Our migrant workers need some respect

You can see groups of migrant workers on the subway, clutching hard-hats and bundles of their possessions. Their faces are tanned and worn, deep wrinkles lining their foreheads, thick calluses on their hands. You also see them in the bank every so often, standing together in faded, scuffed clothes, laughing and joking with one another, probably happy to be sending money to their families back in their home villages.

And, of course, you see them every day on construction sites around the city, clambering up scaffolding with determination and dexterity, fitting, fixing, welding, hammering, breaking and building the city up. On rare occasions, you catch a glimpse of a group of them off-shift, resting in makeshift tents or shoddy dormitories, often nearby or right in the construction site on which they work, crammed tightly into cots or hard bunks.

Many work 12 hours a day, six days a week. Others work longer hours, seven days a week until the project that employs them is done. Pay is low. A skilled welder can make almost 2,000 yuan a month, but most migrant workers make around 1,000 yuan or so.