"Before, I thought model workers only recognized ordinary people who worked tirelessly and without asking for anything in return," the 24-year-old Yao said through his agent. "Now the award also includes someone like me, a special kind of migrant worker. That's a sign of progress."Yao went on to say, "There, I said it. Now please don't execute my family." Now let's hear from average folks in that enlightened workers' paradise:
"What's the point of understanding it? They will never pick one of us," said Wei Yanzhou, 42, a welder from Hubei province who is helping to build what is expected to be the tallest building in Beijing. Wei works about 12 hours a day, seven days a week for about $100 a month. If he takes a sick day, the boss deducts the day's wage from his pay. Wei considers himself lucky. Many migrant workers receive no wages at all from employers who claim to be bankrupt or disappear with laborers' hard-earned money. At the end of the day, workers like Wei are shuttled back to factory dorms where they sleep more than a dozen to a small room. There is no hot running water, no heat or ventilation and little food. "We eat cabbage three times a day. Sometimes the rice has sand in it," said bricklayer Zhu Zhou, who looks a decade older than his 40 years. "We see meat maybe twice a week. We don't even get enough drinking water, never mind a shower."
Happy May Day.
[Hat-tip: Kevin Whited]
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