China’s rapid urban transformation led to vast numbers of new jobs offering better pay than rural work. People migrated from villages to secure these jobs and try to lift their families’ standard of living. In 2019, 36 percent of China’s working population – an estimated 291 million people – were rural-to-urban migrant labourers. But despite China’s nation-wide network of trade unions and reforms intended to protect rural-to-urban migrants, exploitation persists. Fighting it may require a rethink of government monitoring and enforcement efforts.
As early as the 1990s, violations of Chinese internal migrant workers’ basic rights had been widely reported, putting pressure on regulators to protect these rights. Legal reforms required workplaces and firms to establish their own trade unions to help workers bargain for their labour conditions. While for some this resulted in active protection, other workplaces established ‘paper unions’: unions that don’t engage in collective activities to protect workers’ rights.
Rural-to-urban workers are often treated as second-class citizens in cities — they often occupy "3-D" jobs, referring to positions that are dirty, dangerous and demeaning; and local city dwellers often hold social stigmatisation and distrust against those of rural origins, believing the latter to be poorly educated, occupationally incapable and socially liable. This grants urban natives privilege and consolidates their status at the expense of those coming from villages.
