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Workers beaten in pay dispute
01/06/2006 12:16 - (SA)
Beijing - More than 100 rural migrant workers in Beijing were beaten as they tried to seek overdue salaries from a South Korean construction company, state media reported on Thursday.
The workers told the Beijing News about 70 men carrying iron bars and chain locks attacked them on Wednesday as they walked into a building to discuss the issue with a staff member of their Korean employer, identified as JD company.
The workers said they and their colleagues had not been paid since starting on a construction project in mid-March and were owed more than one million yuan in salaries and four million yuan in building materials, it reported.
Fifteen workers who sustained injuries to their heads and limbs were treated in a hospital, the newspaper said.
The exploitation of rural migrant workers who travel to the cities in hopes of finding better employment has become a high-profile issue in China in recent years.
The nation's rural migrant labour force rose to 200 million people this year, according to a recent government survey.
Most of them not only face lower salaries and poorer working conditions than their city counterparts, but do not receive social benefits, such as pension plans, schooling for their children or health care.
Although central authorities have issued reams of policy papers on protecting the rights of these migrant workers, critics say local governments seeking higher growth rates and bigger local profits routinely ignore the law.
- AFP
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