allow its employees to set up branch unions, resulting in the creation of labor union branches in a total of 62 Wal-Mart stores in 30 different cities across the country.
By 2009, the ACFTU boasted local branches in 111,000 foreign enterprises, coverage of 73.1 percent, as well as a membership totaling 212 million, including 62 million so-called migrant workers.