What Are Migrant Workers In China
Migrant Workers in the U.S. and China
Jose Loera
Nevada State College
Abstract
Many migrant workers in the U.S. tend to work in the agricultural industry as farmworkers, while migrant workers from China leave their rural farms to work in larger urbanized cities. Though roles seem to be reversed between the two groups, they have many similarities. The migrant workers from both the U.S. and China have significant impacts on their countries’ respective economies. In the process, these migrant workers endure many challenges such as poor pay, sub-standard living conditions, and work-related health risks. Regardless, migrant workers take on these challenges in order to better the lives of their families and to pursue their dreams and aspirations. Without their labor, many of the simple amenities that we enjoy would be more costly to obtain or not be available at all.
From the Chinese and Irish workers who helped build the first transcontinental railroad in the 1860’s to …show more content…
today’s farmworkers who picked the fruits and vegetables for the local buffet, migrant workers have always been weaved into the fabric of American society. In the United States, foreign-born workers make up an ample amount of the nation’s workforce and their contributions are vital to the overall U.S. economy. Other countries, such as China, also highly depend on migrant workers to contribute to the overall vitality of their nation’s economy. Over the past few decades, the urbanization of China’s coastal cities has been fast and furious. Though China’s migrant workers are mainly Chinese-born farmers from rural inland towns and villages, their challenges and ways of living are quite similar to those of the U.S. migrant worker.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 25 million foreign-born workers made up 15.8% of the U.S. labor force in 2010. This means that more than 1 in 7 workers in the United States is an immigrant (“Strength in Diversity,” 2012). Immigrant workers are in many fields such as construction, food service, and maintenance – migrant workers usually tend to refer to immigrant workers who leave their permanent homes to seek employment in agriculture, fishing, meat packaging, and dairy industries. Three to five million of these workers, along with their families, labor in fields and factories across the country to bring us fresh fruits, vegetables and other agricultural products. They often relocate several times during the year, pulling their children out of school, in order to follow the growing and harvesting seasons for different crops. Many of the migrant workers have their permanent homes in southern areas of the U.S. and they venture into northern areas to find work (“Farmworkers in the United States,” 2012). 77% of migrant farmworkers are of Mexican origin, with many others mainly coming from other Latin American countries. They continue a long tradition of people from Mexico harvesting crops in the southwestern U.S., including those who came here through the historic “Braceros” program, a program from the early 1940s created to bolster the nation’s work force as “soldiers of the fields and railroads” to help the U.S. win World War II (“Migrant Farmworkers in the United States,” n.d.). Not only do migrant workers impact the labor force, they also have a significant impact on the U.S. economy in different ways.
Most people are likely unaware that they probably eat something almost every day that has been handled by a migrant farmworker. These hard working people help make it possible for our nation to spend a mere 9% of our per capita income on food—less than any other nation in the world (“Migrant Farmworkers in the United States,” n.d.). In 2007, the White House Council of Economic Advisers reported that immigration overall increases the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by around $37 billion every year because immigrants increase the size of the total labor force, complement the native-born workforce in terms of skills and education, and stimulate capital investment by adding workers to the labor pool (Council of Economic Advisers, 2007). John Bellows, Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy, states that immigrants in the U.S. work and pay taxes and also create new products, businesses, and technologies that lead to jobs for all Americans, while filling niches where the domestic supply of workers is limited (2011). To show their overall economic impact, it is important to note that if all immigrant workers were removed from the United States, the country would lose $551.6 billion in economic activity, $245 billion in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and approximately 2.8 million jobs (“Strength in Diversity,” 2012). For people who contribute so much, it is a shame that they must face the many challenges that are endured throughout their daily lives to make our lives easier.
