China Labour Bulletin Director Han Dongfang is quoted in this half-hour radio documentary on migrant workers in Guangdong, produced and presented by Mukul Devichand for the BBC.

Around 30 private schools, set up to provide a basic education for the children of migrant workers in Beijing, have been ordered to close, leaving nearly 30,000 students with an uncertain future as the new school year begins, the Beijing News reported today.

More than one third of the population of China’s most prosperous province, Guangdong, are migrants, according to the latest census statistics. Despite recent attempts by provincial authorities to better integrate Guangdong society, there are still 36.7 million migrants in the province, out of a total population of 104 million.

Chengguan, the low-level law-enforcement officers tasked with keeping order on city streets, are probably the most reviled group of workers in China today. But now many are now claiming they are more sinned against than sinners.

Simmering tensions in labour relations in the mainland are sometimes exacerbated by the tough conditions faced by migrant workers. Now and again, these tensions bubble over into open confrontation, as they did last weekend. The unrest was triggered when a pregnant migrant woman from Sichuan province was asked to remove her hawker’s stall by village security officers on Friday night. Workers accused the villages’ security officers of pushing the pregnant woman to the ground. Those accusations led to a violent conflict between workers and security officers. Hundreds of people, mainly workers from Sichuan workers, flocked to the area. Some hurled bricks and bottles at municipality officers.

Han Dongfang talks to a public broadcaster in Liaoning about his attempts to petition the central government in Beijing and file a lawsuit against the local authorities after he was downgraded to temporary worker status in 2006.

A compelling portrait of migrant worker life in the Pearl River Delta shows that while conditions have improved for some factory workers, for others, that change has come too late. Photograph by Renon-san.

Nearly 60 percent of companies in Shenzhen actively discriminate against prospective employees on the basis of age, gender, health, appearance or residency, a new investigative report has revealed. Women suffer from a disproportionately high level discrimination, the report found, particularly in the service sector where “appearance” is regularly included in recruitment criteria.

Dozens of villages in outer Beijing are due to be demolished to make way for new developments. But the migrant workers and young graduates who live there will get zero compensation for being made homeless. Photo of Tangjialing village.

Table of Contents

Part one: Those left behind

Part two: Under the same blue sky? Rural migrant children in urban China

Part three: The government's response

Part four: Conclusions and recommendations