(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-11-05 11:39

CHONGQING - "Happy Rural Migrant Workers Day to you," more than 7 million workers who moved from the countryside to Chongqing, one of the largest cities in China, were greeted Sunday for the first time in history with awards and proper respect.

Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality greeted its first Rural Migrant Workers Day, also the first ever in China, on Sunday, highlighting an awarding ceremony for 10 model migrant workers.

Wang Xuemei, a saleswoman at a local department store, together with nine others working in various industries, was awarded the "Most Outstanding Migrant Worker" title and conferred the "Labor Day Medal" by the local government.

"They were picked among 7 million migrant workers in Chongqing for having made outstanding contributions to the building of the city," Wang Hongju, mayor of Chongqing, told an audience of about 1,000 including representatives of migrant workers, employers and government officials.

To honor the builders of much of its modern infrastructure, Chongqing has designated the first Sunday of every November as Rural Migrant Workers Day late September.

"To introduce the day is not only to encourage public respect and fair treatment for migrant workers, but also to create favorable environment to help solve various problems troubling them," said an open letter issued Sunday by the local government.

A string of social activities aimed at serving the migrant workers were held in Chongqing Sunday, such as health care and legal counseling and job fairs.

China has more than 120 million migrant workers, mostly farmers from west China seeking work in east China's boom towns. They mainly work in construction, mining, cleaning and catering industries, or the kind of jobs usually labeled "dirty", "heavy", "hard" and "exhausting."

Discrimination and prejudice against migrant workers were still common among urban Chinese, and news organizations reported frequent infringements of their rights, such as unpaid wages.

"We must not ignore the unfair treatment to the migrant workers and must pay due respect to them," Wang told the awarding ceremony.

"We must create a friendly environment for their work and living so that they can enjoy the fruits of the city's fast economic development, too," he said.

Local government have worked out dozens of measures for migrant workers to be adopted next year, which mainly include protecting their legitimate rights, helping them settle in the city, providing social insurance to them, and offering more professional and technical training, more job opportunities and more other services to them.

"As I have seen, we migrant workers are being more and more accepted by the city for our diligent work," Wang Xuemei said.