An issue facing migrant workers is that they suffer from a poor public image. As earlier stated, most people do not even consider the efforts of the farmworker who picked the strawberries for their breakfast cereal. The general perception of a migrant worker or any Latino immigrant is that they’re a dirty, lazy person who is in our country illegally, stealing jobs from native-born workers, and draining the U.S. economy through abuse of public services. While it is true that nearly half of all migrant workers are in the U.S. illegally, they complement native-born workers by doing the jobs that nobody else wants, and they work very hard doing so. Over the last decade or so, farmworkers have faced greater challenges in earning a living. National poverty levels have increased, while work is available for fewer weeks per year and wages have failed to keep up with inflation. The majority of farmworkers earn annual wages well below the current federal poverty level of $23,050 for a family of four. According to the National Agricultural Workers Survey, 61% of migrant farmworkers live in poverty. The median income for farmworkers is under $11,000 annually and farmworkers are the only workers who consistently earn lower hourly wages than fast food workers. In fact, while 71% of every food income dollar goes to corporate food processors and 23% goes to growers, only 6% goes to farmworkers. In addition, farmworkers are not afforded the same federal wage protections as other American workers, so employers are at liberty to pay them wages well below minimum wage (“Children in the fields: an American problem,” 2007).
Aside from the poor pay, migrant farmworkers are subject to harsh living conditions and suffer from many work-related health issues. Employers normally provide living quarters for their workers, but they are usually plywood made, sub-standard structures with filthy bathrooms or outhouses and stacked bunk beds used to accommodate anywhere from 20-30 workers in a space the size of a typical 2-car garage. When quarters are not provided, tents will line the surrounding areas of the camp or families will just sleep in their vehicles. Migrant workers also suffer a high number of health issues, such as heat exhaustion, dehydration, pesticide poisoning, or even get sick from the crop itself. Kentucky public health officials conducted a study showing that on a single day a tobacco worker could ingest as much nicotine as if he had smoked an average of 36 cigarettes (Luciano, 2011). Many of the same challenges faced by U.S. migrant workers are also faced by Chinese migrant workers.
Unlike many U.S. migrant workers, who end up as farmworkers, Chinese migrant workers are farmers who leave their rural towns and villages to go work in China’s larger urbanized coastal cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai. Over the past few decades, China’s economy has boomed due mainly to manufacturing. China is the world’s largest exporter and the demand for millions of workers has attracted citizens from inland to leave home and find work in the bigger cities. An estimated 250 million Chinese —a number equivalent to two thirds the total population of the United States —have left the countryside and migrated to the cities in recent years. About 13 million new people join the legions every year and the number is expected to surpass 300 million and maybe reach 400 million by 2025 (Hays, 2012).
With such large numbers, Chinese migrant workers have a significant effect on China’s economy. They have helped to co-ordinate the development of urban and rural areas, enhance competitiveness in industry, increase the vitality of cities, and strengthen the drive for reform and opening-up. Migrant workers not only helped to realize China 's aim of increasing people 's incomes and supporting the countryside, but their efforts have also speeded up industrialization and urbanization (“Research Report on Migrant Workers in China,” n.d.). Statistics on the impact of migrant workers on China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are scarce, but various reports suggest that rural workers contribute more than 530 billion yuan (US $65.4 billion) a year to local economies outside their hometowns (Zhenghua, 2005).
Many of the Chinese rural workers are farmers and farm workers that have been made obsolete by modern farming practices.
Others are factory workers who have been laid off from inefficient state-run factories. These workers include men and women and couples with children, where men often get construction jobs while women work in cheap-labor factories. Many couples will leave their children behind in their hometowns to be cared for by elders while they journey hundreds of miles to find work, often separating from each other to work in different cities. With a cell phone as their only lifeline to each other and to keep in touch with those at home, these couples will spend around eight months of the year away from home, returning to their respective villages in spring and the fall to help plant and harvest crops. Unfortunately, some workers are only able to make the journey back to their home villages once every few
years.
