China Labour Bulletin appears in this article. Copyright remains with the original publisher
Guangdong workers challenge employers
Fiona Tam
Updated on Jul 09, 2008
Guangdong's courts and arbitrators handled more than twice as many labour disputes this May than a year earlier, after Beijing introduced rules giving workers more rights and making arbitration free.
Lawyers said the fact that workers had won most of the cases brought recently could discourage further investment from Hong Kong.
According to official data, the number of labour disputes handled by Guangdong's arbitration agencies tripled and court cases jumped 160 per cent in the past six months.
Ninety per cent of the cases were brought in the major Pearl River Delta manufacturing hubs of Guangzhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen, Zhongshan, Foshan and Huizhou.
The provincial Department of Labour and Social Security issued guidelines on Monday to speed up the handling of cases and clarify the punishments employers would face if they tried to exploit loopholes in the new labour contract law.
The guidelines identify four ruses employers are using to avoid giving open-ended contracts to long-serving employees. For the first time, they treat disputes over employers' social security obligations as a labour issue.
The department also said employers were responsible for providing evidence in disputes over unpaid overtime.
Shenzhen lawyer Li Yingchun said his migrant worker clients needed to wait six months to have their cases heard. He attributed the sharp rise in the number of cases to the new regulations.
"New labour laws have scrapped the minimum 520 yuan [HK$590] arbitration fee for migrant workers and extended the statute of limitations from two months to a year," he said.
Migrant workers are also entitled to file a lawsuit against their employers at no cost if arbitration agencies fail to mediate a dispute in 45 working days. In the past, workers had to go through a long arbitration process before they were allowed to bring court cases.
Mr Li said most of his cases involved Hong Kong or overseas manufacturers not paying migrant workers for overtime. He said the compensation some small businesses faced paying out could bankrupt them.
Geoffrey Crothall, the English-language editor of the China Labour Bulletin in Hong Kong, said it was encouraging to see that more workers were aware of their rights thanks to the publicity the new law had received.
"Many Hong Kong- or foreign-invested companies had quite an easy time in southern China during the past three decades. Now they're simply asked to pay a decent wage to their employees," he said.
An acute labour shortage has forced Guangdong to deal with the rights of migrant workers. Shenzhen has raised its minimum wage to 1,000 yuan a month from July 1, and other delta cities have increased basic monthly pay by an average of 13 per cent since April.
The Department of Labour and Social Security said it expected to attract more migrant workers by giving them greater respect in the workplace and a bigger share of the benefits of economic growth.