Factory Workers Go Home for the Holidays

I had an interesting talk this morning with a friend from southern China. Altho he owns a factory, he has lots of ties to the migrant workers themselves. Of course, in his case, what you may think of as a factory may not match the reality. He runs his Guangdong province factory in about 300 sq. meters ( about 3230 sq. feet), with 5 workers, one supervisor - a brother - and a bunch of knitting machines; not exactly General Motors, altho he makes more money than GM these days. He says he's doing fine still, altho he has worries. Of the many laid off factory workers, he had this to say: For the most part, from what he's seen & heard, workers are angry at factory owners who they feel (in many cases, justifiably) have cheated them. In some cases, as widely reported elsewhere, factories have been shut down with no warning and migrant workers haven't received all their wages. Nevertheless, altho they've been laid off, they are mostly taking it in stride and just going home to their villages hundreds (or more) kilometers away. Since they had planned to return home, as they do every year, for Chinese Spring Festival/Lunar New Year anyway, the hardship is not major. They are leaving a month or two before they'd planned. The traditional Chinese New Year holiday this winter falls in late January and workers may often take from 10 days to 45 days off before returning to their work places. Any anger they feel, according my friend, is not directed at the government at all, but at their employers. In addition, altho wages are often meager for migrant workers, they are able to save considerable percentages of their pay, so the financial hardship is cushioned.

Of course, once the Spring Festival period is over, these workers hope to return to their migrant residences & resume work. If they can't, they can be expected to look for new jobs.
And if they can't find work, how will they react? Come March and April 2009, feelings may not be quite so stoic.