Hu Xiaoyan, 34, a ceramics worker in China's southern manufacturing hub of Guangdong, may be an unlikely politician, but her appointment to parliament signals a historic if only symbolic milestone in modern Chinese politics.

When the National People's Congress parliament opens for its annual session on Wednesday in Beijing, Hu will rub elbows with 3,000 other selected delegates from around the country, voting on key leadership and policy changes.

Hu will be one of three delegates for the first time representing the country's 200 million migrant labourers, and she is optimistic she can persuade leaders to improve the plight of one of China's most disadvantaged classes.

"The first thing I must be concerned with is their needs, which is their welfare and treatment," Hu told reporters at a briefing organised by the government at the factory where she works in the industrial city of Foshan.

"Going to Beijing I'm shouldering a hugely important task," said Hu, who spends her free time on a new 5,000-yuan (700-dollar) laptop listening to and collecting the concerns of migrant workers from around the nation.

Yet the political realities for Hu, like the plight of China's migrant workers, are a long way from the ideal.

China's parliament is an organ with no real legislative teeth, and effectively only serves to rubber stamp the ruling Communist Party's predetermined agenda.

Delegates like Hu have no real power to table legislation, and their participation is not much more than a discussion forum for members to put forth their views in hopes the senior leadership will take up their cause.

Meanwhile, migrant labourers are the foot soldiers of China's economic miracle, toiling far from home for little pay in often dangerous construction or factory jobs as well as all-manner of services that others refuse.

Prior to the start of China's market-based economic reforms nearly 30 years ago, when the nation was still in the throes of revolution, the blue-collar worker was held up as the typical communist hero, but not anymore.

"They are a huge and underprivileged group in China," said Xu Yuling, a lawyer in Beijing who advises migrant workers who are owed money, or have been refused compensation for on-the-job injuries.

Aside from falling prey to unscrupulous factory bosses and the local officials they often collude with, migrant workers do not enjoy the same rights and benefits due to laws that link residence with welfare and schooling rights.

Migrant workers also continue to largely stand outside the Chinese legal system and do not receive social welfare or medical insurance, said Ren Yuan, a professor of public policy at Shanghai's Fudan University.

Many minorities are also not accustomed to speaking up for themselves, while those who dare to are usually suppressed by the authorities.

"Due to a lack of free speech, they have no means to participate in the policy dialogue process and end up being excluded from policy decisions," Ren said.

For instance, high tuition fees at local schools, and the government's refusal to help the workers and their families, has meant millions of workers like Hu are forced to leave their children at home with relatives.

The dislocation has meant that Hu, daughter of farmers from China's remote southwest Sichuan province, has worked away from home for more than 10 years, only seeing her twin 12-year-old daughters once a year, sometimes less.

While at her vast factory employing 7,300, workers are now allowed to bring their children and even have access to financial help with fees, Hu will be campaigning for the majority of migrants who do not enjoy such benefits.

"Migrant workers really need fair rights and education for their children," said Hu.

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