Wages earned by Chinese migrant workers is comparable to the wages earned by U.S. migrant workers. Factory workers work 12-14 hour days, 7 days a week for between $40 and $120 per month. Migrant construction laborers earn around $1.25 a day, which is pitiful by Western standards but much higher a wage than what they can earn in their home provinces. Some laborers are promised wages of $1.72 a day but end up getting only 57 cents, while other migrants earn around $50 a month sifting through garbage dumps for recyclables. Some workers are unaware of how much they earn and go years without receiving any money. They will work 12 hour days, seven days a week, and receive room and board in a cramped dormitory, daily rations of rice and noodles, and around $12 a month in spending money. Migrants send home around $45 billion a year, with the average migrant sending about a third of their $100 monthly earnings home. Unlike U.S. migrant workers, families with at least one migrant worker are almost automatically lifted above the Chinese poverty level of $1 a day (Hays, 2012). Similar to U.S. workers, Chinese migrant workers face challenging working and living conditions.
The grueling work pace without breaks and lack of sleep are a couple of reasons for a high number of accidents with personal injuries. Outdated and defective machines that are missing or lacking instructions and maintenance or simple disregard for safety measures in order to reach production goals also contributes to that number. The total number of deaths from work accidents was around 100,000 in 2005. Besides the overt injuries, there also "unreported" injuries like those workers who constantly faint or even go crazy because they cannot stand the stress. Construction workers migrate from job to job and live in squatter camps or on the sidewalks. Officially, they are supposed to have residency-status cards, but most can 't afford to obtain them and live illegally without cards. Dormitories provided by some employers can be cramped with two or three men sleeping together on bunks in 10-meter-long rooms crammed with 40 men. Migrants can also choose to stay in basement rooms for as little as $40 a month, sharing beds with workers who work different shifts and sleep at different hours. For those who are desperate, chairs at Internet cafes can be had for $2 a night, while others that have nowhere else to go sleep in public parks (“China’s Migrant Workers,” 2010).
While the roles of U.S. migrant workers and Chinese migrant workers appear to be reversed, there are similarities between the two groups. The determination to better provide for their families is what drives these people to endure the challenges of being a migrant worker. Poor wages, family separation, sub-standard living conditions, and work-related health risks do not deter migrant workers from pursuing their dreams and aspirations. If they did not do what they do, our lives would be affected more than anyone realizes. The next time we sit at the lunch table, eating our freshly made salad while talking on our iPhone, the least we can do is take a quick moment to appreciate those who make it all possible.
References
Bellows, J. (2011, May). The many contributions of immigrants to the American economy. In Treasury Notes. Retrieved from http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/The-Many- Contributions-of-Immigrants-to-the-American-Economy.aspx.
Children in the fields: an American problem. (2007). Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs. Retrieved December 6, 2012, from http://www.afop.org/CIF%20Report.pdf.
China’s migrant workers. (2010). In libcom.org. Retrieved December 7, 2012, from http://libcom .org/history/chinas-migrant-workers.
Council of Economic Advisers. (2007). Immigration’s economic impact. Retrieved from http:// georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/cea/cea_immigration_062007.html.
Farmworkers in the United States. (2012). In Migrant Health Promotion. Retrieved December 6, 2012, from http://www.migranthealth.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article &id=38&Itemid=30#1.
Hays, J. (2012, March). Migrant workers in China. Retrieved December 7, 2012, from http:// factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=150&catid=11&subcatid=72.
Luciano, L. (2011, November 4). Migrants ' woes: bed bugs, foul toilets, illness. NBC News. Retrieved from http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/11/04/8620474-migrants-woes- bed-bugs-foul-toilets-illness?lite.
Migrant farmworkers in the United States. (n.d.). In BOCES Geneseo Migrant Center. Retrieved December 6, 2012, from http://www.migrant.net/pdf/farmworkerfacts.pdf.
Strength in diversity: The economic and political clout of immigrants, Latinos, and Asians in the United States. (2012, January). In Immigration Policy Center. Retrieved December 6, 2012, from http://immigrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/docs/Strength_in_Diversity_ updated_2012_0.pdf.
Zhenghua, W. (2005, September). Convicted migrant worker killer waits for final verdict. In China Daily. Retrieved from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/21/ content_479492.htm.
