The mainland's economic miracle results in exploitation and bitterness for too many of the workers who have built it. Lured from the poorer provinces to the engine room of the eastern seaboard, they are easy prey for greedy employers who steal their wages through contractual trickery after forcing them to work in dangerous conditions.
Entrenched bureaucracy further worsens their plight. Outdated household registration requirements deny them access to basic social services such as health care and schooling for their children after they leave their home provinces.
Today, we report welcome news from Chongqing - the source of many migrants - where officials from 35 cities have agreed on co-operation to ease workers' access to legal aid. No longer will migrants have to trek back to their registered homes in other provinces to claim legal assistance to take on recalcitrant employers through the courts.
No one is pretending it will solve the myriad problems facing migrant workers overnight, but it is an important step in the right direction. Encouraging workers to fight through the courts can only help end a cycle of frustration that often results in vain protest and sometimes violence. Further reform to foster a more open and accessible legal system will also be needed. Already, frustrated workers turning to government agencies for assistance are being pushed towards the courts, traditionally a venue in which few mainland workers would expect justice.
It is a reminder, too, of the need for further loosening of registration requirements to ease the delivery of social services on a national scale. The household registration requirement does not reflect the needs of a modern, progressive China. Further efforts are needed from Beijing to streamline the bureaucracy guiding citizens' lives. The Chongqing initiative represents action taken by like-minded provincial governments rather than a top-down order from Beijing. That is not to say that the central government cannot play its part by driving wider reforms to support the move. The workers deserve all the support they can get.
