Migrant Workers

Posted on 13 June 2010.

So far this year, ten workers have committed suicide at one company's southern Chinese manufacturing hub. Some reports have claimed employees were working more than the mandated maximum number of hours and that as many as a quarter were not taking a day off a week.

According to a Reuters report, "The dead were all young migrant workers, among the millions who leave the poor hinterlands of China for the boom towns of the south and east coastal areas in search of work and high wages."

As publicity about these untimely deaths has spread across the world, the company has hired 100 counsellors and invited Buddhist monks to provide support for the workers. The company has also announced that workers' salaries are being raised.

Newspaper stories also continue to appear about migrant workers who lose their lives in China's mines. More than 2,600 people were killed in China in mine floods, explosions, collapses and other accidents in 2009, an average of seven a day, which has led to China's mines being described as the most dangerous in the world. "Workers are tempted into hazardous jobs in China's mines by wages that can be much higher than for many other jobs open to blue-collar workers and rural migrants. Strong demand for energy and lax safety standards have made China's mines often deadly places to work," reports Reuters.

The life of China's migrant workers is often not a happy one. Yet, as workers returned to the cities following this year's Spring Festival break, there were some signs of hope. Officials reported a shortage of up to two million workers in the Pearl River Delta manufacturing hub in southern China. Migrant workers are thus asking for higher wages and better working conditions.

"Migrant workers used to travel from all over China for those jobs," says the BBC. "But last year many of them found work that paid similar salaries closer to home... Beijing's own research suggests that each new generation of workers is better educated, and has higher expectations in terms of salary, labour conditions and rights than those that came before them. They are more choosy about what kind of factory they want to work in."

Pray for protection for migrant workers who feel forced to work for long hours in poor conditions.

Pray that employers would recognise their responsibility to care for their workers, pay adequate salaries and provide regular rest.

Pray that the current shortage of migrant workers might have a positive effect in encouraging companies to improve working conditions.

Pray for Christian employers to set an example in caring for their workers and providing a safe and comfortable working environment.