Migrant Workers - China

June 2006
Over two hundred million migrants work illegally in China. They power China's economic growth but are condemned to a life in the shadows.

On the outskirts of the new Shanghai live those who build it. "My life here consists only of work. I do nothing else", states Kejun. He comes from one of the poorest Chinese provinces but was forced to move to the city to find a job. Now, he works 7 days a week and sees his wife and child for only one day a year. "It's unbearable to leave our children behind." It's illegal for the rural population to move to the cities but the economy is so dependent on cheap labour that this rule is often ignored. Vulnerable and under constant threat of exposure, migrant workers are easily exploited. "Their lives are very tough", states NGO worker May Wong. "They are always discriminated against."

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• China
• Shanghai
• Migrant
• Workers
• Discrimination
• Lifestyles
• news
• documentary
• current affairs
• journeyman
• journeyman pictures

[Armandmtl]

God bless these people.

[maomao667]

@gbbbys

Without cheap labour, China would go collpase.

[yumenyukuaile]

I visit the websites and post comments with the assistance of machine translation. Through international trade union organizations, to promote the development of the labor movement in China.

[yumenyukuaile]

• 各国的工人阶级，都在斗争，工人阶级诉求相同，工人阶级需要相互­理解和支持！

Countries of the working class, in the struggle, the same demands of the working class, the working class the need for mutual understanding and support!

• 命运的注定，工人阶级需要抗争；命运注定，工人阶级需要斗争！我­们的组织（国际劳工•国际工会），需要更加的努力，做出更大的贡­献！

The fate of the doomed, the working class need to fight; fate of the doomed, the working class need to fight! Our organization (International Labor International Union), require more effort to make a greater contribution!

[Anthony883]

5 bucks a day 7 days a week.. DOUBLE U TEE EFF

[DQFXPRESS]

WE HAVE SO MANY SWEET SHOPS IN NEW YORK CITY, THEY EXISTED TENS OF YEARS WHY THE USA STILL ALLOW THIS HAPPENING? ESPECIALLY NEW IMMIGRANTS OR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS!!!!!!!!

[DQFXPRESS]

IF YOU ARE GREAT, YOU MAY DO GOOD IN ANY COUNTRY, I HEARD SOME VILLAGERS ARE MILLIONAIRE S NOW FROM THE VILLAGE I CAME FROM, NOW I AM AT NEW YORK CITY, I ALSO SEE MANY DO POORLY EVEN THEY ARE IN THE USA, SO DO NOT BLAME ON ANY GOVERNMENT OR ANY ONE ELSE BUT YOURSELF .

[Icix1]

that was a really epic ending...that final shot is amazing

[TheTollundWoman]

@asucme

China has one of the worst *governments* on earth, its people are oppressed by the Communist regime. but this doesn't make the entire country bad...on the contrary i think people in China appreciate freedom a lot more than most Americans. Look at how many people risked their lives in Tiananmen square, and before that in the Democracy Wall movement. China is a great country. tragically its rulers are tyrants.

[TheTollundWoman]

@2:52 "The rural people in China who under Mao were once pampered"?? Mao didn't "pamper" the rural people, he confiscated their grain, forced "collectivization" down their throats, stole their farms, and starved them to death in the worst famine in human history (between 1958 and 1962.) Mao also set up the internal passport system, people couldn't leave your native province without official permission for the party.

[TheTollundWoman]

97% of millionaires in China are the children of members of the CCP elite.

[votumseparatum1]

@Fuzzypanda110 YOU.