Can overage migrant workers only be "removed"?
China News Weekly reporter / Zhou Qunfeng
Published in the 1038th issue of "China News Weekly" on April 4, 2022
On March 18, a report on "the construction industry evicts over-age migrant workers" attracted attention, and it rushed to the top of Weibo's hot search list that day.
According to the report, it is hard to find migrant workers over the age of 60 at the construction site, and there are very few migrant workers over the age of 55.
Many places across the country, including Shanghai, Tianjin, and Shenzhen, have issued documents to regulate and restrict the recruitment and use of overage farmers by construction companies.
The construction industry is a high-intensity and high-risk field, and some accidents involving migrant workers, especially old migrant workers, occur from time to time.
Zheng Fengtian, director of the Rural Development Research Institute of Renmin University of China, told China News Weekly that some migrant workers who are too old are prone to problems doing heavy physical work, so in some places they simply "one size fits all" and delineate an age line for them , not to anyone who crosses the line.
Compared with young and middle-aged migrant workers, the accident rate of this group is indeed higher.
Once a major accident occurs, local officials will face dual pressures to be held accountable and compensated.
"The one-size-fits-all approach is a bit simple and crude, and there are suspicions of shirking responsibility at the local level. The order to clear such groups and force them to leave the construction site reflects the real dilemma in many aspects."
Can security only rely on "clearance orders"?
The reason why over-aged migrant workers have been expelled in many places is that middle-aged and elderly migrant workers in some construction sites have had accidents or even sudden deaths.
On June 7, 2021, the Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau of Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province issued a high-fall accident report saying: "Recently, there have been a number of high-fall accidents at construction sites in our city, and the deceased in two accidents are over 60 years old. The next step will be to regulate The management of the employment age of construction enterprises shall prohibit personnel under the age of 18, men over the age of 60, and women over the age of 50 from entering the construction site to engage in construction work.”
It is not a new thing to impose age regulations on construction site employees, and many places have also expressed safety considerations in their publications.
The "Xia Ke Dao" of the overseas edition of People's Daily quoted a staff member of a project supervision company in Shenzhen as saying that 10 years ago, the regular construction site in Shenzhen no longer employed migrant workers over the age of 60.
"As you get older, your physical strength and energy are exhausted, and the probability of operating accidents increases. Considering the construction risks and the personal safety of migrant workers, it is not suitable for over-age migrant workers to engage in construction operations."
In May 2021, the relevant notice issued by the Shenzhen General Station of Construction Engineering Quality and Safety Supervision stated that the use of minors (under 18 years old) is strictly prohibited; in principle, workers who exceed the national statutory retirement age (60 years old for men and 50 years old for women) are not to be used. .
In 2019, the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and the Municipal Federation of Trade Unions jointly issued a document stating that three categories of persons under the age of 18, men over the age of 60, and women over the age of 50 are prohibited from entering the construction site to engage in construction operations.
At the same time, it is also stipulated that male workers over the age of 55 and female workers over the age of 45 are prohibited from entering the construction site to engage in underground, high-altitude, high-temperature, particularly heavy physical labor or other special work that affects physical health and is dangerous and high-risk.
Cui Yong, head of the Safety Section of the Shanghai General Station of Construction Engineering Safety and Quality Supervision, responded that 15% of the people who died from safety production accidents in the construction industry in 2018 were over 60 years old, and among construction workers at that time, more than Only 1% are 60 years old.
In this context, considering the high-risk characteristics of construction at high altitudes, open-air operations, manual and heavy work, etc., the physical strength and awareness problems brought about by overage are related to risk factors, coupled with poor living conditions on the construction site, heavy physical strength The required high-salt and high-oil diets are very detrimental to the health of the elderly. Therefore, the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and the Municipal Federation of Trade Unions researched and issued relevant documents in 2019.
In the past year, there were many relevant clearance orders issued in many places.
For example, on May 27, 2021, the Jingzhou Housing and Urban-rural Development Bureau issued a notice explicitly prohibiting men over the age of 60 and women over the age of 50 from entering the construction site to engage in construction work.
