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Migrant workers have driven China's economic miracle. In the Pearl River Delta, the world's factory floor, workers are demanding rights that their counterparts in democracies take for granted: overtime, safe working conditions and collective bargaining. This movement is led by a few former migrant workers turned amateur lawyers. These leaders organize workers and settle labor disputes while making sure that their advocacy doesn't meet the legal definition for a union. In China, all official unions are government controlled; workers cannot organize on their own. So these organizers often base themselves in industrial neighborhoods and open community centers with computers and books to attract and support migrant workers.

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