After the letter was published, it immediately sparked heated discussions online. Some netizens commented, "Online and telephone ticket booking is convenient for white-collar workers but harms the migrant workers. The transportation capacity is limited; we still need to treat everyone equally and not let the migrant workers fail to return home or go to work." Another netizen expressed, "When they first announced the online ticket booking, my first reaction was excitement because I could book tickets without going to the station. Then I thought, what about the migrant worker uncles? Although some may go to internet cafes or use computers, most of them probably can't... Furthermore, Taobao has been operating for many years and its technology is mature, yet when everyone rushes to buy, the system still crashes. This ticket purchasing will be a nationwide rush."
"Can't afford a computer, no time to learn"
"The online and telephone ticket booking can release tickets 12 days in advance, while the railway ticket outlets release them 10 days in advance. Therefore, online and telephone ticket booking has certain advantages over traditional methods. Since some migrant workers are unfamiliar with online and telephone ticket booking, they relatively have some disadvantages. However, before the ticket sales, we also considered the group of migrant workers. From December 15th to 30th, 2011, within half a month, any outlet under the jurisdiction of Shanghai Railway Bureau, including Wenzhou, opened a special channel for group ticket purchases by migrant workers. But apart from this, there were no other specific measures for migrant workers," said relevant personnel from Shanghai Railway Bureau.
"Queued four times, didn't buy a single ticket"
"Some migrant workers don't know about 'online ticket booking.' Before, even if you had to queue up, you could still buy tickets. Now that online and telephone ticketing starts two days earlier, even if you're at the front of the line, you still can't buy tickets."
Huang Qinghong wrote the letter and submitted it to the Wenzhou Metropolis Daily. "I thought only if the Ministry of Railways saw this letter would there be hope. As an old man like me, I couldn't see them, nor did I know where to send it. Later, I thought of the media and wanted the newspaper to publish these issues of mine."
"We also tried group ticket purchases, but our factory has less than 50 workers. Group tickets are mainly aimed at large factories with hundreds of people, so they wouldn't allow us to apply." Huang Qinghong introduced that in Wenzhou, there are many small and medium-sized enterprises, and many factories have only dozens of employees. Like theirs, they basically cannot enjoy the discounts of group ticket purchases. Now with the introduction of online and telephone ticket booking, it will become increasingly difficult for them to purchase train tickets.
"Group Tickets Limited by Number, Hard for Small and Medium Enterprises"
In his letter, he also wrote that none of the forty-plus workers in the factory knew how to use a computer. Their boss sympathized with them and tried to help them buy tickets online, but after struggling for a long time, the boss still couldn't manage it. Either they couldn't get into the system, or there were no tickets left. The boss said that even if there were tickets, one would still need to activate online banking. Thus, they switched to telephone booking, and all forty-plus people took turns calling whenever they had free time. In the end, only one person managed to get through after several attempts and bought a ticket to Jiangxi.
"Most interviewees do not know about 'online ticket booking'"
In fact, Huang Qinghong and his forty-plus coworkers also attempted online ticket purchases, but none of them knew how to operate a computer, so they turned to telephone booking. However, in the end, only one person managed to buy a ticket. "Clearly, online and telephone ticket booking is more suitable for those who sit in offices all day. We simply don't have the time to deal with this. However, since online and telephone ticketing has priority, it deprives us of our basic right to purchase tickets," Huang Qinghong said.
"The reason I want to buy train tickets to go home is that each train ticket costs only 190 yuan, while a bus ticket costs nearly 600 yuan, which is much more expensive. I want to save this money to buy something for my daughter because I usually don't spend enough time with her," Huang Qinghong said. Because he was afraid of failing to buy tickets during the Spring Festival travel rush, he sent his wife home a month in advance and stayed behind to earn more money. To save money, Huang Qinghong returns home every other year. Last year, he spent the Spring Festival alone in Wenzhou, and he could only talk to his parents and daughter on the phone. This year, he decided to go home no matter what. Over the years of working outside, he has only seen his daughter three times. "My daughter is six years old now. If I don't see her, I won't know whether she has grown taller or learned how to write some words," Huang Qinghong murmured.
The motivation for writing this letter came from his experience buying tickets this year. "This year, queuing up to buy tickets was very smooth because the lines were shorter than in previous years. In the past, each time there were more than a hundred people queuing, and it took hours to get to the window. But this time, there were fewer than dozens of people, and we reached the window in less than half an hour," Huang Qinghong said. Every time he asked the staff at the window whether there were tickets to Chongqing, they replied that the tickets had already been sold out. When he inquired further, the staff explained that because online and telephone ticket bookings start a few days earlier, all tickets are booked as soon as they are released, leaving very limited tickets available at the windows.
"This year is the fourth time I've come to the train station to buy tickets, and I still haven't succeeded. The staff said that tickets via the internet and telephone are released a few days earlier, and once they are released, they are snapped up online. We are migrant workers, not white-collar workers, so how could we possibly open (internet banking)? Isn't this obvious?"
Related theme articles: Migrant Workers' Letter to the Ministry of Railways: Online Ticket Booking Is Unfair to Us