On June 11 of the same year, the Nanchang Urban and Rural Construction Bureau issued a notice stating that it is prohibited to recruit and use men over 60 years old and women over 50 years old to engage in "high-altitude, high-risk, high-risk, heavy physical" front-line operations on construction sites.
It is worth noting that some have also reserved a certain amount of flexibility when issuing "clearance orders".
"China News Weekly" noted that in the relevant notice issued by the Tianjin Municipal Housing and Construction Commission, although it is clear that "when the construction unit signs labor contracts with construction workers, it should strictly implement the national regulations on the legal retirement age. Women over the age of 50 are not allowed to sign labor contracts”, but it also stipulates that “if it is necessary to arrange or use over-age construction workers due to special circumstances, the construction unit shall verify the health certificate of the over-age personnel (the health certificate is valid for one year), and according to the The specific situation of the project will reasonably arrange the jobs.”
In the face of local regulations, public opinion has had mixed reactions.
Xia Zhuzhi, an associate professor at the China Rural Governance Research Center of Wuhan University, said in an interview with the media that "over-age migrant workers" are prohibited from engaging in construction work. This policy has been implemented in many places across the country for several years.
It should be said that the relevant regulations meet the requirements of the labor market and the management requirements of the state in related fields.
In order to strengthen the standardized management of employment in the construction industry, relevant regulations have also been issued at the national level.
On February 17, 2019, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security jointly formulated and issued the "Administrative Measures for the Real-Name System for Construction Workers (Trial)", requiring construction companies to sign labor contracts with the construction workers they recruit and provide them with basic safety training. , and register on the relevant construction worker real-name management platform before allowing them to enter the construction site to engage in construction-related activities.
The measures stipulate that construction enterprises should be equipped with the necessary hardware facilities and equipment to realize the real-name management of construction workers. In principle, the construction site should implement closed management, set up access control systems for entry and exit, and use facial, fingerprint, iris and other biometric technologies for electronic punching; Engineering projects that do not have closed management conditions should adopt technologies such as mobile positioning and electronic fences to implement attendance management.
Relevant electronic attendance records and electronic files such as images and images shall be kept for not less than 2 years.
However, according to Lu Dewen, a Ph.D. in sociology and a researcher at the China Rural Governance Research Center of Wuhan University, many industries engaged in by migrant workers have informal employment problems, and there should be specificity in management.
According to the "China Flexible Employment Development Report (2022)" blue book, the proportion of flexible employees in the construction industry will reach 76.60% of the total number of employees in 2021, the highest proportion among the surveyed industries, with 44.496 million flexible employees.
"From special formal employment (such as staff in institutions) to temporary employment (such as construction site personnel with paydays), there is a very long employment chain and complex employment patterns." He told China News Weekly , many of the jobs that migrant workers are engaged in are temporary, seasonal and indeterminate, and some employers also like to use these flexible workers.
From a sociological point of view, this form of employment is very normal.
He believes that the security of migrant workers and the need for flexible employment are two different things.
"Objectively, we need flexible employment, and we should respect the reality of this industry. To allow flexible employment to have sufficient space, the government should not set an age line and interfere too much with this type of employment. There is no need to force this kind of employment. People leave the construction site. To reduce the accident rate, it should be achieved by improving site safety measures and limiting working hours.”
The shortage of labor behind the "helpless and just need"
Although there are clear official regulations at the policy level, and construction companies also use technological means in implementation, in reality, in the face of the strong willingness of over-age migrant workers to work, and the employers' "helpless and rigid need" for over-age migrant workers, " The removal order" was not implemented ideally.
A foreman in Fuzhou, Jiangxi told China News Weekly that he has used migrant workers over 60 years old many times.
In some rural areas, when children get married and hold birthday banquets for grandsons, they are very particular about pomp and circumstance.
Some elderly people in rural areas are getting older, but they feel that they are in good health, so they want to come out and earn more money.
"They are very dedicated, and they are almost never late for work at the construction site, but after all, they are old and their reactions are slow, and they are prone to bumps and bumps. The salary is generally more than 200 yuan per day, on a daily basis.”
He introduced that the migrant workers on construction sites now are the main force after the 1970s, not many after the 1980s, and very rare after the 1990s.
Among the migrant workers he is using now, the youngest is in his 40s, and the oldest is in his 70s.
