Immigration Laws: October, 2003 - Number #09

A New York Times article called China's 100 million migrants "untouchables," consigned to the worst jobs and assumed to be criminals in the cities to which they move. Migrants have many grievances, including long hours and no benefits for dangerous work on construction sites and monotonous work on factory assembly lines. They are also vulnerable to local residents, from landlords who charge excessive rents to local police who frequently check their ID cards.

Some foreign investors pay high wages to migrants who are vaulted into middle-class lifestyles by jobs in export-driven factories. But in other cases, local officials may work with corrupt recruiters to lure workers to faraway work places that feature grueling productivity standards and wages far below what were promised. Migrants sometimes find it hard to escape from such work places, since they often have contracts that require penalty payments for leaving work before the end of one or two years-in some cases, migrants sign one contract in the village where they are recruited, and then are presented with a second contract offering lowering wages at the place where they work.

Over 90 percent of Guangdong's 21 million migrant workers are in the Pearl River Delta bordering Hong Kong, including eight million in Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong and five million in neighboring Dongguan. Central Hunan province is China's leading source of internal migrants, most of whom are young men and women.

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) in September 2003 announced that it would allow migrants to join ACFTU unions, and help them to get paid and to obtain safer work places. The ACFTU said that 34 million of 94 million migrants were members of ACFTU unions.

China is upgrading its national identification cards, introduced in 1985, that contain personal data such as a birth date, an 18-digit identification number, and a person's household registration that tied a person to his or her province of birth. The new National ID Cards are to have a microchip that stores more information on each of the 960 million adults, making it easier, critics say, for the government to monitor migrants, whose number is estimated at 120 million and growing by 13 million a year.

China has too many college graduates, a result of policies that doubled the number of college students from 6.4 to 12.1 million between 1998 and 2001; about 15 percent of 18- to 22-year olds are in college. The two million graduates of the class of 2003 had a hard time finding jobs paying at least $100 a month, the goal of those who attend new and often for-profit colleges. Even graduates of selective colleges who expected to earn $300 to $400 a month were reportedly having trouble finding jobs in summer 2003.

China may change its economic growth mantra from "development is the core truth" to development that reduces gaps between cities and farms, coastal and inland areas, and pays more attention to social justice and the environment. China in October 2003 announced that farmers would be able to transfer their rights to land, thus letting some amass large holdings and increase efficiency, but also increase corruption among local officials and speed up rural-urban migration.

Some 200,000 Chinese live in Russia's Far East, where there has been a proliferation of Chinese restaurants, hotels and businesses. There are about seven million Russians in the Russian Far East, and 77 million Chinese in China's three border provinces with Russia. Russia and China share a 2,200-mile border.

Hong Kong. After October 1, 2003, Hong Kong employers of foreign maids must pay a levy of HK$400 ($51) a month, or HK$9,600 for a standard two-year contract. The employer-paid levy is to be used to train and retrain local workers; Hong Kong has some of its highest-ever unemployment rates. The 240,000 foreign domestic maids in fact pay the levy- to keep the cost of maids constant to employers, the government reduced the minimum wage by HK$400 a month to HK$ 3,270.

Taiwan. Taiwan had 301,780 foreign workers in May 2003, including 110,782 Thais; 79,777 Indonesians; 71,516 Filipinos; and 39,675 Vietnamese. Foreign workers must be paid at least the minimum wage of NT$15,840 a month; some employers say that migrant wages should be lowered in order to reduce the exodus of factory jobs to China.

Some 10,484 foreign workers, 4,116 Indonesians; 2,880 Vietnamese; 1,581 Thais; and 1,091 Filipinos had run away from their employers in September 2003. The National Police Administration urged them to turn themselves in by saying that, if they did, they would not have to pay a NT$150,000 ($4,350) fine before being deported. Employers of unauthorized workers can be fined NT$750,000 for a first offense, and NT$1.2 million and up to three years in prison for a second offense.

Taiwan began to import foreign workers in 1991, and extended their maximum stay from two to three years in 1997. Under Taiwan's labor laws, foreign workers may join and participate in Taiwanese unions, but not be elected to office; they may not form their own unions.

Statistics show the number of illegal female migrants from the mainland has increased more than tenfold over the past four years. More than 190,000 Chinese nationals have married Taiwanese citizens; government officials say many of marriages are shams, prompting consideration of stricter requirements for foreign spouses.

Joseph Kahn, "Chinese Economy's Underside: Abuse of Migrants," New York Times, August 26, 2003.