Migrant workers earn the right to become citizens of Shanghai

By Dong Hui  |   2009-8-5  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

THE image of the typical migrant worker in Shanghai is of someone who works hard, often in dirty conditions, but hardly earns the chance to put down permanent roots in the city.

However since May, 40 of them who earned the title of national-level outstanding migrant worker have received permanent residence permits, also called hukou, under China's Cabinet's special approval, and can settle down in Shanghai.

Leaving their fields to go to work in Shanghai, they used to face the same barriers as other outsiders under a strict household registration system. But with Shanghai hukou, they now can enjoy the same privileges of education, employment, healthcare and social services as local residents.

Compared with those 40 exceptional cases, other migrant workers are still struggling with a life of halfway existence, as Shanghai's recent policy relaxing of residency rules hasn't reached them.

Shanghai is the country's first large city to ease its previously rigid hukou system in a bid to attract skilled professionals.

Although making the city richer and more productive, most migrant workers in construction or factory work don't fit into the highly skilled technician or professional category it needs.

Some migrants are looking forward to a more relaxed migration policy to eliminate restrictions on them, but some say they never count on any future in cities.

Shanghai's "floating population" totaled about 6.5 million last year, nearly one-third of the city's total population, according to Shanghai Statistics Bureau. Outstanding worker

Li Ying's 8-square-meter home is on the second floor of a public lavatory in an old residential neighborhood in Shanghai's Zhabei District.

After serving in the toilet as a cleaner for nearly four years and living above it, the 28-year-old Jiangsu Province native became one of 40 migrant workers in Shanghai to receive hukou. Li deems the coveted hukou as "pennies from heaven, I never dare to dream of it."

Li's luck came as a reward for being chosen as a national-level outstanding migrant worker.

At the end of the award meeting in Beijing last November, China's Deputy Premier Zhang Dejiang told 1,000 migrant workers that they were allowed to transfer hukou from their rural hometown to the cities they work in. Tears rolled down Li's face before the deputy premier had finished his words. "It's far more practical than giving us money or honor," Li says.

Coming to Shanghai as a 17-year-old, Li landed her first job as a cotton spinner in early 1998, when Shanghai's textile industry began to reduce 862,000 spindles and make 35,000 workers redundant.

The factory's closure led to her working in different restaurants and selling red wine part time. In October 2005, Li found a job to Shanghai Zhahuan Lingshi Sanitation Engineering Co Ltd as a toilet cleaner. Thinking over the job "which even migrant workers disdain" for months, she took it to have her daughter by her side during work.

To completely remove odor from the lavatory, Li cleans the toilet after every customer, doing the cleaning work over 200 times a day. After 17 hours' work, she and her husband spend another hour flushing out and cleaning the drains.

Li spends her own money adding hand wash, soap, sandalwood and a water machine to the lavatory. The toilet even has plants, goldfish and a bench made by Li's husband.

Li's hard work has earned her city-level and nation-level honors, and later the hukou.

"I have much pride in being a Shanghainese," Li says. "But what's more important is I don't need to worry about my retirement and my child's education."

Before, with a fixed monthly salary of 1,200 yuan (US$176), slightly higher than the city's minimum wage of 960 yuan a month, Li and her husband felt little financial security.