Thursday, March 15, 2007
Chinese paradise is hell for most low-level workers - International Herald Tribune
When Zhang Feifei lost her job in this booming Chinese factory town, she was not terribly concerned. Jobs had always been plentiful in Shenzhen's red-hot economy.
Then Zhang, a 20-year-old migrant laborer, lost her identity card and was shocked to find that no factory would hire her without a bribe she could not afford. Desperate for money, she ended up working in a grimy, two-room massage parlor in a congested alley here, where she has sex with four or five men a day.
...
While the city is dependent on migrant labor to keep its factories running, onerous residency rules discourage migrants from settling in the city and make it difficult for them to attain public services, from education to health care. ...
The resulting rootlessness has fed crime of a sort little seen elsewhere in China. Gunfights, kidnappings and gang warfare are rampant, and the signs of social dislocation are everywhere.
Asked if it was their day off, one of them, a 20-year-old, said that he had been fired when he developed lesions on his arms from exposure to paints and asked to switch jobs. Nowadays, he said, he and his friends survive by "beating people up for a living."
...
Yu Di, a 19-year-old from Hubei Province with a junior high school education, speaks quietly and wears a look of deep discouragement. He works in a grimy watch-casing factory, loading and unloading heavy boxes from a truck 11 hours a day, 6 days a week. His salary, which includes no benefits, is about $80 a month.
With his pay amounting to less than his modest outlay for food and other expenses, Yu has had to borrow money from his parents and others just to survive. He would like to look for better work, but transportation and admission fees to the job fairs held in Shenzhen are out of his reach.
Asked about his situation during an interview in his dim and filthy dorm room, he said, "just look at my environment." Then, gesturing grimly at the narrow space crammed with 12 bunk beds consisting of bare springs covered with cardboard, he added: "The only thing I regret is not working hard in school. I came to this factory because there was no other way out." ...
When Zhang Feifei lost her job in this booming Chinese factory town, she was not terribly concerned. Jobs had always been plentiful in Shenzhen's red-hot economy.
Then Zhang, a 20-year-old migrant laborer, lost her identity card and was shocked to find that no factory would hire her without a bribe she could not afford. Desperate for money, she ended up working in a grimy, two-room massage parlor in a congested alley here, where she has sex with four or five men a day.
...
While the city is dependent on migrant labor to keep its factories running, onerous residency rules discourage migrants from settling in the city and make it difficult for them to attain public services, from education to health care. ...
The resulting rootlessness has fed crime of a sort little seen elsewhere in China. Gunfights, kidnappings and gang warfare are rampant, and the signs of social dislocation are everywhere.
Asked if it was their day off, one of them, a 20-year-old, said that he had been fired when he developed lesions on his arms from exposure to paints and asked to switch jobs. Nowadays, he said, he and his friends survive by "beating people up for a living."
...
Yu Di, a 19-year-old from Hubei Province with a junior high school education, speaks quietly and wears a look of deep discouragement. He works in a grimy watch-casing factory, loading and unloading heavy boxes from a truck 11 hours a day, 6 days a week. His salary, which includes no benefits, is about $80 a month.
With his pay amounting to less than his modest outlay for food and other expenses, Yu has had to borrow money from his parents and others just to survive. He would like to look for better work, but transportation and admission fees to the job fairs held in Shenzhen are out of his reach.
Asked about his situation during an interview in his dim and filthy dorm room, he said, "just look at my environment." Then, gesturing grimly at the narrow space crammed with 12 bunk beds consisting of bare springs covered with cardboard, he added: "The only thing I regret is not working hard in school. I came to this factory because there was no other way out." ...
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