A construction worker's statement

At the second session of the Twelfth National Committee of the CPPCC National Committee this year, Li Binsheng, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and former Secretary of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, mentioned the maintenance of the rights and interests of construction workers during the speech and once again caused media attention.

For a long time, construction workers have been the groups that have attracted public attention. However, few people have noticed that in recent years, the number of female construction workers has continued to grow. Why do women who are much weaker than men have to gather on construction sites where there is a lot of energy? What kind of state of survival and inner thoughts do they have?

From the survey of female construction workers and surveys of this group, we may be able to obtain answers to these questions and provide valuable reference for the protection of the rights of female construction workers.

She had witnessed the accident at the construction site. She was afraid to think about it, but she still insisted on choosing it again and again.

To treat the red dragonfly that was bitten by the bug, she said that only dichlorvos is effective, but the construction site does not allow it.

Although she has worked in Beijing for several years, she feels that she has nothing to do with Beijing.

This is the story of Zhou Jie. It is also a similar experience for thousands of female construction workers.

Starting from 6 in the morning, connecting for ten and a half hours

My main job at the construction site is to open the ladder. Have you seen it? It is the ladder that the floor is not covered and the goods are to be transported up and down. We (their own husband) are the driver.

The site is officially open to work every morning at six o'clock in the morning. But I had to go 20 minutes earlier than other workers, and I had to report to the site at 5:40. Usually at half past five, I will go to the ladder and try to see if the ladder is working properly. Site supervision is very strict and it is afraid of safety issues.

The elevator driver has a special driving floor. The place is very small, 3 meters long and 1.5 meters wide. Because it is surrounded by iron sheet, it is not airtight, so it is cold in the cold of the winter, and the sun in the summer is like a fire.

Ladder drivers are special operations and need to get a driver's license before they can take up posts. There is training before taking the certificate and the certification is passed before the exam is passed. However, there are not many certified drivers on the construction site. Training is actually very important. There are very few sites that can actually be trained.

In the first year of working out, he entered the construction site and became a construction worker. We are not accustomed to work and the environment, and my heart is not very comfortable. In fact, at first I did not want to do this job, but I could not do anything else.

Initially, we were introduced by an acquaintance to the construction site. My brother knew the previous boss. It was at Xihongmen in Beijing. The workers on that site have come from at least seven or eight provinces, and at least a dozen or more workers have been building a building.

We don't actually work out in Northeast China. After the construction site was suspended in mid-December each year, we went home for a month or two. There were also cases where relatives and friends asked for work. I told them about the conditions on the site and they were afraid that they would not adapt.

In more than three years, eighty-nine sites have been changed, but this figure is only a few more. Basically all in Beijing, but also to Hebei twice.

The boss we follow is not the main body, but contracting equipment and then renting it out. Then, the tenant will find a few drivers to open the ladder, but only in the name of the individual, not the company. So do not sign the contract, just verbal agreement.

After working in the morning every morning, they must be connected for more than ten hours. Here, all month, no overtime, no heat subsidies, no weekends and holidays. I also asked my boss that the "Eleventh" will not be allowed to leave. The boss said "No, no leave."

Eating and drinking are all problems

My job is not a shift, a ladder with two drivers. My husband and I are in control. This work was particularly bitter, from work to work, from the start of work to the completion of this building, no one to replace.

Ladders are also inseparable from people. Going to the toilet is a problem. Even if there is a temporary stoppage of water and electricity, workers cannot work. We cannot leave and we can stroll around at most. After the completion of this building, our driver could liberate for a day or two, but not more than 5 days. After the new job comes down, they have to follow the boss to another site.

By noon, I usually go to the cafeteria to eat. The cafeteria meals are mostly Sichuanese, spicy, and I don't like to eat spicy food. I am not used to it. Sometimes I do it myself, but that's too much trouble and I have to occasionally have high voltage electricity.

Canteens generally use internal meals, because wages are not issued on a monthly basis, and there is less cash in hand, which can only be borrowed or used for meal contractors. This meal ticket can't be spent elsewhere. It can only be bought in the canteen designated by the boss. The canteen's price is particularly high, more expensive than outside, and at least eight yuan is usually eaten.

In the past few years, I have been working on the site, basically the boss does not eat, the salary will not give more. I used to work on a construction site in Chaoyang District and can only cook for myself. To the nearest market to buy food, walk more than 20 minutes. Nearby restaurants are more expensive and unsanitary.

