Beijing has vowed to punish employers who fail to settle the wages of rural migrants before the Lunar New Year after a number of suicide attempts by unpaid workers.
In a major policy shift, the authorities have launched a massive propaganda campaign to expose the plight of the migrants in cities.
The campaign is aimed partly at assuaging the discontent of migrant workers during the holiday period. More importantly, it is a prelude to a likely policy shake-up aimed at encouraging the rural population to work in cities.
But policymakers are aware that such a policy could pose a severe threat to social stability if the rural workers are not treated fairly, and a delicate balancing act is required amid heightening tensions between the migrants and urban residents.
For the first time in China's media history, reports about migrant workers threatening to jump from rooftops and cranes on construction sites if their salaries are not paid have appeared in newspapers almost daily.
Such threats have become common and are probably the most effective way for workers to force the authorities to intervene and demand back pay from their employers before they return to their villages for the holidays.
It is a common practice for employers to delay payments of migrant workers' salaries for six months or even a year until the Lunar New Year. But according to media reports, in many cases employers have refused to pay at all, or only given workers a faction of their salaries, using excuses such as bad corporate performance.
