labor - The costs of claiming unpaid wages

Migrant workers did not get up to 100 billion RMB or yuan (USD 12.3 billion) paid over 2003 and the central government made repaying them into a priority, to prevent traditional unrest about unpaid wages ahead of the Chinese New Year. A new report by the Beijing Legal Aid and Research Center for the Youth (here quoted by the China Labour Bulletin, a tip of CDT) indicates why doing something about this problem is a problem: costs for this operation might be three times as much as the outstanding payments: 300 billion RMB (USD 36.9 billion).

The report was based on material taken from 8,000 questionnaires submitted to the research centre. The replies suggest that to claim wage arrears of 1,000 Yuan, migrant workers have to pay at least 920 Yuan in various charges and lose between 11 and 21 days at work. The lost days will cost them an additional 550 to 1,050 Yuan. On top of that, government and court officials are paid between 1,950 Yuan and 3,750 Yuan in wages for assisting each migrant worker to claim his or her wage arrears. Added together, the total comes to between 3,420 Yuan and 5,720 Yuan. As a result, the report concludes it will cost at least 3,000 Yuan to claim wage arrears of 1,000 Yuan.