Jose Loera
Nevada State College
Abstract
Many migrant workers in the U.S. tend to work in the agricultural industry as farmworkers, while migrant workers from China leave their rural farms to work in larger urbanized cities. Though roles seem to be reversed between the two groups, they have many similarities. The migrant workers from both the U.S. and China have significant impacts on their countries’ respective economies. In the process, these migrant workers endure many challenges such as poor pay, sub-standard living conditions, and work-related health risks. Regardless, migrant workers take on these challenges in order to better the lives of their families and to pursue their dreams and aspirations. Without their labor, many of the simple amenities that we enjoy would be more costly to obtain or not be available at all.
From the Chinese and Irish workers who helped build the first transcontinental railroad in the 1860’s to …show more content…
today’s farmworkers who picked the fruits and vegetables for the local buffet, migrant workers have always been weaved into the fabric of American society. In the United States, foreign-born workers make up an ample amount of the nation’s workforce and their contributions are vital to the overall U.S. economy. Other countries, such as China, also highly depend on migrant workers to contribute to the overall vitality of their nation’s economy. Over the past few decades, the urbanization of China’s coastal cities has been fast and furious. Though China’s migrant workers are mainly Chinese-born farmers from rural inland towns and villages, their challenges and ways of living are quite similar to those of the U.S. migrant worker.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 25 million foreign-born workers made up 15.8% of the U.S. labor force in 2010. This means that more than 1 in 7 workers in the United States is an immigrant (“Strength in Diversity,” 2012). Immigrant workers are in many fields such as construction, food service, and maintenance – migrant workers usually tend to refer to immigrant workers who leave their permanent homes to seek employment in agriculture, fishing, meat packaging, and dairy industries. Three to five million of these workers, along with their families, labor in fields and factories across the country to bring us fresh fruits, vegetables and other agricultural products. They often relocate several times during the year, pulling their children out of school, in order to follow the growing and harvesting seasons for different crops. Many of the migrant workers have their permanent homes in southern areas of the U.S. and they venture into northern areas to find work (“Farmworkers in the United States,” 2012). 77% of migrant farmworkers are of Mexican origin, with many others mainly coming from other Latin American countries. They continue a long tradition of people from Mexico harvesting crops in the southwestern U.S., including those who came here through the historic “Braceros” program, a program from the early 1940s created to bolster the nation’s work force as “soldiers of the fields and railroads” to help the U.S. win World War II (“Migrant Farmworkers in the United States,” n.d.). Not only do migrant workers impact the labor force, they also have a significant impact on the U.S. economy in different ways.
Most people are likely unaware that they probably eat something almost every day that has been handled by a migrant farmworker. These hard working people help make it possible for our nation to spend a mere 9% of our per capita income on food—less than any other nation in the world (“Migrant Farmworkers in the United States,” n.d.). In 2007, the White House Council of Economic Advisers reported that immigration overall increases the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by around $37 billion every year because immigrants increase the size of the total labor force, complement the native-born workforce in terms of skills and education, and stimulate capital investment by adding workers to the labor pool (Council of Economic Advisers, 2007). John Bellows, Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy, states that immigrants in the U.S. work and pay taxes and also create new products, businesses, and technologies that lead to jobs for all Americans, while filling niches where the domestic supply of workers is limited (2011). To show their overall economic impact, it is important to note that if all immigrant workers were removed from the United States, the country would lose $551.6 billion in economic activity, $245 billion in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and approximately 2.8 million jobs (“Strength in Diversity,” 2012). For people who contribute so much, it is a shame that they must face the many challenges that are endured throughout their daily lives to make our lives easier.
