It’s easy to find out about the lifestyles of the rich and famous around the world. But it’s not so easy to learn about the actual conditions and concerns of workers in other countries. This is even truer for countries like China, where communication with the outside world is limited.
Last spring a new draft labor law was proposed by the Chinese government. In a surprisingly democratic move, the government opened up a period of comment on the law. The comments of US and EU multi-nationals were the basis of our report: Behind the Great Wall.
But comments on the proposed law did not just come from corporations; over 190,000 comments poured in from ordinary people from all walks of life. Many—about 100 pages worth—appeared on a site hosted by the People’s Daily in Beijing. The newspaper asked people to comment “….as individual bloggers, rather than as representatives of the people.”
The comments open a window on the life and problems of ordinary workers in China. Some of them are unique to workers in China such as problems associated with Chinese labor contract law. But workers around the world will recognize many others. For example, workers in many countries know that there are labor laws that are supposed to protect their rights, but find that there is little or no way to access means of enforcing them.
We want to thank Julia Chuang and her colleagues for their work uncovering this trove of information and for making some of it available to non-Chinese speaking people.
We have grouped the first batch of comments into 3 categories. Today’s blog samples some of the problems that workers want addressed in the new law. Our next post, we will look at comments on implementation of existing labor laws. In our final post in this series, we will sample comments on the details of the new draft law.
Our goal is to let the comments speak for themselves, but we recommend reading our report, Behind the Great Wall for a better understanding of the proposed draft law.
It’s our hope to bring more of the voices of ordinary Chinese workers to our readers in the future.
To understand some of the comments it’s important to know that Chinese labor law is based on individual or collective contracts between workers and employers. (The bloggers sometimes use the phrases, “work units” and “employing units”) Each worker is supposed to be covered by an individual or collective contract, but often they aren’t. And when they are covered, the contracts are often ignored. The new law proposes to extend contracts to everyone and provide guidelines for the duration and coverage of the contracts. The law also sets out other basic workplace standards on a range of issues.
Here are some comments.
Re: Draft Law In low-paying industries, those who are injured, particularly those who are injured slowly over a long period of time, cannot obtain medical treatment because the medical fees (subsidy) are too high for their incomes to cover both living fees and limited medical supplies. If we face a removal of the labor contract, those who are currently receiving medical treatment will need compensation, or at least some form of care. This group of people is not a majority, but they rely on care in order to survive. I hope we can take them into special consideration.
Re: Draft Law Over-time wages should not only be restricted to not be less than the lowest local wage level. For a monthly salary of 2100 yuan, the average daily salary should be 100 yuan (for a month of 20.92 working days). For Saturday over-time work, the day’s wages should be 300% normal working day wages, that is, 100 + 200 = 300 yuan.
Re: Draft Law If the lowest local wage level is 800 yuan monthly, and over-time wages are 150 yuan daily or lower, this situation is illegal. We must correct it.
Re: Draft Law Down-sizing work units must take into consideration work seniority of experienced workers, because these workers have had the greatest contribution to the work unit. Work units cannot brush these workers aside in times of financial crisis. When experienced and older workers are let go, they have difficulty in finding new work. This is unfavorable for the harmony and stability of society.
Re: Draft Law China’s laws and administrative regulations draw a blank in protecting under-age child laborers. They do not have any restricting rules against the working hours, over-time hours, etc. of child laborers. Now, because of the unprofitability of other kinds of work (agricultural), the use of school-aged child laborers during their school vacations is becoming increasingly prevalent. Because they are students, and because they are not adults, the rule “different pay for different work, no limits on over-time work” is extremely predominant. This poses hidden dangers to the physical and mental well being of these child laborers. Even schools cannot adopt any measures to protect the interests of their students. I recommend that the labor contract law put forward definite rules protecting the well-being of child laborers.
Re: Draft Law Workers who suffer from both moderate and more severe Hepatitis B suffer work discrimination at the hands of their employers. This trend severely damages the immediate and lawful interests and work opportunities of workers who are carriers of Hepatitis B.
The eighth law of “Labor Contract Law” states that employing units have the right to know the physical conditions of their workers. Since this law does not have any limits, it will be exceedingly easy for the employing unit to abuse its right to know workers’ physical conditions. This will make it difficult for Hepatitis B virus carriers to receive any effective legal protections in the job market.
For this reason, we recommend that the “Labor Contract Law” must limit the right of employing units to know their workers’ physical conditions. We also recommend that the “Labor Contract Law” enforce specific programs and standards for workers in the physical examinations.
If we cannot find a good solution to this program, it will become a large program for society.
Re: Draft Law Just because we workers that have devoted an entire lifetime to working for an enterprise have gotten old doesn’t mean we should just be kicked aside. There should be a legal system to protect our rights.
Re: Draft Law There should be clear stipulations for when payday occurs, as well as on sick days, and days off for accidents, bereavement, marriage, etc. These rights should be protected, it shouldn’t be like it is now where workers basically don’t get any days off.
Re: Draft Law The labor law should have serious restrictions on layoffs, especially for older employees
Re: Draft Law Here they dock two days of pay for every one day we take off. It’s really unfair, but there’s nothing to be done.
Re: Draft Law I’m from Binzhou in Shandong province, and I’ve been working for company X for eleven years. My hukou [household registration] is in the countryside. For the past few years the company has signed one year contracts with us, but the content is very hard for the workers to understand. We frequently have to work overtime. Regardless of the labor law, the company doesn’t ensure the rights of the employees, and they’ve never given us social insurance. I hope the new labor law will clear up some of these unresolved problems, and really protect the legal rights and interests of workers.
Re: Draft Law I used to be an employee in an enterprise that was not very productive. The company moved us to a different enterprise that is more productive, but our benefits never changed, and there were no benefits at the old enterprise. We can only watch as the other employees take their year end bonus and other presents that they get at holidays. The work we do is no easier than others. I hope that the new labor law can deal with this problem.
Re: Draft Law The law should be passed as soon as possible.
Re: Draft Law Finally there is a law specifically for supporting the common people!
Re: Draft Law Protecting the rights of the vast majority of employees is an important aspect of human rights.
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