The tenacity and struggle of over-age migrant workers in the shadows of the construction site
At the end of April, Xiao Changsheng drove his three-wheeled motorcycle through the outskirts of the city to a construction site that was about to be completed.
He used to help move small materials here sporadically, and he had several encounters with the storekeeper. This time, he hopes to ask the other party if there are any job opportunities for exterior painting, in order to make a better livelihood, Xiao Changsheng and his wife are both close to 60 years old, their only son has been ill for a long time, and the family expenses mainly depend on their small work.
Yesterday, they suddenly faced additional troubles, their mother suddenly fell ill, causing the couple's income of less than 300 yuan a day to immediately appear stretched. As a result, they are in dire need of a big job that pays better.
Before leaving, the two took care of themselves. Wash their hair and put on a hat to hide their gray hair - it would be better to dye it, but they didn't want to spend extra money on it. They emollient with Dabao and wore three layers of insoles. These are the lessons of other co-workers, and looking younger and taller can increase the likelihood of being hired.
The caretaker wondered why they wanted to work on exterior painting, "Exterior painting requires sitting in a hanging basket, up and down twenty or thirty floors, which is not suitable for those who are timid and afraid of heights. ”
Xiao Changsheng waved his hand and said: "My wife has been working on exterior wall painting, she is not afraid of heights, and she is very efficient. His wife laughed too.
In the end, they fail to get the job they expect. The administrator told them that exterior painting work was usually contracted out, and that this type of high-risk work was basically not recruited for anyone over the age of 55. As the time approached noon, Xiao Changsheng and his wife finally returned to another construction site to work as a small worker, "Earn today's money first, and then continue to look for it tomorrow." ”
Xiao Changsheng didn't know that in the future, perhaps even the opportunities for small workers would become scarce.
They work in Xiaogan, Hubei Province, and recently the neighboring city of Jingzhou issued a document calling for further regulation of the age of workers in construction companies, explicitly prohibiting men over the age of 60 and women over the age of 50 from working in construction. Not only Jingzhou, but also Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenzhen, Taizhou, Nanchang and other places have also put forward similar "overage migrant worker removal orders".
According to the "2021 Migrant Worker Monitoring Survey Report" released by the National Bureau of Statistics on April 29, the total number of migrant workers in the country reached 292.51 million in 2021, of which 27 were over 50 years old3%, showing a growth trend for five consecutive years. According to this data, it is estimated that the total number of migrant workers over the age of 50 in 2021 will be about 79.85 million, an increase of 18.83 million from five years ago.
If the eviction order continues to spread, the nearly 80 million people may have to leave the site over the next nine years.
A lifetime spent on a construction site.
Wu Weihua, 64, looks back on his career on construction sites, with his last long-term work coming two years ago on an office project in Nanjing, which was undertaken by China State Construction Systems. There, he worked as a formworkman, enclosing the frame of the concrete pouring area, ensuring that the dimensions, position, load-bearing capacity and stability were met.
Formwork is a seemingly simple job, but it is actually one of the most complex processes on the construction site. The work required strict dimensional accuracy, while ensuring that the frame had sufficient load-bearing capacity and stability to prevent the formwork from moving. In addition, the design should be simple, with minimal material use and easy disassembly.
Every day at work, Wu Weihua has to prepare a lot of tools, including hammers, wrenches, saws, hammers, tape measures, and so on. At the entrance of the construction site, the formwork worker has the most tools in his hands, while other types of work, such as ordinary carpentry, rebar work, and scaffolding work, require relatively few tools.
Wu Weihua's carpentry skills were inherited from his father. In the sixties of the last century, Wu Weihua's father was a well-known carpenter in the village, making furniture for the villagers. However, as the demand for handmade furniture decreased, Wu Weihua and his fellow villagers went to work on the southern coast.
Around 1984, due to the labor shortage in factories in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions, ** issued documents to allow farmers to go to the cities to work or engage in commercial activities through self-financing and self-financing of food rations. This policy lifted the restrictions on urban and rural hukou, which led to a large influx of migrant workers into the cities. Most of them are engaged in the construction of construction sites.
In the late 90s, China stepped up its infrastructure construction, and investment in basic industries and infrastructure increased rapidly. At the same time, real estate is also expanding rapidly, and the face of the city is changing with each passing day. Migrant workers became the main force of construction, and skilled craftsmen like Wu Weihua were paid relatively high wages.
