New Proposals for Fairer Wages Make Slow Progress

News, Cover

~ The Ministry of Labor, SASAC, the National Federation of Trade Unions, China Enterprise Confederation and other community organizations formed a legislative group and began drafting the Regulations on Wages in Jan 2008.

~ The proposed regulation covers both privately-owned and state-owned enterprises and concerns low wages, slow wage growth, and back pay.

~ The proposals have been under discussion for three years, but haven't yet been delivered. Three key issues are under dispute: the level of minimum wages, a mechanism for wages increases, and fair compensation of contract workers.

~ Responding to the proposals for an automatic mechanism for wage increases, The National Federation of Industry & Commerce has argued that the government would need to reduce taxation on small and medium size businesses.

~ State-owned enterprises are less opposed to increasing minimum wages. They are most concerned with legislation concerning the contract workers that they hire through agencies.

~ Some 60 million Chinese are employed on temporary contracts. Such workers, who earn far less than permanent employees, account for two third of the employees at some state-owned enterprises.

~ The proposed regulation would bring payment for temporary workers in line with the salaries for permanent workers, and so greatly increase costs for state-owned enterprises.

~ A person familiar with the issue said "there is not the slightest sign that the Regulations on Wages will be introduced". However, promoting the Regulations is an important step in the reform of income distribution, an important part of the government's twelfth five-year plan.

Original article: [Chinese]

Major Railway Inspection Augurs Reform

News, page 2

~ The State Council has ordered an "unprecedented" inspection for railway safety from mid-August to mid-September.

~ It involves 280 inspectors in 12 groups, led by 12 officials of deputy-minister rank from 12 different ministries.

~ CSR, CNR, CRSC and other companies that produced railway equipment are also to be inspected.

~ Many people suggest that the scale of the inspection is a sign of major changes ahead. Previously, many railway projects were launched before they received official approval.

~ One railway worker says that he and his peers have been appealing for years for improvements to their housing, social security and salaries.

~ The State Council may want to use this inspection as an opportunity to resolve the problems in the railway system, and make preparations for future reforms, according to one railway expert.

Original article: [Chinese]

Rumors of Reduced 2012 Target for Social Housing as Inspections Focus on Safety

News, page 6

~ Liu Mingkang, chairman of China Banking Regulatory Commission reportedly said at the beginning of August that the construction target for government-subsidized housing will be cut to 8 million units, down from 10 million in 2011.

~ But the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has denied this rumor, saying that next year's plan is still under discussion.

~ In Guizhou Province and Fujian Province inspections are now focusing on safety of newly-built social hosuing, after the Deputy Minister of Housing Qi Ji called for the completion of inspection by October.

Original article: [Chinese]

Problems with PX Projects

Nation, page 10

~ Recently the Dalian municipal government announced plans to suspend work at a local Paraxylene (PX) factory before relocating it in repsonse to large protests in the city. In June 2007, Xiamen residents also protested against the construction of a PX project in their city, which also led to the provincial government's decision to relocate the plant.

~ PX is an abbreviation for the toxic chemical paraxylene, a raw material used in production of PTA and PET, which are important raw materials for the textile, tyre bottling industry.

~ So far, few experts or organizations have conducted a full study into its possible health effects.

~ PX production in China has a 25-year history. Currently China has become both the world's largest PX producer and consumer. By 2009, China had 13 PX production enterprises, mainly operating under Sinopec, CNPC and CNOOC.

~ The market price for a ton of PX is about 12,000 yuan. It's a profitable line of business for companies and also helps to boost the coffers of local governments that host these PX plants.

~ In some areas, PX factories are being built without public knowledge.

~ Yuan Dongxing, a professor of Environment Science from Xiamen University told the EO that the international standard is for PX plants to be built at least 70km from a city, while in mainland China the distance is around 20 km, in the case of Xiamen, before the plant was closed it was just 7 km from the city.

~ Whenever there is controversy about PX projects, local governments will present statistics that show that the amount of xylene released into the air has not exceeded set limits. But xylene is not the only harmful gas produced by PX plants.

~ An anonymous professor from Nanjing University told the EO, if Xiamen had not initiated this wave of protest against PX plants, then most of the public still wouldn't know what PX was.

Original article: [Chinese]

A Village Transplanted: Ten Years on for the Three Gorge migrants

Nation, page 11

~ On Aug 15, the residents of Xingang village, in Guangdong province held a feast to mark ten years since the day they were moved out of their homes by the government, which needed to clear the area before it was submerged along with thousands of other villages upstream of the Three Gorges Dam. 

~ The Xingang residents now live 1,500 kilometers from their original homes in Wushan (巫山) county close to Chongqing Municipality’s border with and Hubei Province. 

~ The central government gave each family replacement houses in Xingang, with an allocation of 20-square-meters per person.

~ They are still not able to integrate into local life. One of the biggest barriers is language – it’s hard for them to learn Cantonese, the Guangdong dialect. Local people can always can tell that they are migrants by their accent.

~ A few of them did move back to Chongqing Municipality after arriving in Xingang, but most couldn’t – they had nothing left in their home region; relatives and friends had also been relocated. 

~ Migrants in this village mainly live by working at local factories and renting out part of their houses. They spend most of the time isolated from the rest of the Xingang; speaking their Chongqing dialect, eating Chongqing food, and marrying within their community.

~ A native Xinganger said that the Wushan migrants cause trouble, and complained that they have already get lots of compensation from the state, but still aren’t satisfied.

~ According to the policy for these migrants, each migrant received 0.6 mu, or around 0.1 acres, of cultivated land. Some were lucky enough to get rice, but several of the unlucky ones complained to the local governments.

~ In fact, the decision to resettle migrants from each village in groups of 100 people was based on social stability concerns. Smaller groups were bullied by the local people; larger groups tender to make trouble.  

~ "If one day our children speak the same language as locals and follow the same customs, and nobody feels that they are migrants, then this is real integration," one of the migrants said.

Original article: [Chinese] 

Barriers to Migrant Children Studying at Beijing Schools

Nation, page 12

~ Recently 24 schools for migrant children were closed down in Beijing, the closures directly effected 14,000 students and the government has cited safety concerns as the reason for shutting the schools. 

~ According to officials in Beijing's largest district - Chaoyang - the students from these schools can go to public schools to receive free education if they have a "Jiedu Zhengming" 《借讀證明》, a certificate showing they study here on a temporary basis. Alternatively, the children will be accomodated by civilian-run, public-subsidized schools. 

~ Currently, migrant workers need five certificates if they want to ensure their children can receive an education at Beijing's public schools: residence booklet (戶口本), temporary residence certificate (暫住證) of the childrens' guardians, residence certificate (住所居住證明), work certificate (務(wù)工就業(yè)證明) and a certificate that confirms that there are no qualified guardians who can look after the child in the place where their hukou is registered (戶口所在地鄉(xiāng)鎮(zhèn)政府出具的在當(dāng)?shù)貨]有監(jiān)護條件的證明).

~ It's hard to get all of these five certificates. Among the 4,574 students from the nine closed schools in Chaoyang District, by Aug 16, only 467 have all of the certificates.

~ On Aug 18, the education commission in Haidian district announced that the students from the four recently closed schools in that sistrict would be granted an exemption from this requirment and would be able to join public schools and enjoy the same rights as local students from Beijing without the 5 certificates.

~ However, it's still not easy for students to enter public schools because all have their "unspoken rules". 

~ In contrast, Shanghai government has invested a large amount of capital to improve the conditions at schools for migrant children and provides 120,000 free spaces for migrant children. 

Original article: [Chinese]