英闻天下——183 Migrant Workers Struggle to Collect Unpaid Wages

 　　Year after year, disappointment is the only result they get in the end. Asking for their legal pay has never been easy for Chinese migrant workers.

 

　　According to statistics from the Ministry¹ of Human Resources and Social Security, the number of migrant workers asking for overdue² salaries is on the rise this year.

 

　　Lao He is a construction worker. Again, this year, he and a few other migrant worker friends decided³ to go back to Hebei Province to ask for salaries which were supposed to have been paid to them six years ago.

 

　　"I want my money. I want to go home. I even didn't get my salary in 2007."

 

　　The building Lao He and his co-workers built was put into use two years ago. But they still haven't received their wages. The unpaid⁴ salaries range from 10 thousand to 15 thousand yuan for each of them.

 

　　It took great efforts to find the foreman of their construction team who recruited them. But the boss, Zhang Xiaoquan says he is also a victim and didn't get paid too.

 

　　"I really have no solution. I don't have the money either. Many people are looking for me like you, too. I don't know what to do. I used to seek help from the government, but nobody is willing to help us."

 

　　Together they went to the contractor⁵ to ask for their money. However, the contractor told them that the project developer owes them money, altogether 38 million yuan.

 

　　Currently, Lao He and his fellow migrant workers are heading to the project developer in Hebei Province, hoping to ask for even a little bit of their money back. But what awaits them seems already certain.

 

　　Lao He's example is just one of the thousands of similar cases in China. Lin Danping is deputy director of the Labor⁶ Supervision⁷ Team, a department in charge of implementing⁸ labor-related laws.

 

　　"Overdue wages for migrant workers occur on some small scale enterprises. They are mainly in manufacturing, construction and some labor intensive enterprises, and some service industries."

 

　　Unpaid wages are most common in the construction business where they are also the most difficult to collect. As disadvantaged low-end labor, workers are the first to be sacrificed when the original construction projects have been separated into many sub-contracts.

 

　　China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and 11 other related ministries⁹ and departments met recently and agreed to try all necessary means to get migrant workers' wages back before the Spring Festival and to try to avoid the situation from reoccurring.

 

　　For CRI, I am Li Dong.

1 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

2 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。

3 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

4 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。

5 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。

6 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

7 supervision   

n.监督，管理

参考例句：

• The work was done under my supervision.这项工作是在我的监督之下完成的。
• The old man's will was executed under the personal supervision of the lawyer.老人的遗嘱是在律师的亲自监督下执行的。

8 implementing   

v.实现( implement的现在分词 )；执行；贯彻；使生效

参考例句：

• -- Implementing a comprehensive drug control strategy. ――实行综合治理的禁毒战略。 来自汉英非文学 - 白皮书
• He was in no hurry about implementing his unshakable principle. 他并不急于实行他那不可动摇的原则。 来自辞典例句

9 ministries   

（政府的）部( ministry的名词复数 )； 神职； 牧师职位； 神职任期

参考例句：

• Local authorities must refer everything to the central ministries. 地方管理机构应请示中央主管部门。
• The number of Ministries has been pared down by a third. 部委的数量已经减少了1/3。