An issue facing migrant workers is that they suffer from a poor public image. As earlier stated, most people do not even consider the efforts of the farmworker who picked the strawberries for their breakfast cereal. The general perception of a migrant worker or any Latino immigrant is that they’re a dirty, lazy person who is in our country illegally, stealing jobs from native-born workers, and draining the U.S. economy through abuse of public services. While it is true that nearly half of all migrant workers are in the U.S. illegally, they complement native-born workers by doing the jobs that nobody else wants, and they work very hard doing so. Over the last decade or so, farmworkers have faced greater challenges in earning a living. National poverty levels have increased, while work is available for fewer weeks per year and wages have failed to keep up with inflation. The majority of farmworkers earn annual wages well below the current federal poverty level of $23,050 for a family of four. According to the National Agricultural Workers Survey, 61% of migrant farmworkers live in poverty. The median income for farmworkers is under $11,000 annually and farmworkers are the only workers who consistently earn lower hourly wages than fast food workers. In fact, while 71% of every food income dollar goes to corporate food processors and 23% goes to growers, only 6% goes to farmworkers. In addition, farmworkers are not afforded the same federal wage protections as other American workers, so employers are at liberty to pay them wages well below minimum wage (“Children in the fields: an American problem,” 2007).
Aside from the poor pay, migrant farmworkers are subject to harsh living conditions and suffer from many work-related health issues. Employers normally provide living quarters for their workers, but they are usually plywood made, sub-standard structures with filthy bathrooms or outhouses and stacked bunk beds used to accommodate anywhere from 20-30 workers in a space the size of a typical 2-car garage. When quarters are not provided, tents will line the surrounding areas of the camp or families will just sleep in their vehicles. Migrant workers also suffer a high number of health issues, such as heat exhaustion, dehydration, pesticide poisoning, or even get sick from the crop itself. Kentucky public health officials conducted a study showing that on a single day a tobacco worker could ingest as much nicotine as if he had smoked an average of 36 cigarettes (Luciano, 2011). Many of the same challenges faced by U.S. migrant workers are also faced by Chinese migrant workers.
Unlike many U.S. migrant workers, who end up as farmworkers, Chinese migrant workers are farmers who leave their rural towns and villages to go work in China’s larger urbanized coastal cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai. Over the past few decades, China’s economy has boomed due mainly to manufacturing. China is the world’s largest exporter and the demand for millions of workers has attracted citizens from inland to leave home and find work in the bigger cities. An estimated 250 million Chinese —a number equivalent to two thirds the total population of the United States —have left the countryside and migrated to the cities in recent years. About 13 million new people join the legions every year and the number is expected to surpass 300 million and maybe reach 400 million by 2025 (Hays, 2012).
With such large numbers, Chinese migrant workers have a significant effect on China’s economy. They have helped to co-ordinate the development of urban and rural areas, enhance competitiveness in industry, increase the vitality of cities, and strengthen the drive for reform and opening-up. Migrant workers not only helped to realize China 's aim of increasing people 's incomes and supporting the countryside, but their efforts have also speeded up industrialization and urbanization (“Research Report on Migrant Workers in China,” n.d.). Statistics on the impact of migrant workers on China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are scarce, but various reports suggest that rural workers contribute more than 530 billion yuan (US $65.4 billion) a year to local economies outside their hometowns (Zhenghua, 2005).
Many of the Chinese rural workers are farmers and farm workers that have been made obsolete by modern farming practices.
Others are factory workers who have been laid off from inefficient state-run factories. These workers include men and women and couples with children, where men often get construction jobs while women work in cheap-labor factories. Many couples will leave their children behind in their hometowns to be cared for by elders while they journey hundreds of miles to find work, often separating from each other to work in different cities. With a cell phone as their only lifeline to each other and to keep in touch with those at home, these couples will spend around eight months of the year away from home, returning to their respective villages in spring and the fall to help plant and harvest crops. Unfortunately, some workers are only able to make the journey back to their home villages once every few
years.
