Work-Related Injuries: Injured But Not Entitled for Legal Compensation

Abstract

Migrant workers, commonly employed in “three D” jobs (i.e., “dirty, dangerous, and demeaning”), have the highest risk of suffering from work injures comparing to other groups of workers. In 2004, the Circular on Migrant Workers Participating in Work-Related Injury Insurance was launched by the central government. But its outcome is not desirable, for example, according to National Bureau of Statistics, only 26.2% of migrant workers were covered by work injury insurance in 2014. Instead of taking administrative coping based on the work-related injury insurance, most injured migrant workers undertake social coping (e.g., bargaining, negotiation, threats, and violence) to receive informal compensation from employers, which is usually significantly less than the amount of legal insurance compensation. Sometimes, even being insured does not necessarily mean migrant workers can receive legal insurance compensation, and some insured injured migrant workers have to resort to private negotiations with employers for informal compensation.

This chapter has been published as a journal article: Sun, L. and Liu, T. (2014), Injured but not Entitled to Legal Insurance Compensation—Ornamental Institutions and Migrant Workers’ Informal Channels in China. Social Policy& Administration, 48: 905–22.