The government should further improve the rules and regulations protecting migrant workers, says a commentary in Dazhong Daily. An excerpt follows:

The government of Dalian, Liaoning Province in northeast China, has established a special fund for migrant workers. The government will pay workers out of this fund if employers do not pay these workers on time. The government will then retrieve the money from the employers.

After the central government issued several files on protecting the rights of migrant workers, many provinces asked migrant worker' employers to hand over some money as a guarantee for these workers' salaries.

The practice of Dalian made the headlines because it uses public money to pay the workers, making the delayed salaries a debt owed to the government.

The local government has obviously done so out of goodwill, but it is not in accordance with the law. This discrepancy should be evaluated.

Migrant workers have often been cheated out of their pay because they were not well organized. Also, the rules covering labor disputes are not well established, making it both costly and difficult for migrant workers to get their pay.

The government paying the workers, then requiring reimbursement from employers, greatly helps largely powerless workers.

However, the public funds come from taxpayers and the government should not put the money at risk over employers' failure to pay migrant workers.

The primary responsibilities of the government should be to establish regulations for safeguarding migrant workers' interests, impose strict supervision on migrant workers' employers, make sure workers have proper employment contracts, and improve migrant workers' awareness of their rights.

(China Daily February 5, 2007)