On The Social Deprivation Of The Rural Migrant Workers: Current Situation And The Logic

Research on the rural migrant workers' working time is not onlyhelpful to improve their rights and interests situation, build harmoniouslabor relation, but also can relieve the impingement to Chinese enterprisethe SA8000's appearing and carrying out brings, turn passiveness intoinitiative, studying and working out the laborer standard in conformitywith the international practice in advance, promote the development ofdomestic enterprise.This paper has surveyed thirteen rural migrants' work time, payment,leisure, rest, health and training with case interview method, and analyzedthe impact of longer work hours and lower salary pay over peasantlaborer life. Besides, this paper explains why the peasant laborer canbear the absolute depriving state of so long work hours and lower salarypay and why the absolute depriving state can maintain over a long periodof time with Richard M. Emerson's Exchange Theory.Firstly, the research finds that, the migrant workers work long, havelittle or monotonous and boring leisure time. The right of rest and healthdoes not get guarantee.Secondly, out of labor union, no labor contract or a short-term contract,without medical insurance, pension insurance and unemployment insurance,all of these system hiatuses are harmful for the right of the migrantworkers to defend.Thirdly, this paper views the rural migrants and their enterprise asthe two sides with exchanging relation, thinks they are in a kind ofunequal commutation relation. Since the individual thinking right islacking in strength, resigning is not a high cost and high risk choice,technique lining chance is very small, government failure, the collectivethinking right strength is weak, they have no ability to reverse theunequal commutation relation, only accept the absolute depriving state.Then, the paper analyzes government benefit choosing and themigrant workers' right defension, thinks that in the system of measuringleaders' political achievements with GDP and specially appointed tax revenue ,local government, as a rational individual, will run aftermaximizing self-interest, may be partial to the latter at ease betweendefending laborer rights and improving the investment climate.This paper concludes that, compared with general workers, thecharacteristic of the Chinese rural migrants is their identity with dualnature: judging from occupation identity, they are workers; but judgingfrom census register and mentality belonging, they are peasants as before. Exactly for the dual nature in identity, theirrelative depriving feeling also has dual nature: compared with city people,the migrant workers' relative depriving feeling is very strong; comparedwith the rural people in his hometown, it is not so obvious. Just becauseof the existence of relative depriving feeling, the migrant workers are ableto endure the absolute deprivation. Working in the city is not to strugglefor the extra income, but the main income stemming from. However hardthe work is, it is better than in the countryside.Lastly, the paper brings forward some questions to discuss and studyfurther. The first is about structuring harmonious labor relations, thinkingthat current harmonious labor relation is based on the rural migrants'absolute deprivation, only resolving the problem of national treatment ofthe rural migrants' workers fundamentally can build long-termharmonious labor relation, that is, The government should abolish therural migrant workers' system. And the government can think to work outa minimum hourly wage standard for full-time laborers. Under thecondition of the hourly wage standard, if people work with more hours,they will get more money. The enterprises are not capable to reduceproduct cost by prolong working time, and the right of the rural migrantworkers will be ensured. The second, the paper thinks that, the socialdeprivation chain caused by training insufficiency also leads to theiraccepting the absolute depriving state, the government ought to restrictworking time strictly, raise wage level, set apart some time and moneybeing used for their training, and ought to be the main organizer andinvestor of the rural migrants' training.