Companies urged to protect Chinese workers
United Press International
16 December 2005
HONG KONG, Dec. 16 (UPI) -- A labor group has urged foreign companies doing business in China to insist on collective employment contracts for workers, to provide them legal protection.
Han Dongfang, director of the Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin, said the current use of "codes of conduct" by foreign companies to regulate their Chinese partners was just a "cat-and-mouse game," as factory managers tried to hide real conditions from their partners.
Multinational companies often ask independent monitors to investigate labor conditions at factories producing goods for them in China. But employers often coach factory workers as to how to reply to questions, the South China Morning Post reported Friday.
Han said legal contracts were necessary to cover wages, welfare, work hours, occupational hazards, safety and working conditions, to ensure recourse to courts if the rules were violated. Under the "code of conduct" system, violations are not punishable by law.