Due to institutional biases and conflicts of interest with indigenous peoples, migrant workers are not treated with the respect they deserve in the cities they have built. Although skilled workers like Wu Weihua are paid relatively well, they also begin to face some problems as they get older.
Since 2017, real-name management and electronic attendance have been implemented at various construction sites across the country. At a construction site in Nanjing, Wu Weihua was fired because he was over 60 years old. He once felt angry and helpless, his skills were good, and he was in good health, but the rules were the rules, and even if he could easily carry the template alone, there was no special treatment.
Elderly workers on the construction site are beginning to feel uncertain about the future. After 2019, many companies screened workers on construction sites every year and dismissed those over the age of 60. This has made elderly workers who are about to reach their end of life start to worry about their way out, and some people share eviction orders in various places on social media, counting down how many years they can still work on the construction site. However, finding a new job is not easy, as many job postings also explicitly require applicants to be under the age of 60.
The elderly workers on the construction site, despite the difficulties they face, are still reluctant to give up. They continue to work for their families, supporting their children's schooling, paying their mortgages, and even raising their grandchildren. For them, retirement is not an easy issue to consider, "live as long as you want".
Secret dismissal.
Before the "removal order" was issued, elderly migrant workers had been forced to retreat to the margins of the market.
In early April, the 58-year-old lost his job again.
Through an acquaintance, he found a job as a handyman in a commercial housing project in the county, doing some chores for the big workers, such as moving ladders and handing tools. The daily wage is 120 yuan, which is settled on a daily basis.
Lao Huang has spent most of his life on construction sites, engaged in civil construction work in his youth, and has dug hundreds of foundation pits and hole piles. Foremen who have worked with him have praised him for his diligence, hard work, and solid and reliable work.
As he grew older, no matter how good his reputation was, Lao Huang could not enter the slightly more formal construction sites in big cities. The recruiter will check the ID card one by one, and those over 60 years old will not be required, and those over 50 years old will be ranked secondary. As soon as a younger candidate appears, Lao Huang will be replaced. Especially for heavy physical work, the restrictions are more stringent.
He worked in Guangdong for a long time, but because he couldn't find a job, he followed his fellow villagers to Fujian, and then returned to his hometown to save some living expenses, and found some scattered jobs through the interpersonal relationships of relatives and friends. These sites usually have low wages and debatable working conditions, but even so, in recent years, there have been largely only a few small workers and handymen left on the sites willing to hire him.
In March, Lao Huang only did seven days of work in the whole month, two days of which were digging holes in the green belt on the outskirts of the city, two days were dismantling decorations left over from the Spring Festival on street lamps, and the remaining three days were doing odd jobs everywhere.
This is the first job that Lao Huang found this year with a duration of more than a week. In April, Gannan has not yet entered the rainy season, and Lao Huang plans to pay for the living expenses of his two grandsons for this month if he can work for 20 days, and he will no longer have to ask his son for money.
However, on the morning of the fifth day, the construction site needed to count the steel pipes in the material yard, and the foreman arranged for Lao Huang and three other handymen to return the unused steel pipes to the rental yard. Due to Lao Huang's old age, the workers were very considerate of him and let him unhook the car, while the others were responsible for loading the hook on the ground.
Due to the heavy and numerous steel pipes, seventy or eighty of them are tied together, and in order to prevent them from falling apart, the ropes used for fixing are usually tied very tightly. Lao Huang unhooked with one hand, and held the side with the other hand to prevent the steel pipe from slipping off in the process of unhooking, so the progress was relatively slow.
The crane rented on the construction site was charged by the hour, and when it was time for the seventh crane, the supervisor came to urge the degree. Seeing that Lao Huang's movements were not skilled, the worker became angry: "That old guy, can you move faster, like a lazy pig." ”
On construction sites, it is not uncommon for elderly migrant workers like Lao Huang to be scolded, because most of them are temporary workers who come in through connections, have no formal labor contracts, and any small mistake can determine their stay, let alone refute.
Wages for older migrant workers are generally low. Theoretically, migrant workers are charged on a daily basis, and as they get older, their physical strength decreases, and the amount of work they complete naturally decreases, and their wages will decrease accordingly. However, the work they have to accomplish is no easier than that of young people in the same position.
