The wages of fear: how the mainland's migrant workers are exploited
Migrant workers are easy prey on the mainland, where disputes are often settled by hired thugs
No one had ever seen the men in the white gloves before.
The workers at a Beijing construction site had been told they would be paid that day, after months of waiting. Instead, a bus rolled up and several men poured out and slipped on white gloves, two witnesses say. Then the gloved newcomers descended on the migrant labourers outside their dorm, punching and kicking some of the men.
Captured on video, a man in an orange construction helmet shoves one man into a wall, while another in a red coat kicks that same worker in the stomach, sending him aloft. A man holding a stick stomps another worker curled on the ground, as others in white gloves join in. The clip ends when one of the gloved men confronts the person holding the camera.
One victim that day suffered three broken ribs and the other a fractured cheekbone, one witness says. The police were called but no one was arrested.
The unspoken message delivered to the workers at the state-run construction site was that they should accept any pay, even if not the agreed amount. In fact, the workers received tens of yuan a day less than promised, two witnesses say. And the crew became part of the growing cycle of violence inflicted on undocumented labourers at mainland construction sites.
"Violence is getting more and more serious. It is definitely common," says Li Dajun, from the non-government organisation Beijing Practitioner Cultural Development and Research Centre for Migrant Workers.
