QIAN'AN/DONGGUAN, CHINA ¨C This year, laborer Fan Fu and 20 or so colleagues working on the Zixia Garden apartment complex in Hebei province have not joined China¡¯s legion of migrant workers returning home to celebrate the Lunar New Year with their families.
Instead, they have camped in the offices of the property developer¡¯s subcontractor, demanding almost a year¡¯s unpaid wages, too angry and too proud to go back to their native towns and villages empty-handed.
With China¡¯s economy growing at its slowest in 25 years, more workers face Fan¡¯s predicament and labor unrest is on the rise, a concern for Beijing as it seeks to avoid social unrest even as financial pressures build.
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