Drinking water is also a problem. The site has its own boiler for boiling water, but many times it can't wait for the water to open. On a construction site, hundreds of people drink that boiler. Can they drink it? So I try to bring my own water.

In this way, even if the food is not well taken and the rest is not good, the body can not eat much. A few months ago I didn't do construction work. I really couldn't stand it. That environment is generally unacceptable when it is slightly older. On several occasions, I was physically unwell and I was quite spiky. I had some medicine and then went to work. I had no time to see a doctor.

I am now in poor health. Gastrointestinal disease is the biggest problem. I have not been able to eat well in recent years. I am still sitting in the old age, I have a backache, and I have a cold winter. I have a long time and I have problems.

Before the construction site in Chaoyang District, the boss took my job to his fellow villagers and I was pushed out. After the wages were not paid, the agreement should be given. I quarrelled with the boss twice. He just managed to give me half and made me sick and spent five or six hundred dollars.

Since then, my body has not been very good. If I go to the doctor for one year, I have to spend two or three thousand dollars. This year, up to now, we have spent more than two thousand yuan.

When you are paid, you are most afraid to hear "wait for another few days."

The work of opening the ladder is also dangerous. Otherwise, why should we train? Before that, an accident happened on a construction site in Wuhan where a ladder suddenly fell and 19 people died.

But fortunately, I haven't made mistakes in my work.

We only gave us helmets on the site. It was a very common kind of thing. It fell and it was not shocking. Other labor supplies, such as gloves and masks, are bought by themselves. The boss is not to delay the schedule and ignore safety.

I have seen a lot of accidents, and I have been particularly scared to see with my own eyes. One time I saw the airgun was out of focus, and I got in from one's back elbow, and my hand flew out.

Another time at Xihongmen, I saw a female worker falling from five levels and fell into a comminuted fracture of the waist. In the hospital, 110,000 yuan was spent, and people were wasted. She is still young, less than thirty years old.

These accidents are generally resolved on site.

We work to find our own boss. I am a driver. In 2010, the monthly salary is 2,000 yuan, in 2012 it was 2,200 yuan, and by 2013 it was 2,350 yuan. I heard that some of the sites were better, with 2,800 yuan to eat. However, they only consume energy at the end of the year. Therefore, when I go out to work, I pay special attention to wages, and I am most afraid of arrears of wages. I am most afraid of hearing such words as “waiting for another few days” because I am always out of sight.

I am not satisfied with the status quo. The first reason for our migrant workers is that the working hours are too long and there are no eight hours or less; second, the wages are not issued on a monthly basis. When the salary is paid, the boss will find a reason to say that you did a bad job and deducted your salary. Without a contract, it is a verbal statement.

It is said that the wages of construction workers are high, but in fact it is not. The net income of 30,000 yuan per year for me is already quite high. The premise is that we must use it sparingly.

On the construction site, women workers are too bitter. One day sick leave can not be. Since I went to the construction site for more than three years, I had never heard of sick leave. Which day (physiological period) you want to be uncomfortable, and still not (sick leave).

Female workers do the same job as male workers, and their wages are different. Women workers are 10 dollars less than a day. Remember that before a female worker was very competent, she went to the boss. She said: "He pushed a brick and I pushed a brick. Compared to him, I didn't push a brick a little more. If he did 120 yuan a day, would he give me 110 yuan?" The boss just said: "You first Let's go and finish it."
I haven’t visited any place in Beijing for a few years

The off-duty time is generally 6pm. Eat, wash and wash, basically to bed time.

The accommodation area is an activity board room and it was really not accustomed to it. A room must have at least seven or more people, bunk beds. The sites I used to work on were all mixed men and women. Usually, the couple lived in a house and put a curtain on the bedside.

There are many people living there. If winter is okay, summer is hot and people are more than one... what to do? Can only insist.

Many times, I go to catch water in the evening and use it in the morning to wash it. If I don’t have time to go back, I’ll miss more people. But for one night, the water was cold and it was only fooling. If the boiler on site does not have hot water, burn it in the dormitory. However, the dormitory does not allow the use of heat, worry about the fire; cook the pot will not let use.

In the summer, sometimes electric fans can't use it. Because only low-voltage electricity can maintain a lamp. Workers charge their mobile phones and go to specialized power distribution rooms.

