Xinhua Insight: No paycheck, no triumphant homecoming

While China's millions of migrant workers build railways, skyscrapers and stadiums for the country, many of them find it difficult to claim delayed paychecks.

Wage disputes have swelled ahead of lunar New Year which falls on Feb. 19 this year, when many of the country's 270 million migrants make pilgrimages home for family reunions.

After a whole year of hard work, some migrants -- usually low-paid manual laborers -- find themselves empty-handed, and have to start an unwelcome chase for unpaid wages.

PAPER CHASE

After 89 days of waiting in the Beijing winter, construction worker Liu Shaowen and another 114 colleagues received delayed wages of about 2.3 million yuan (370,000 U.S. dollars) on the last day of 2014.

"I just want to buy a ticket and go home," Liu said, crying as he grasped his cheque for 18,000 yuan.

Liu worked on a construction site in the capital's Chaoyang District from early March to September and when the project was complete, they were told that "the building is illegal" and the contractor was nowhere to be found.

"We knew neither the company's name nor the contractor's home address," Liu said. "The only thing we could do was wait."

But the wait was long and bitter.

Some gave up and went home. The remaining 87 stayed but were thrown out of their on-site dormitories with only their meager personal belongings. Penniless, they slept on the streets or in underpasses. During cold nights, they huddled together under quilts.

"We tried the district government, and were told to file a lawsuit, but we had no contract nor did we have any money," Liu said, but they were luckier than many others when their story was picked up by the media.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

Liu's case is not an isolated one.

A female migrant worker was allegedly beaten to death during a confrontation with police when chasing unpaid wages in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi Province in December.

In November, at least ten migrant workers threatened to jump from a building after failing to claim unpaid wages in Suzhou City in Anhui Province.

GET SOME HELP

Governments at all levels have taken various measures to help migrant workers get their paychecks more easily.

A regulation specifies standards and procedures for refusal to pay employees, which means that the courts can deal with such crimes more effectively.

Back in 2011, an amendment to the Criminal Law stipulated that malicious wage default was a crime and employers who intentionally withhold due salaries can face up to seven years in jail.

In the first 11 months of 2014, wages totaling 27.9 billion yuan were recovered for workers.

Despite all this, loopholes still exist. "Construction workers are the most severely affected by unpaid or late paychecks," said He Yong, an official who handles labor disputes in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province.

The construction sector has been struggling since the property market slumped and some companies genuinely do not have enough money to pay, he said.

In addition, the involvement of many subcontractors in one project makes the situation complicated. They deliberately delay payments, and such behavior is hard to supervise, said Liu Shiwen of Shaanxi Provincial Academy of Social Sciences.

Migrant workers lack knowledge of the law and often have no contracts. They do not know how to protect themselves, Liu added.

Liu Shaowen has now headed for home with new clothes and snacks for his children. "To provide my wife and kids a better life, I will start a new sojourn to another big city and another job after Spring festival," he said.

Hopefully his next journey will be easier and exclude the part about chasing unpaid wages. Enditem

(Xinhua correspondents Zhang Manzi from Beijing and Chen Chen from Shaanxi contribute to the repo