Profile: Yi Fengjiao, born in 1983 in a farmer's household located in Hubei province, graduated from a secondary technical school in 2000 and then went to work in Guangdong.
In early 2005, she began working at Shenzhen Guowei Electronics Co. Ltd. While working, she enrolled herself in logistics management, a major at the junior college programme of Shenzhen Radio and Television University (Shenzhen RTVU), in the fall of 2005, and obtained a diploma in autumn 2008. With the theoretical knowledge learned at the university, and a wealth of experience, Yi Fengjiao and her team conducted repeated studies and tests to invent a “simple packaging” method that greatly enhanced work efficiency. Her excellent performance was rewarded with a promotion to the position of assistant superintendent responsible for work schedules. At the first meeting of the 12th session of the People’s Congress of Guangdong Province in early 2013, Yi Fengjiao, a migrant worker, was elected deputy to the new session of the NPC. She was Shenzhen migrant workers’ first representative among NPC deputies, and also the first NPC deputy since Luohu became a district of Shenzhen. Recalling her learning experiences at the university, Yi Fengjiao said, “I worked weekdays and attended classes on weekends. It was very hard! There were times when I worked overtime that I had to grab some bread to eat while running to campus. I worked more than 10 hours a day. After coming home, I read for two or three hours in the hopes of learning more to pursue my dreams.” Yi Fengjiao also said that there wouldn’t be a Yi Fengjiao today without the excellent learning platform provided by Shenzhen RTVU.
“The prosperity of cities involves our contribution. However it fails to provide for us. We are just a group of helpless migrant workers.”
The 12th NPC of Guangdong delegation held its 4th plenary meeting yesterday afternoon. The meeting, which reviews government work,is open to both Chinese and foreign media. Deputy Yi Fengjiao from Shenzhen made a speech at the meeting, with her first sentence referencing a verse created by a migrant worker poet, telling of the happiness and sadness of migrant workers.
Now it is time to change the current unfair policies through a series of institutional arrangements to help migrant workers integrate themselves into cities as soon as possible, instead of remaining forever“passers-by.”
-Yi Fengjiao
Cities，Stop Treating Migrant Workers as Passers-by!
At Guangdong delegation’s meeting,open to both Chinese and foreign media, Yi Fengjiao, a representative of migrant workers in Shenzhen, made a statement appealing for aid in integrating migrant workers into city life.
Yi Fengjiao was the only person from Shenzhen among nine who spoke before provincial leaders, including Hu Chunhua, a member of the CPC Central Committee’s Political Bureau and Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, Zhu Xiaodan, the Governor of Guangdong, and more than 200 journalists from both China and abroad.
In her statement,this representative of migrant workers, as always, represented the voices of migrant workers by calling on large cities to give the group greater educational and cultural rights.
“Passing without Entering” can't continue much longer
Yi Fengjiao herself was a true migrant worker. Although she has been working in Shenzhen for more than ten years and has become an NPC deputy, her registered permanent residence is still in her hometown in Hubei Province. She hasn’t changed her worker status from agricultural to non-agricultural. Thus, she can't be more familiar with the appeals from the migrant workers group she belongs to.
Yi Fengjiao said in her statement that, due to constraints in place in all systems, migrant workers have become “passing travelers” in cities. The situation has grown into a prominent social problem. “We work in cities, but are unable to settle down in them. This split lifestyle turns us into a floating group.” Yi Fengjiao said that migrant workers couldn’t form a skilled worker class because they had to move back and forth between urban and rural areas over long periods of time. That is not conducive to the long-term development of enterprises and upgrading of industries. A survey showed that migrant workers in Shenzhen returned to their hometowns at an average interval of 1.24 years, with most of those visits concentrated around the Spring Festival holiday, creating high demand on railroads and highways. At that time, Shenzhen becomes an“Empty City” as a result. Traffic pressures and problems related to left-behind children cast shadows on social harmony.
“Today, at the apex of concern for the future development of China, when we are so close to realizing the Chinese dream of a great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and creating a harmonious society as soon as possible, the country should pay attention to migrant workers. We are the major contributors to the future development of cities and a major segment of each city’s residents.” Yi Fengjiao said that now is the time to change the current unfair system through a series of institutional changes in order to help sidelined migrant workers blend themselves into cities as soon as possible, instead of remaining “passers-by” forever.
Household registration policies should conform to migrant workers’ actual situations
At present, many cities, including Shenzhen, have implemented a credit-based household registration policy. However, how many migrant workers have registered their household accounts in cities through this policy? Yi Fengjiao said that the design of a credit-based household registration system stresses academic degrees. But migrant workers generally do not possess high-level academic degrees. As an example,of the front-line workers who entered Guowei Electronic Co. in the past two years, more than half only possessed a junior high school education. In terms of skills, migrant workers usually have low educational levels and also lack the conditions to pursue continuing education and training. In this respect, they have few opportunities. As for social insurance, it is also harder for this group to satisfy the requirements.
Yi Fengjiao said that Premier Li Keqiang proposed in the “Government Work Report” to speed up the process of turning former agricultural workers into citizens. Therefore, multifaceted hearings and seminars should be held to make more migrant workers’ voices heard on the subject of cities’ credit-based household registration policies. This important public policy is directly related to making policies in line with the real needs of migrant workers.
Enable migrant workers to learn technology-based skills and obtain academic degrees
There are always some urban residents who criticize migrant workers for their low level of skills. It should be noted that this is the result of longstanding differences between urban and rural lifestyles. Yi Fengjiao said that migrant workers know they should improve their education level,however learning conditions must be improved first. The factories migrant workers work in are often very far from urban areas, and time and transportation costs are huge.
Yi Fengjiao cited herself as an example of continuing to study while working in Shenzhen, and finally obtaining her undergraduate degree. She has first-hand experience with those hardships. In view of this, during this meeting, she put forward “Suggestions on improving training for workers away from their hometowns and enhancing the effectiveness of training” to the general assembly.
“The supply and demand gap for skilled workers in the country is between 22 million to 30 million persons,” Yi Fengjiao said, noting that the comprehensive quality of workers away from their hometowns would directly determine the overall quality of the future Chinese workforce.
“Since migrant workers generally work long hours, we hope to establish training sites near factories and dormitories, and use more weekend and evening time to carry out training.” Yi Fengjiao said that we should not only develop skills training, but also help migrant workers obtain academic degrees in Shenzhen and other large cities. It would be very positive for their continued integration into cities.
Introduce social inclusion issues into the government’s assessment system
Yi Fengjiao suggested that government departments should set an objective for the annual inclusion of workers away from their hometowns and achieve real growth in areas such as the scale of coverage of employment services, social insurance, affordable housing, minimum subsistence allowances, social assistance, and medical assistance, as well as enrollment rates in local compulsory education. For example, human resources and social insurance departments should incorporate the offering of equal employment services for migrant workers and 2458-related indicators into the government performance evaluation system, and reward those sectors which meet their quota, as well as criticize those which fail to meet the target.
By Ma jiyuan,Jing Daily