Without a special bathing place, a bucket of water must be sent to the toilet for washing. It's so dirty, I don't want to say it. The toilets were taken on a temporary basis. Many people used one. They were terribly dirty and had to go in quickly.

In the off hours, I love to talk to some people about my hometown; the most unhappy is the poor environment and poor health.

Our accommodation area is next to the garbage station and flies in summer. There are bed bugs, and I have a lot of red lice on my body. What medicine does not work. Only dichlorvos are effective, and the construction site does not allow it.

Accommodation is a place where we really hope to improve. But it has not been implemented.

Sometimes when the time comes, the boss will let him work overtime and say that he will give you 8 dollars an hour. After finishing adding the class, he said: "Oh, this money is worth it." What I hate most is to say nothing.

Once on the construction site, just like the small trumpet, there are no jobs that have to wait and get out. There have been no visits to Beijing for a few years because there is no time.

Before 2010, I was playing at home and playing cards. Out of work, there is not much entertainment. When I was helpless, I loved to write the story of the construction site. My culture is not high. I have never graduated from elementary school and I have written these things. One is to kill time and the other is because I miss my home.

If you don't do this, you can do it

Every night before going to bed, I will watch the video of the little granddaughter dancing on the phone. The granddaughter was 4 years old this year and thought of her. I took out my cell phone and watched it (video).

My husband and I have a son. I am 27 years old and I am also in Beijing. He came out to work in 2005 and is now working at a furniture company. The work place is far from us. Go see him and get back and forth for 3 hours. The granddaughter lived with her son and daughter-in-law and could not see it several times a year. I met twice in the previous year and met three times last year.

From a construction site to the next site, there may be days of intermittent time. If time is longer, we can go to our sons; if the boss finds the site in advance, we can't make it through.

My son said, let's not do it on the construction site. Can I do this, but can I still go?

One year at the construction site, the money saved basically subsidizes the child. Children need money. In order to earn more money, when I was originally on a construction site in Yizhuang, I also took the time to dump my waste but I was tired.

The work of her son is not fixed, this year in this furniture company, in the company next year. What my husband and I are most worried about is that there is no social insurance; if my son is there, the boss will not give it. He can only go on his own.

The daughter-in-law is also the only child in the family and does ordinary work in Beijing. It is 4,000 pieces a month. In Beijing, four thousand dollars is not high. After their young couple, they have to feed four old people and one child. How much is this burden?

I also thought of returning to my hometown. I can't go back to it and I can still work. Don't wait until you're done.

Working at the construction site, the mobility of the workers around him is very large, always changing. But I also made some friends and I still keep in touch. With the local city, I have no contact with it. It feels like it has nothing to do with Beijing.

â–  Reporter's notes

May this "Family of 7 people" be happy

Changyang Town, Fangshan District, Beijing, southwest Fifth Ring Road, our destination for this interview. The female construction worker who came in contact with her husband picked up the burden of livelihood.

Construction workers live in a temporary two-story board house. Into the night, walking on the second floor corridor made of iron, inevitably some shake.

The construction workers who just got off work ran up and down and were busy with water, laundry, and meals. They were accustomed to everything around them. After a busy day's work, they just want to get a quick fix and go to bed.

"I don't want her to come. I'm too tired. She has to come and want to experience it." A Henan-born construction worker born in 1990 told reporters.

When he said this, he smiled and looked at his wife, who was bathing on the opposite side. After the Spring Festival this year, the slimmer girl followed her husband and came to Beijing for the first time to work on the construction site.

A small worker can also understand that it is a part-time job. It mainly receives and collects materials on the ground during work. The “New Xiao Gong” girl who did not inform her name comes from Shandong. She was born in 1988 and she has five brothers and sisters. She is ranked fourth. When she was working in a food factory in Qingdao, she met her current husband and then married Henan and gave birth to two children.

Since she arrived at the site, she has been working and working for at least ten hours a day. Beijing's history has precipitated and modernized. She has never personally experienced it. "I feel no connection with the city," she told reporters.

There are two other couples and a male worker who live in the same room with the couple. They are all villagers. As a group, they look for their bosses to work.

Comparing the food factory with the construction site, the girl said: "The wages and accommodation are similar. I don't have to be in the factory and I have to stand for ten to eleven hours."

