Underpaid by the worker's definition of what they feel they should be paid. Granted we don't see a lot of the stories in the western media that might otherwise be told, however there is a consistent narrative of workers taking extreme actions to make this point. [1] [2]
Note: I'm using the term skill from a manufacturer's POV as being something that can not be simply done by a machine. Whether that is R&D or creativity as part of a manufacturing process.
It is obvious they feel underpaid. It is their interest to get the most pay for their labour as they can get. Doesn't mean that the economy can afford to pay them more. Nor does it mean they would be paid more with a different unskilled job. China's struggle is that it has a massive surplus of unskilled labourers. The only way they can keep these people employed is by producing unskilled jobs for a low cost.
What is an example of an unskilled job? Sticking stickers on products. How much does it cost to get a machine to do it? $X. Then if a human wants to do it they must be to do at a comparable cost, otherwise market forces will eliminate his job. China is leaving low value manufacturing in coastal regions (where most of the manufacturing is done due to lower logistic costs). The unskilled migrant workers who haven't made their saving yet, and don't soon, are going to be far worse off in the future as they will have less earning opportunity and will be competing additional against logistic costs.
Many people fail to understand that things won't start costing more if unskilled Chinese labour would cost more. What would happen is we would start using simple machines to do the work and there would be less unskilled Chinese jobs available (leading to a slowdown of the Chinese economy). Dish washer machines are rare in restaurants in China due to the cost of labour being comparable or less than a machine.
Ok, so you raise an excellent doctrinal question, its one of philosophy. What is the role of the state in employment?
A libertarian view would have the state remove any barriers (short of money) that would prevent an individual from improving their own skills.
A traditional capitalist view would have the state provide enough educational opportunity to become 'minimally skilled' and achieve a living wage.
A socialist view would add to the capitalist view with a support network for folks with additional disadvantages such as learning disabilities or other impairments.
A communist view would provide jobs regardless of skill even if the product produced nothing of economic value.
A despotic or corrupt view would empower people to enslave others to increase their economic output as long as it didn't make the state 'look bad' to the international press.
Its a spectrum (more like a 3D surface) with folks all over the map. So far there have been few long term successes when the laborers were not able to improve their own skill sets, and some pretty spectacular failures when the labor pool was artificially prevented from improving itself.
You're misrepresenting the socialist and communist positions here. They aim to provide all education (up to university level) on a meritocratic basis. Since they're committed to providing for everybody, their idea is to get everyone to do something useful (the "from everybody according to their ability" part).
If someone can't become skilled through training and education, they should be given work that doesn't
require education (say, a janitor). Makes that person feel more useful vs just giving them unemployment checks for staying home.
Fair point, it is part of the socialist and communist doctrine.
There is an interesting 'post period benefit capture' issue that comes up. Lets say you're a young rebel and fritter away your youth rebelling rather than learning. Sadly in the US a lot of these folks end up either in the criminal justice system or on the marginalized edge of society. There are some great programs run by ex-gang members in LA [1] that tries to give people the skills they need, after they realize they need them, which may be much later than when the 'system' would normally provide. Adults going back for a GED and then on to college for additional skills.
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/12/chinese-foxc...
[2] http://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/china-in-revolt/