"It is also helpless to use overage migrant workers. Young people are reluctant to come, and some would rather play cards at home than work on construction sites."
The foreman said that large-scale construction companies are now more standardized in their employment, and they dare not use over-aged migrant workers for high-risk tasks such as working at heights. They will also issue access cards to eligible migrant workers or use their faces Recognition technology, some elderly migrant workers can not get access cards.
"However, they will find small contractors like me, because I can't recruit young people, and some simple jobs have to be done by people, so they have to use them."
There are a number of workarounds to "circumvent" regulation.
According to regulations, to pay wages to migrant workers, they must provide their ID cards and wage cards.
"When they came to fill in their personal information, in order to 'conform to their age', they provided me with the ID cards of their sons or daughters, etc., and I also credited the salary to the account provided by them. In fact, I did not have any relationship with their children. any employment relationship."
Zheng Fengtian said that after the reform and opening up, with the rapid development of my country's economy, the demand for labor at construction sites has surged.
A large number of migrant workers went to cities to work, which contributed to the development of the city and solved the employment problem of the surplus rural labor force.
As they get older, many should have quit the dirty, tiring, and risky construction industry.
However, in reality, it is difficult for the employers to recruit young and middle-aged migrant workers, and there is even a "labor shortage". In this context, the employers also have certain realistic considerations for the use of such migrant workers.
He said that my country's construction site market is still in a state of low-cost expansion. Some contractors offer low-cost quotations in order to obtain contracts, and then recruit these cheap elderly laborers in order to reduce costs, which is indeed easy to bring security risks.
However, there is a "one-size-fits-all" age discrimination against migrant workers by the local government, which will block the employment needs of the construction side and the employment needs of the elderly.
The "clearance order" seems to protect the interests of migrant workers, but it ignores some of their reasonable demands.
"In reality, construction sites are mainly middle-aged and elderly migrant workers. When contracts cannot be signed, it may lead to subcontracting in the construction field, and the phenomenon of migrant workers who work but cannot get wages."
During Lv Dewen's research, he found that the reason why some over-age migrant workers want to stay on construction sites is also due to the needs of their families.
With the acceleration of urbanization, many people's children are reluctant to be "second-generation migrant workers".
These elderly migrant workers stay at the construction site to work in order to have some higher income and help their children stay in the city.
"Some old migrant workers believe that although they can meet their livelihood problems by going home to farm and sell vegetables, they choose to continue working in order to help their children buy a house and settle down in the city."
"Although the starting point of making the clearance order is good, the government must respect market laws and national conditions." Lv Dewen pointed out that if the employers of construction sites want to recruit young migrant workers, they can only raise wages.
But contractors often want to cut costs and are reluctant to raise wages.
When he visited and investigated many places, he found that migrant workers at construction sites now earn two or three hundred yuan a day, and some skilled workers can even earn four or five hundred yuan a day.
From the perspective of construction companies, labor costs are already high, and overaged migrant workers are also quite satisfied with this treatment.
The current state of recruitment and employment is in a state of equilibrium. Once the policy is forced to break it, it will only lead to a situation in which the employer cannot recruit and the elderly migrant workers are forced to leave the construction site.
"This is neither in line with the laws of the market, nor realistic, nor necessary. This is also a major reason why many places have issued multiple clearance orders, but they have not been implemented."
Ding Dajian, a researcher at the China Employment Research Institute of Renmin University of China, who has been engaged in labor market research for many years, said in an interview with the media that there is currently a shortage of low-skilled basic labor in our country.
"Many industries are short of low-level workers. People in rural areas should pay almost the same amount. Many young people go to school now, or do not like to do hard physical labor. If (age) is too stuck, this There will be a shortage of labor supply in the industry.”
The "anxiety of old age" of over-aged migrant workers
At the same time that the removal order has been hotly debated, the aging of migrant workers has also become an unavoidable social problem.
On April 30, 2021, the National Bureau of Statistics "2020 Migrant Workers Monitoring and Survey Report" shows that the total number of migrant workers nationwide in 2020 is 285.6 million, with an average age of 41.4 years, of which migrant workers over the age of 50 account for 26.4%. , compared with 19.1% in 2016.
