A co-operation agreement that aims to provide legal aid to farmers-turned-labourers was signed by 31 major cities at the weekend. The first of its kind in the country, it is a significant step forward in safeguarding the rights and interests of farmer labourers.

farmer labourers in the city

Effective in almost all major cities in China which are on top of the lists when rural labourers choose to seek jobs out of their hometowns, the document will hopefully become a legal weapon that farmer labourers can use when they are suffer unfair treatment.

Taking into consideration the high mobility of the group, it defines that victims of delayed payment could ask for legal aid in any of the 31 cities under the agreement to recover their payment as long as the case occurred in one of these cities.

This seems to be the most valuable part of the document as it makes farmer labourers who are always on the move able to recover delayed payments when they are in another city.

Official estimate indicates the number of regular farmer-turned labourers stands at around 100 million. The money brought back by these people is more often than not the lifeblood of their rural families.

However, due to insufficient protection on their rights and interests either at the administrative or at the legal level, a considerable number of migrant workers have to endure prejudice and even varying degrees of maltreatment in the cities.

Among many of their sufferings, late or even cancelled payments stood out as the worst violation of migrant workers' interests at the end of last year.

Since then, both the government and society in general have given keen attention on the plight of farmer labourers. Intervention of government bodies at different levels and growing social pressures over unfair employment practices have helped to recover payment for many of the unfortunate people.

However, to end this bad phenomenon, administrative measures are not enough. A legal aid umbrella that farmer labourers could turn to in times of maltreatment is also indispensable.

The agreement signed between the 31 major cities provides such an umbrella to migrant workers working there.

To make this really benefit the needy, migrant workers in those cities should be made well aware of the agreement.

Given that medium and small-sized cities in the affluent South are also the favourite destinations of migrant workers, it is equally important that the practice could be expanded to cover more cities and more people.

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