Migrant workers in China demand wage owed in arrears
農(nóng)民工討薪難題何時解

Spring festival will come in a month, and migrant workers in large cities are due to return home. Many will also take back with them the money they had earned in the year. But for some, getting their hard-earned money may well be improbable.

Yang Minghong a construction contractor, is in trouble.

In 2012, Yang and his some 40 workers took a project in Central China's Henan Province, to build cow sheds for a local company. The construction work went smoothly as planned, but Yang never got paid. For over two years now, the workers have been chasing Yang for their wages, but Yang is unable to deliver anything for them.

"Yang said he would pay us soon at that time. But up to now, all we have got are empty promises," says a migrant worker.

"If I can get my construction payment, I will immediately pay my workers. But without that, I can do nothing," Yang says.

With options running out, and in desperation, Yang sued the hiring company at a local court. He demanded for the project payment and interests, which totalled 3.2 million Yuan, all together. The court later ruled in Yang's favor.

However, as the hiring company's legal person went on the run, the court order become essentially ineffectual.

"All we can do now is to find another company which can buy the leftover assets, and hopefully use that money to pay for Yang's contract fees," says Wang Xilu, court officer of Zhumadian, Henan Province.

For Yang, it seems all he can do is to wait. But with workers coming into his home asking for money every day, its taken a toll on his mental health.

"I cannot sleep well. I wake up over eight times every night. There were only nightmares. I dreamed about people asking me for money all the time. I even thought about committing suicide," Yang says.

But in a way, Yang Minghong was not one of the worst cases. Other cases of wage earners demanding pay owed to them ended in tragedy.

Last December, in North China's Shanxi Province, a woman was beaten to death in a local police station for demanding her wage. And in January this year, after a failed attempt to recover the wages her father and other workers, a 14 year old girl jumped to her death from the 16th floor of a building still under-construction in Hebei province.

As more cases are revealed, the media has called for a mechanism to ensure the effective implementation of the laws and regulations, to protect the vulnerable group's rights and interests. Something which put in to effect will prevent more similar tragedies, and perhaps a happier spring festival back in hometowns for many.