By Chen Guangcheng
Towards the end of the 20th Century, China experienced an influx of migration from rural workers into its cities. These people are commonly referred to as “migrant workers.” This trend has lasted for about 40 years. Hundreds of millions of migrant workers have been forced to leave their homes and families.
Traditionally, migrant workers would celebrate Lunar New Year with their families for about 16 days before returning to their jobs. Over the last couple of decades, though, their timeline for celebration has shrunk. In fact, by the early 2000s, many migrant workers simply packed their bags and left for the city two days after New Years. To their families, these people have virtually become passing strangers, spending less time at home than they would at an inn.
What is even more unfortunate for migrant workers is that after working hard in the city for a year, their wages are often reduced at the end of the year. Many people cannot go home during the annual Spring Festival because they have not been paid.
Today, China’s economy is on the verge of collapse. It is very difficult for migrant workers to find jobs in the city. Even if they do, their bosses often will not pay them. So, many migrant workers have no choice but to return to their hometowns to cultivate the farmland or do odd jobs around town to make a living.
There was one promising exception to this trend, though. Last year, when the Shuanghou Reservoir project in Shandong Province was launched by the Communist Party, many workers initially thought that they could find a job opportunity there. However, not only was the intensity of labor unbearable, but their promised wages were not paid on time. It is reported that few people lasted even two months on the project, and most left after one. What puzzled the workers was that while it was common for private sector bosses to withhold payments, it was quite unusual for the CCP to delay paying wages for a major, national-level project like building a reservoir.
The 2025 Spring Festival has passed, and even though the first month of the Lunar Year is almost over, it seems that construction has not begun on the project. As the saying goes, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” So, I found out that at the end of last year, all the migrant workers who worked on the project only received half of their wages at most. The Communist Party promised to pay the outstanding wages immediately after the Spring Festival, but it still has not done so. So, it is not the case that the construction engineers did not want to start work, but they were rather unable to start work because there was no money to pay the wages owed to the migrant workers last year.
By the time this article has been published, perhaps the Communist Party will have paid the migrant workers the wages they owed last year. But I would like to give a piece of advice to all migrant workers in China: I hope you all realize that the dishonesty of local bosses is nothing compared to that of Communist Party’s. Even if they have repaid the wages owed to you last year, you must be careful about new “opportunities” they offer you. If possible, it is best not to work for them anymore, or might be cheated out of even more money.
It is particularly worth mentioning that, for a project like the Shuanghou Reservoir, which is supposedly a national-level project, clear planning should have been made in advance, regardless of whether the funds came from the central or local governments. Otherwise the project would not have been approved and allowed to start. However, after working so hard, migrant workers were told that there was no money to pay their wages at the end of the year.
There is one lingering question. If the Communist Party doesn’t give migrant workers their hard- earned money, then where did the project funds go? How come it disappeared? Is there any explanation other than that the funds have been embezzled, misappropriated, or used to enrich the CCP’s bureaucrats? If individual bosses are unreliable, then the Communist Party, as the chief boss, is ten thousand times worse!
Translated from
https://insidechina.rti.org.tw/news/view/id/2240094