labor - The story of the rising wages

Media seem of love the story: wages in China are going up. Unfortunately, when you look at the source of the story, it is mostly pretty weak. Like here in The Globe and Mail. It notes a hike of 3.4 percent for minimum wages in Beijing and an undisclosed percentage in Shanghai.
Those monthly wages are now 600 Rmb in Beijing and 690 Rmb in Shanghai: so low it would be impossible to get even uneducated workers for that rate. My estimation is that even migrant workers (who are not covered by those minimum wages) would get more, otherwise they would not show up.
Sad fact is that we know very little about the development of the wages.

Update: Even the official trade union, the ACFTU, calls for a rise in the minimum wages, I read here. Now we can be very sure this all has no meaning. Although:

Beijing's 2004 minimum wage of 545 yuan a month was just 20 percent of the city's average income, down from 39 percent in 1994.

You have to start somewhere, isn't it?