Lao Huang used to work as a cleaner at another construction site, going to work at 6 a.m. and leaving work at 9 p.m., and had to deduct money for eating in the middle, and the work at hand could not be stopped at all, and if he stopped, he would be scolded by a supervisor who was more than 20 years younger than him.
As the foreman in front of him said, "The company hires you to pay you by the hour!".It's not for you to be lazy!At such an old age, if you can do it, you can do it, and if you can't do it, you can get out!Don't waste the company's resources here!”
Lao Huang didn't dare to say a word, just silently sped up the speed of his hand, but in the end it took half an hour more than expected to complete the whole work. When it was time to leave work, a construction worker came over to settle the half-day's salary and told him that he could go, because the supervisor asked to "come here with a younger one".
Naturally, Lao Huang's lunch on the construction site will not be Lao Huang's share, and he walks out of the construction site with his kit, separated by a green fence with urban propaganda slogans printed with the core values of socialism and a salary of 120 yuan a day. He sat on the steps by the side of the road, smoking cigarette after cigarette, his eyes red.
Li Zhengwu, who is a year older than Lao Huang, works in Ningbo, and his condition is slightly better. His son, who was the leader of the rebar group at the construction site, had this connection, at least he would not be fired easily, but that was limited to that.
Two days ago, the construction site arranged for him to move 50 4-meter-long iron pipes from the warehouse to a place within the reach of the tower crane. Since he already had asthma, he coughed while moving, and his arms trembled uncontrollably. Finally, the tower crane operator called, saying that the tower crane was broken and could not be repaired until tomorrow. When the foreman of the overseer heard this, he was very angry: "How did you do it?".Why don't you ask before you move?is so old, and he still doesn't have such a long brain. ”
Li Zhengwu explained that he didn't know either, and no one informed him that the tower crane was broken. The foreman was even more angry: "I have to inform you of everything?".How old are you?”
Li Zhengwu closed his mouth and bent down to move the iron pipes back to the material yard one by one. The foreman's scolding continued behind him: "I will work for half a day for day, and I will have to eat white rice ...... later."It mixes with the sounds of mixers, electric drills, and hammers that have accompanied Li Zhengwu for 40 years in the distance, forming a noisy symphony. It made him dizzy and his ears buzzing.
He staggered two steps, did not stop, and did not dare to stop.
Overage black workers. In local documents, the reason for the dismissal of elderly migrant workers is usually based on the consideration of "ensuring construction safety". This decision is not unfounded, because according to the data of construction accidents in the whole of 2018, the accident fatality rate of migrant workers over 60 years old, which accounts for only 1% of the total, is as high as 15%. Shanghai, Jingzhou, Taizhou and other places have issued dismissal orders due to serious safety accidents among elderly migrant workers.
Liang Hong lost one eye at the age of 64 and suffered an accident on the construction site. At that time, the works were nearing the end and only the final trimming and clean-up work was required. On the wall of one floor, he found a small section of exposed steel bar, and decided to use a cutter to cut it off.
It happened so fast that he could barely remember what had happened, except to see sparks flying, and then his left eye ached so badly that it seemed to have been pierced. His eyes were red, his face was wet, and his ears were filled with the screams and calls of his fellow workers. He was speechless in pain, and his consciousness gradually blurred.
The doctor told him that fragments from the cutter had flown into his left eye, shattering the entire eyeball and leaving him with the only surgery to be removed. After being discharged from the hospital, Liang Hong's left eye socket was sunken a lot, and it took a whole year of eye drops** to finally eliminate the swelling pain and burning sensation.
Then, he was back on the construction site. In addition to him, there is only one son in the family, but the family has seven mouths waiting to eat. Rebar workers who need to use cutting machines and electric welding are also one of the high-risk jobs, and Liang Hong's days on the construction site did not stop because of his eye injury.
Liang Hong's wife was not in good health when she was young, and only gave birth to a son and a daughter. The daughter went out to work when she was a teenager and married to another province, and she can only go home once a year or two. The son also got married early, and because of the family planning policy, a mature boy was killed, and then it was all girls. In their small county, no boy would be talked about as "broken roots", so they had to keep having children.
