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ABSTRACT
As a result of rapid industrialisation in China, rural–urban migrant workers are increasingly susceptible to occupational diseases. Based on the concept of risk society, the occupational disease represents a distinctive industrial risk for migrant workers. However, this issue has been little explored from a sociological perspective, and this article aims to fill this gap by exploring migrant workers’ responses to occupational disease compensation. Despite the various laws on occupational diseases, migrant workers are generally unable to receive legal compensation. Instead, they have to negotiate with employers informally for private compensation. In addition to suffering physically from occupational diseases, the poor enforcement of public laws creates new social risks for workers, that is, the disadvantaged encounter unjust treatment, judicial injustice and social exclusion because their de jure entitlement is deprived. As a consequence, the laws aimed at protecting workers against accidents and occupational illnesses fail to reduce the power imbalance between employers and employees.
Notes
1. An occupational disease is any kind of ailment or hazard resulting from work activities. The central feature of an occupational disease is that it is more prevalent among one group of workers than the general population or than other groups of workers (Karasek & Theorell, Citation1990).
2. All US dollar amounts in parentheses are rounded estimates using the exchange rate at the time of writing (1 September 2015). As such they serve to give a rough indication to readers unfamiliar with the Chinese currency value.
3. A medical procedure during which a lung is repeatedly filled with fluid and drained, and then suctioned, in order to remove material from the lung, while the patient is under general anaesthesia.