Every morning, she gets up at 6 o'clock and walks for more than 10 minutes to go to the construction site. Asked if she was tired, she smiled and said, “Yes.” Asked again if she can hold up for a year, the girl’s answer is particularly cool: “Almost, but look at the mood.”

Every week, she will call two or three times for children who live with grandparents. She said that children are more and more talkative. If the construction site has to work all the time, she can only wait until the autumn harvest before returning to her children.

For labor contracts and social insurance, the girl who usually loves to embroider cross stitch and play mobile games said it was not clear.

"Gloves and masks are all bought by oneself. Gloves have to be bought with skins, four yuan and one, and they have to change four to ten a month. They pay for themselves," she said. For the future, she "temporarily didn't think so much."

In recent years, the number of female construction workers has continued to grow. However, this seems to remain a group that is rarely mentioned. Their working life, their joys, their sorrows and griefs are all scattered on dusty or large or small construction sites. Few people pick up.

During the day, their energy has been consumed by the work. However, at night, they can still laugh and tease and help their husbands wash their socks. For the future, I don't know if they have awkwardness and hope. But for a moment, I suddenly realized that a lot of suffering in life seems to be met by them, endured, and patient, and they can still face with laughter.

Living with men and women is something that I could not imagine, but when I walked out of their dorms, I was completely accepted and I believe that this is the home of seven villagers who are on a construction site. Even if the window seam enters the wind and the meter always trips, they will work hard to make the family's night lively and warm.

I felt this excitement and warmth; I was also puzzled by the confusion and pain behind me. May they be happy.

The current situation of female construction workers: the increase in the number of dilemmas remains

On the construction site, there are more problems for male workers and female workers. Obviously, there are no equal pay for work, no sick leave; potential, such as sexual harassment

Liu Xiaohong, a volunteer who has long been concerned about the living conditions of construction workers, is now the Director-General of the "Beijing Brick, Tile and Tile Cultural Development Center." In 2011, the public welfare organization assisted three teachers and students of the School of Philosophy and Sociology of Beijing Normal University to complete a “Beijing Construction Industry and Employment Survey Report”.

At that time, female construction workers accounted for only 2%. In the following two years, Liu Xiaohong felt that the number of female workers who were seen on the construction site almost every year was more than in the previous year.

In 2013, according to the "Little Million Bird Working Mutual Helpline", the "Ten Thousand Miles of Construction Workers' Living Situation Charity Survey Report" showed that female construction workers accounted for 10.18%.

As the pillar industry of the Chinese economy, the proportion of construction workers in the total number of migrant workers in the country is also increasing. With the advancement of urban-rural integration construction, at least 15 million construction workers will enter the city every year to make a living.

Initially at the construction site, women workers were mainly engaged in odd jobs and logistics such as security, cleaning and canteen work. But nowadays, even if the same work is paid differently, more and more female workers also take on the same kind of high-strength, heavy physical work as male workers.

With regard to the increase in the number of female construction workers, the above-mentioned 2011 research report also made relevant reflections.

On the one hand, in the current context of “labor shortage,” the construction industry is one of the industries that absorb the most workers, and to a certain extent, it also provides employment opportunities for women workers.

On the other hand, female workers in the construction industry are mostly around 40 years old. According to them, the children are now large. They either read books or work, they do not have to take care of them, so the burden on the family is small. Moreover, in addition to the only cultivated land, the old family does not have a suitable job and chooses to follow the husband’s work together at the construction site. .

A construction worker, literally understood, refers to a worker engaged in construction work. Today's construction workers are basically farmers from rural areas, and very few are college students (even if college students work in the construction industry, but also mainly work in technology and management).

Regarding “what is your identity,” only 10% of migrant workers think they are “workers.” Most of the workers believe that they “are farmers and they will earn one year's worth of money each year”.

In the isolated and relatively closed construction site of the city where they are located, women workers and men workers are faced with the same job difficulties, such as hardly signing contracts, no benefits, extremely difficult to get insurance, being owed wages, working overtime without compensation, lack of safety facilities, etc.; It is also facing the same difficulties in life, such as poor accommodation conditions, poor food and beverage environment, and poor sanitary conditions.

In addition, women workers face more problems than men. Obviously, there are no remuneration for work, no sick leave, and potential, such as sexual harassment. At the same time, in the dusty, dangerous buildings, their beauty-loving nature is almost completely suppressed.

(Original title: A self-reported woman worker)

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