Children join parents' petition for overdue wages

 DALI, Yunnan, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- A group of 13 children drew widespread attention in China last week by helping¹ their parents claim wages held in arrears².

The children, the youngest of whom was five, stood in a line in downtown Dali, a major tourist destination of southwest China's Yunnan Province, Tuesday, holding posters that demanded immediate³ payment of their parents' overdue⁴ wages.

Their parents are all migrant construction workers at a development project in downtown Dali. Their wages have been held in arrears for six years.

"I'm Yu Xian. I want milk and cakes. Please pay my parents their wages," read a poster held by a 5-year-old boy.

Yu, from Qujing city of Yunnan, said his father had worked for many years in Dali. "He hasn't been home for a long time. I want him to get paid so that I can go to school," he said.

Five of the young petitioners⁵ have been newly admitted to college and are in dire⁶ need of money to cover their tuition.

"I've come to help my father claim his wages because my college tuition is a headache for the whole family," said Liu Qiang, a teenage girl from the southwestern Chongqing Municipality.

Liu has been admitted to Kunming University of Science and Technology in Yunnan's provincial⁷ capital and needs the money to pay her tuition in less than two weeks.

Delayed payment of wages even broke up some migrants' families.

Wu Fan, 8, said his parents divorced after his father failed to mail home any money for years. "My mom was certain he had squandered⁸ all the money gambling⁹ or taking drugs."

The plight¹⁰ of the children and their families caught widespread attention in the ancient city of Dali, which is always packed with tourists during the summer holidays.

Photos of the scene taken by tourists were posted online and triggered another outcry for migrants' rights, which has been a permanent issue in China over the past decade.

While the Internet users almost unanimously blamed the "profit-driven employer" for "deliberately¹¹ holding the workers' wages in arrears", Xinhua reporters found the wage dispute was a result of project management loopholes in the real estate sector¹² and the victims were victims in a larger-scale economic dispute.

The developer, Yunnan Guangsha Real Estate Co. Ltd., reached a deal with the local government in 2006 to build a complex composing holiday resort, department stores and exhibition hall in Dali at the cost of 97 million yuan (15.26 million U.S. dollars).

The project, contracted to a major construction group in Kunming but later subcontracted to "Golden Carpenter", a smaller firm, entered a dead end after the boss of Guangsha Real Estate was arrested in 2009 on suspicion of fraud.

Last year, Guangsha was taken over by a local tourism company in Dali, but more than 21 million yuan of construction costs due to be remitted¹³ through the prime contractor¹⁴ to Golden Carpenter were unpaid¹⁵, including 17 million yuan of wages for the workers, said Gao Zhonghan, executive of Golden Carpenter.

After the children joined their parents' petition for pay, the Dali city government demanded the tourism company to settle the issue.

The company, in response, remitted 3 million yuan Saturday to the prime contractor, whose management promised to guarantee the workers get paid in full.

"Such dead-end projects are not rare in China, but not all workers are lucky enough to get paid eventually," said an Internet user who gave only his screen name as "wind in desert."

According to a new rule set by the Yunnan provincial government last year, all construction companies should deposit at least 10 percent of their construction costs into their bank accounts as a reserve fund for the workers' wages. This was to ensure all the workers get paid in time by the bank.

"But it takes time for all construction companies to follow the rule and for the migrants to get paid," said a project contractor in Kunming, who gave only his family name as Zhang.

Zhang said several provinces, including Shanxi and Henan, have moved to blacklist contractors¹⁶ that were notorious for delaying payments. "But when a project is subcontracted again and again, it is hard to track the root of the dispute."

1 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

2 arrears   

n.到期未付之债，拖欠的款项；待做的工作

参考例句：

• The payments on that car loan are in arrears by three months.购车贷款的偿付被拖欠了三个月。
• They are urgent for payment of arrears of wages.他们催讨拖欠的工钱。

3 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

4 overdue   

adj.过期的，到期未付的；早该有的，迟到的

参考例句：

• The plane is overdue and has been delayed by the bad weather.飞机晚点了，被坏天气耽搁了。
• The landlady is angry because the rent is overdue.女房东生气了，因为房租过期未付。

5 petitioners   

n.请求人，请愿人( petitioner的名词复数 )；离婚案原告

参考例句：

• Petitioners suggest that anything less than certainty, that any speculation, is irresponsible. 申诉者认为不准确的事或推断都是不负责任的。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• The judge awarded the costs of the case to the petitioners. 法官判定由这起案件的上诉人支付诉讼费用。 来自辞典例句

6 dire   

adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的

参考例句：

• There were dire warnings about the dangers of watching too much TV.曾经有人就看电视太多的危害性提出严重警告。
• We were indeed in dire straits.But we pulled through.那时我们的困难真是大极了，但是我们渡过了困难。

7 provincial   

adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人

参考例句：

• City dwellers think country folk have provincial attitudes.城里人以为乡下人思想迂腐。
• Two leading cadres came down from the provincial capital yesterday.昨天从省里下来了两位领导干部。

8 squandered   

v.（指钱，财产等）浪费，乱花( squander的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He squandered all his money on gambling. 他把自己所有的钱都糟蹋在赌博上了。
• She felt as indignant as if her own money had been squandered. 她心里十分生气，好像是她自己的钱给浪费掉了似的。 来自飘（部分）

9 gambling   

n.赌博；投机

参考例句：

• They have won a lot of money through gambling.他们赌博赢了很多钱。
• The men have been gambling away all night.那些人赌了整整一夜。

10 plight   

n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定

参考例句：

• The leader was much concerned over the plight of the refugees.那位领袖对难民的困境很担忧。
• She was in a most helpless plight.她真不知如何是好。

11 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

12 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

13 remitted   

v.免除（债务），宽恕( remit的过去式和过去分词 )；使某事缓和；寄回，传送

参考例句：

• She has had part of her sentence remitted. 她被免去部分刑期。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The fever has remitted. 退烧了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

14 contractor   

n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌

参考例句：

• The Tokyo contractor was asked to kick $ 6000 back as commission.那个东京的承包商被要求退还6000美元作为佣金。
• The style of house the contractor builds depends partly on the lay of the land.承包商所建房屋的式样，有几分要看地势而定。

15 unpaid   

adj.未付款的，无报酬的

参考例句：

• Doctors work excessive unpaid overtime.医生过度加班却无报酬。
• He's doing a month's unpaid work experience with an engineering firm.他正在一家工程公司无偿工作一个月以获得工作经验。

16 contractors   

n.（建筑、监造中的）承包人( contractor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We got estimates from three different contractors before accepting the lowest. 我们得到3个承包商的报价后，接受了最低的报价。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Contractors winning construction jobs had to kick back 2 per cent of the contract price to the mafia. 赢得建筑工作的承包商得抽出合同价格的百分之二的回扣给黑手党。 来自《简明英汉词典》