Recently, this set of chilling photos was circulating the Chinese websites and forums with the title “Peasant worker crushed into meat pie by excavator, where is justice”. Was it a murder or another housing demolition gone bad? Netizents speculated.  Then I found the news report of this incident on Netease.

» » » » Continue reading ’78-year-old construction worker crushed to death by excavator’

From SouFun:

Mortgage slaves work hard for half of their lives and save up for the down payment, then work hard for the rest of their lives to pay off the loan. Finally when they can relax and live as home owners, they never have thought that when the mortgage salves are not yet old, the homes are already old, not only old, but also rotted, most of them become the subject for demolition. This is the reality of what currently more than 100 million Chinese mortgage slaves had to face.

According to Deputy Minister of Construction Qiu Baoxin (仇保兴) at the Sixth International Green building and Energy Conservation General Assembly, China has the most new buildings in the world in each year, the newly constructed area in each year is about 2 billion square meters, equivalent to 40% of the world consumption o f cement and steel, however they can only last 25-30 years.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Most constructions in China only have life span of 25-30 years?’

From Sina:
Zhengzhou Evening News:

8 migrant workers “kidnap” the boss’s car

Not paying salaries? Then don’t think about leaving. On January 25, construction migrant workers in Zhengzhou surrounded the project leader’s BMW, not letting him to leave. However the project leader called for another car and forcibly left the scene. For this matter, the director of debt settlement office of the City Construction Commission Zhang Shunhai said, the City Construction Commission starting from today suspended this construction company and labor company’s rights to undertake any project in Zhengzhou, until the matter is investigated then precede further actions.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Migrant workers surround boss’s BMW for unpaid wages’

[From MOP] A young migrant worker updates a post of his raw, yet I found to be truthful and insightful notes while working at a construction site of soon to be multi-million luxury homes in Sanya, Hainan.

I never speak out. I am a “diving” migrant worker.

(潜水: Diving means lurking here, it is a Chinese internet slang, means someone who reads forum posts but never replies, never expresses their views. It is like underwater diving, never pop their heads out of the water.)

I used to have very low self-esteem, just because I am a migrant worker working at construction sites every day. Maybe it’s because I went to junior college for two years, our manger Yang made me the publicist, so I got the opportunities to take photos.

Migrant worker is the synonym of low-quality in the society. I admit that we are the people living in the lowest level of the society. Even if we were paid attention to, we were seen as the weakest group.

But now I do not feel worthless anymore, in fact we the migrant workers are also human beings, we are proud, all of the high-rise buildings are built up with our blood and sweat; we also are educated, I can write posts; we also know how to live. The reason I write this post is so everyone can know how we build a block of high-rise buildings, and also to show you our lives as migrant workers.

» » » » Continue reading ‘A construction migrant worker’s notes’