Zhejiang Tongxiang Court Building
Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province recently released the “Abnormal List of Labor Rights Defenders” through its official WeChat public number, informing the society of Hu, the first Sichuan labor rights defender on the list. Labor experts point out that this one-size-fits-all approach to governance will accelerate the imbalance in labor-management relations and leave workers with damaged interests with no way to complain.
The People’s Court of Tongxiang City, Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, informed on Feb. 7 that workers who have demanded for payment of construction work three times or more in the same labor security supervision department or five times or more in different labor security supervision departments within one year in the name of defaulted migrant workers’ wages will be included in the “abnormal list of workers’ rights defense”. Other conditions for entering this list include a certain number of complaints, arbitration applications and lawsuits filed in the same labor security supervision department, labor arbitration court and people’s court within three years. The abnormal rights of workers on the list will be promptly notified to the various labor intermediaries, talent market, industry associations, etc. Meanwhile, for abnormal rights of workers, the local departments will scrutinize the relevant cases in labor supervision, arbitration and trial.
In May 2020, the South Lake Tahoe Court in Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province, issued the first “abnormal list of workers’ rights”. The Huzhou court informed that the list was designed to deal with the phenomenon of workers “banging” enterprises, regulate the abuse of rights, and reasonably allocate arbitration resources and judicial resources.
An anonymous Shenzhen labor rights activist told us that the “abnormal list of labor rights” existed in Guangdong Province before, but it was not made public: “This is not new. When the Labor Contract Law was first introduced more than a decade ago, this problem existed in Guangdong. Some people said the list was given by the Labor Bureau, others said it was given by the enterprises, but it was not public, it was just circulated in the talent market and among human resource managers.”
In April 2020, the court of South Taihu New District, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province, and other institutions issued a notice on the implementation of the “abnormal list of workers’ rights”. (New Blue Network)
Experts: the government should act in accordance with the law without distinguishing the subjective intentions of the rights defenders
The person said that the so-called “porcelain” rights are based on the fact that there are violations of the law, the relevant supervision and law enforcement departments should act in accordance with the law, rather than to distinguish whether the labor rights defenders are malicious rights: “No matter how many times the workers fight the lawsuit, it is the correction of the illegal behavior, but also to protect their rights. This is a sign that workers are aware of the law and of their rights. The government as a law enforcement agency should not see this as an anomaly, unless it is said that the defender of rights has abused the legal process to make some unreasonable demands. Workers protect their rights legally, and I don’t think there should be discrimination.”
Li Qiang, head of the U.S.-based human rights organization China Labor Watch, also believes that labor disputes are a common phenomenon and that the government should not define labor rights as abnormal or “porcelain”: “There is no such thing as There is no such thing as a ‘workplace bumper sticker’. The concept of ‘bumper sticker’ is completely wrong. The government has got this direction and spearhead wrong.”
Li Qiang said that the “abnormal list of workers’ rights” is the government’s suppression of labor rights to protect local tax-paying enterprises: “At the core, this policy is to protect the interests of enterprises, because the government wants to keep enterprises in the local area, while complaints and rights of workers are mobile in other places. These enterprises can bring a lot of tax revenue to the local area, and the operation of the enterprises affects the interests of the local government, and in a way the local government is not defending the rights of workers.”
The government’s favoritism to enterprises makes it more difficult to defend rights in the future
Li Qiang believes that the governance approach will further lead to an imbalance in local labor-management relations, making it more difficult for workers with damaged interests to defend their rights in the future. He said the government should do its job independently in labor protection, supervision and arbitration, instead of abusing its power to suppress rights defenders: “The labor dispute itself is a matter between enterprises and workers, but the government acts in favor of enterprises. There is no solution to the imbalance of labor-management relations in the Chinese system. It is difficult for workers to rely on the government to defend their rights; they must rely on themselves to defend their rights, but the power of individual workers is relatively thin, so there must be a strong organization, the trade union. This problem cannot be solved without the Chinese trade unions acting.”
According to the briefing, the “abnormal list of workers’ rights” will be adjusted once a year, and those who have been included in the list will be removed from it if they no longer meet the criteria. There are reports that this practice may be replicated throughout China.
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