Wages earned by Chinese migrant workers is comparable to the wages earned by U.S. migrant workers. Factory workers work 12-14 hour days, 7 days a week for between $40 and $120 per month. Migrant construction laborers earn around $1.25 a day, which is pitiful by Western standards but much higher a wage than what they can earn in their home provinces. Some laborers are promised wages of $1.72 a day but end up getting only 57 cents, while other migrants earn around $50 a month sifting through garbage dumps for recyclables. Some workers are unaware of how much they earn and go years without receiving any money. They will work 12 hour days, seven days a week, and receive room and board in a cramped dormitory, daily rations of rice and noodles, and around $12 a month in spending money. Migrants send home around $45 billion a year, with the average migrant sending about a third of their $100 monthly earnings home. Unlike U.S. migrant workers, families with at least one migrant worker are almost automatically lifted above the Chinese poverty level of $1 a day (Hays, 2012). Similar to U.S. workers, Chinese migrant workers face challenging working and living conditions.
The grueling work pace without breaks and lack of sleep are a couple of reasons for a high number of accidents with personal injuries. Outdated and defective machines that are missing or lacking instructions and maintenance or simple disregard for safety measures in order to reach production goals also contributes to that number. The total number of deaths from work accidents was around 100,000 in 2005. Besides the overt injuries, there also "unreported" injuries like those workers who constantly faint or even go crazy because they cannot stand the stress. Construction workers migrate from job to job and live in squatter camps or on the sidewalks. Officially, they are supposed to have residency-status cards, but most can 't afford to obtain them and live illegally without cards. Dormitories provided by some employers can be cramped with two or three men sleeping together on bunks in 10-meter-long rooms crammed with 40 men. Migrants can also choose to stay in basement rooms for as little as $40 a month, sharing beds with workers who work different shifts and sleep at different hours. For those who are desperate, chairs at Internet cafes can be had for $2 a night, while others that have nowhere else to go sleep in public parks (“China’s Migrant Workers,” 2010).
While the roles of U.S. migrant workers and Chinese migrant workers appear to be reversed, there are similarities between the two groups. The determination to better provide for their families is what drives these people to endure the challenges of being a migrant worker. Poor wages, family separation, sub-standard living conditions, and work-related health risks do not deter migrant workers from pursuing their dreams and aspirations. If they did not do what they do, our lives would be affected more than anyone realizes. The next time we sit at the lunch table, eating our freshly made salad while talking on our iPhone, the least we can do is take a quick moment to appreciate those who make it all possible.
References
Bellows, J. (2011, May). The many contributions of immigrants to the American economy. In Treasury Notes. Retrieved from http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/The-Many- Contributions-of-Immigrants-to-the-American-Economy.aspx.
Children in the fields: an American problem. (2007). Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs. Retrieved December 6, 2012, from http://www.afop.org/CIF%20Report.pdf.
China’s migrant workers. (2010). In libcom.org. Retrieved December 7, 2012, from http://libcom .org/history/chinas-migrant-workers.
Council of Economic Advisers. (2007). Immigration’s economic impact. Retrieved from http:// georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/cea/cea_immigration_062007.html.
Farmworkers in the United States. (2012). In Migrant Health Promotion. Retrieved December 6, 2012, from http://www.migranthealth.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article &id=38&Itemid=30#1.
Hays, J. (2012, March). Migrant workers in China. Retrieved December 7, 2012, from http:// factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=150&catid=11&subcatid=72.
Luciano, L. (2011, November 4). Migrants ' woes: bed bugs, foul toilets, illness. NBC News. Retrieved from http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/11/04/8620474-migrants-woes- bed-bugs-foul-toilets-illness?lite.
Migrant farmworkers in the United States. (n.d.). In BOCES Geneseo Migrant Center. Retrieved December 6, 2012, from http://www.migrant.net/pdf/farmworkerfacts.pdf.
Strength in diversity: The economic and political clout of immigrants, Latinos, and Asians in the United States. (2012, January). In Immigration Policy Center. Retrieved December 6, 2012, from http://immigrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/docs/Strength_in_Diversity_ updated_2012_0.pdf.
Zhenghua, W. (2005, September). Convicted migrant worker killer waits for final verdict. In China Daily. Retrieved from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/21/ content_479492.htm.