After Liang Hong's daughter-in-law gave birth to several girls, she finally ushered in a "golden grandson". However, the advanced age of childbirth makes the child's physique relatively thin, and the daughter-in-law's health has become poor, and she often needs to go to a big hospital in Guangzhou for medical treatment. Several other children went to school as usual, and the family struggled to make ends meet. Liang Hong didn't even lie in the hospital for a few more days because of the injury to her eye, and was hurriedly discharged before the gauze was removed.
Like Liang Hong, most of the migrant workers who are over half a hundred years old but are reluctant to leave the construction site are burdened with heavy family responsibilities behind them. Lao Huang's daughter-in-law left home to work when her two grandsons were very young and never returned. The son waited for a few years, and finally remarried in a foreign place, and the ex-wife's two children were all left to Lao Huang, and only a symbolic amount of living expenses were provided every month.
Wu Weihua's three grandchildren are all in school, and in order to provide them with better educational conditions, the family has not been willing to spend money to buy a house, but has been crammed into two semi-basements in the county seat. This basement is facing the vegetable market, and when it rains, the broken vegetables, fruits, and poultry droppings flow down the rainwater to their doorstep, and when the sun comes out, the water evaporates, and the stench fills the air, and the children are never willing to take their classmates home.
In addition to family responsibilities, the lack of support in old age is also the reason why they can't stop. Due to low awareness and a series of historical problems, many elderly migrant workers do not realize the importance of paying insurance. At the same time, because migrant workers usually need to move with the construction site, but the cross-provincial renewal of insurance is very troublesome, many people have interrupted social security or even chose to give up.
In Douban's "Children of Migrant Workers" group, someone shared the plight of their parents' pension: "Although I have been engaged in the hardest and most boring work all my life, there is no social security, and the rural cooperative medical care coupled with the critical illness insurance implemented by the local government can reimburse a lot for serious illnesses, but the reimbursement for minor illness outpatient clinics is very limited, and the premiums are constantly **..."My parents are both 55 years old, so they still have a few years to work!I've only been out of school for two years and I'm just starting to support myself. ”
Liang Hong and his wife have not paid social security, he is 68 years old this year, his wife is 63 years old, and they only have a pension of 103 yuan per month. Liang Hong has been working for half his life, and his personality is relatively stubborn, and he always feels that asking his son for money is an unspeakable thing. The father and son often quarreled over trivial matters, sometimes even for ten days and half a month without talking.
It's better to go to the construction site than to be a burden at home. ”
And on the construction site, there are also some loopholes in the regulations - dyeing hair and applying face cream are just superficial articles, and they will be exposed when you look at your ID card. Wu Weihua's practice is to borrow an ID card from relatives and friends when applying for a job, and the salary is also paid to the other party's card, so sometimes he is called Wu Xuejun, sometimes he is called Wu Weibing, and sometimes he is called Wu Jinhua.
Although most of the time this behavior is noticed by the foreman, some may be due to acquaintances, others because these overage migrant workers are relatively cheap and easy to use. For example, Liang Hong's current construction site only pays him 110 yuan a day, while workers around 40 years old may need to pay more than 150 yuan, otherwise they are unwilling to work. Moreover, young people have many choices, and they are full of confidence, and when they are reprimanded, they either talk back, or quit their jobs immediately.
Another way is to use an acquaintance as an intermediary, ask the other party to sign a contract, and then transfer the work to yourself. The other party withdraws some money every day as a reward. In some construction sites where management is not strict, there are even intermediaries who specialize in such activities.
Wu Weihua "mixed" on the construction site in one way or another. However, it is foreseeable that this will not reduce the probability of accidents, but will deprive migrant workers of the last layer of protection - "whether migrant workers who have exceeded the retirement age can be recognized as work-related injuries" is still very controversial in the legal circles.
Liang Hong's eye hurt and finally went private. The general contractor in charge of compensation advised him at the time that it would take a long time to go through the legal process, and he would need to hire a lawyer, and he might end up in a dispute, and finally they agreed to pay 200,000 yuan twice. Liang Hong checked, if the normal procedure is followed, at least nearly 300,000 yuan will be compensated.
The compensation was eventually filled in with their son's mortgage, and Liang Hong and his wife were still crammed into a 20-square-meter rental house.
Lao Huang is still looking for work, and if his two grandsons can be admitted to boarding school in the second half of the year, his wife will be able to free up her hands to find work. A familiar worker asked him why he didn't go back to the countryside to farm, but Lao Huang dismissed it: "I have to stay here and let the two babies become real city people." ”