THE city's labour department launched a major crackdown on the non-payment of migrant workers last Tuesday, the Shanghai Youth Daily has reported.

　　The focus of the new supervision over the payment of wages will be on "protecting the rights of migrant workers" and on "keeping orderly arrangements for the movement of migrant workers".

　　In the past 11 months the city's labour department has dealt with 570 cases of part-payment and non-payment of wages due to migrant workers. Over 57 million yuan (US$6.9 million) of salary has been retrieved which will benefit 83,630 labourers working in the city.

　　The crackdown will run until January 21. The government is targeting enterprises which employ large numbers of migrant workers such as construction, service and manufacturing companies.

　　On its first day, the inspectors examined 209 enterprises and found that 41 were guilty of non-payment of wages totalling 3.33 million yuan (US$402,660).

　　Officials said if enterprises failed to co-operate with the investigation, the courts would become involved.

　　The problem has become a serious one in the country, according to the Xinmin Weekly.

　　Recent statistics revealed that the number of migrant workers in the country had reached 94 million. The numbers were expected to swell to 176 million over the next 10 years.

　　Statistics from the China Federation of Trade Unions show that non-payment of wages due to migrant workers now totals an estimated 100 billion yuan (US$12.1 billion) with most of the victims being engaged in construction enterprises.

　　Analysis said the reasons for the problem were varied. Migrant workers who had little awareness of the need for self-protection did not even sign labour contracts. Construction companies operating illegally were also blamed. But the main problem stemmed from defects in the administrative system.