Dozens Of Chinese Workers Urge Embassy To Bucharest To Help Them Return To China

About 50 Chinese workers who worked in Bucharest in constructions are spending day and night in improvised tents outside the Chinese Embassy, with no money for food. Hundreds of Chinese nationals join them during the day, who also bring them something to eat. On Tuesday, several Romanians brought them food, blankets, mattresses and medicine.

 

Almost none of the people now living outside the embassy knows any English or enough Romanian and communication with them is difficult.

 

The workers came to Romania about one year ago, brought by two intermediary firms, one Romanian and one Chinese. Workers paid a commission of at least EUR8,000 to come to Romania, where they were hired in constructions for wages of at least EUR800 per month. However, they only received 100 lei (about EUR25) per month for food, free accommodation and the rest of their wages were paid by the Chinese firm directly to the workers’ families, back in China.

 

The problems of the group of 800 started at the end of last year, when the construction companies in Bucharest that employed them could no longer afford to pay their salaries. Most of them remained where they had been accommodated, but the approximately 50 people sleeping outside the embassy refused to stay in the new lodgings provided hoping the embassy would help send them back home to China.

 

The Chinese Embassy to Bucharest said most of the workers came to Romania in 2008 and helped cover the country’s workforce shortage and contributed to economic growth. However, the embassy said, in time, these workers found themselves in great difficulty.

 

According to the embassy, the workers came to Romania to work legally, based on temporary work permits, but paperwork has not been completed for many of them. Also, some of the firms that brought them to Romania or the workers’ employers failed to pay the workers as much as they had agreed.

 

The embassy said on its website that it made ample efforts to help the workers and the problems of some were solved, while others are pending solutions. The embassy told MEDIAFAX that it paid repatriation expenses for 350 workers.

 

The embassy said it cannot give an exact number of Chinese citizens working in Romania, but said others have gone back to China, beside the aforementioned 350.

 

The embassy also said it contacted several Romanian Ministry of Labor, the Immigration Office, the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which said they would help solve the matter.