According to Xia Zhuzhi, associate professor of the China Rural Governance Research Center of Wuhan University, the total number of migrant workers in China is about 290 million, and the scale is very large. On the basis of the increase in wages and the protection of rights and interests, there are still a considerable number of young people who are willing to join migrant workers. team.
In addition, with the continuous improvement of the level of informatization and automation in the field of construction, the types of employment are becoming more and more diverse, and the employment structure is constantly adjusted, and the demand for heavy manual laborers in the entire market will gradually decrease.
On the one hand, the number of over-aged migrant workers is increasing, and on the other hand, the market demand for these people is declining.
In this context, where will these migrant workers go?
Zheng Fengtian said that the local area should be changed from blocking to sparse to comprehensively solve related problems.
First of all, there are certain types of work on the construction site that are not allowed to be done by old migrant workers if they have a lot of effort and high risks, but they can still be allowed to do some work that they can do.
Secondly, it must be seen that there is a real problem that the physique of the elderly of the same age will also be quite different. Some people in their 60s may also have very good physical conditions. Therefore, they should have some physical examinations on a regular basis. If some main indicators of the body No problem, you can also put them in related jobs.
Third, if the rulers of some cities must let them leave the construction site, they should also consider more humane considerations and take into account their labor needs, such as guiding them to do some sanitation, nursing and other work in the city.
"Through such comprehensive measures, we can not only solve the labor needs of some units, but also give full play to the waste heat of elderly migrant workers."
Xia Zhuzhi suggested that, in addition to ensuring safety, the construction industry's "removal" of over-aged migrant workers should also be linked to the protection of rights and interests.
At present, in the social security system for migrant workers, the basic system for rural residents to “have land to grow, food to eat, and housing to live in” has been established. The basic old-age insurance system for urban and rural residents is gradually being improved, and relatives of children can also provide them with traditional ethics-based services Assure.
For over-aged migrant workers who still want to work and earn money to "contribute to their families", the relevant departments should follow up on the protection of labor rights and interests in a timely manner, provide laborers with necessary employment information, reserve rights protection channels, and do their best to help.
During his research, Lv Dewen found that many migrant workers at construction sites were reluctant to pay social security.
Liang Yu, a commentator at China Economic Net, said that due to historical debts, many over-aged migrant workers lack the awareness of paying pension insurance, coupled with the difficulty of transferring across provinces, many people are forced to interrupt social insurance or even abandon insurance.
As a result, many migrant workers have no choice but to choose to "pay less if they can pay less".
With no support, old age, and pension anxiety, the group of over-aged migrant workers is getting bigger and bigger.
It is necessary to establish a higher level of social security system, do a good job of coordinating pension insurance in different places, so that more migrant workers can rely on their old age.
At this year's two sessions, Sima Hong, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and executive vice-chairman of the Beijing Association for Science and Technology, said that the difficulty of participating in insurance for flexible employment groups is a continuation of the historical legacy of migrant workers in the digital economy era.
She suggested that, in view of the fact that many non-working place workers do not pay social security at the workplace, untie the social pooling amount of social security from the place of payment, and the payment of fees by enterprises and individuals should be included in the scope of the transfer of social security rights and interests, so as to achieve "money with the money." People go” to support more flexible employment groups to be included in the high-security social security system.
Ding Dajian believes that to solve the problems of life and employment of over-aged migrant workers, it is practical to adopt flexible policies in the short term and dynamically regulate employment safety.
In the long run, we should consider expanding the coverage of the work-related injury insurance system for employers and workers through pilot projects, and carry out trial participation in insurance for people over the legal retirement age.
In addition to migrant workers, the bottom line security level of the entire farmer group also needs to be further strengthened.
Zheng Fengtian told China News Weekly that as far as he knows, farmers in a very small number of places, such as Beijing and Shanghai, can receive a pension of 800 to 1,000 yuan per month after reaching a certain age. The pension of one or two hundred yuan is almost negligible.
Relevant state departments should raise the pension level of farmers, for example, on the basis of the current level, mention 300 to 500 yuan.
"This not only reflects the country's emphasis on farmers, but also reduces the need for over-aged migrant workers to go out to work."
"China News Weekly" Issue 12, 2022
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