China's Labour Laws

[Hero Doug]

Thought some people might like to read this. I arrived at this site from the Chinese governments offical portal.

http://www.npc.gov.cn/englishnpc/Law/2007-12/12/content_1383754.htm

Edit 1: I was in a bit of a rush when posting this so there wasn't much substance. I had a talk about overtime and wasn't sure about what the law said. I took a look around and found Chinas labour laws in English. I thought I'd share this resource with the CF community.

Edit 2: AxelManbow's rant reminded me that a disclaimer might not be a bad idea for this post.

Disclaimer: The above links are not legal advice. Read it, absorb it, and consult with a lawyer.

Edited August 10, 2009 at 11:27 AM by Hero Doug

[AxelManbow]

Fascinating.

I would not recommend anyone to take anything in the attached article as any kind of legal advice or documentation. I would recommend consulting a reputable China based lawyer that is a specialist in your field. It is interesting reading, but must be taken with a pinch of salt.

The attached link/document is a collection of principals and references to other laws. There is little to be understood from it, and while it does sound nice it is probably misleading on an assumption basis for a layperson due to the differences of Chinese and Anglo/basically any other form of law. .gov.cn sounds authoritative, sometimes yes sometimes no.

Some cases: What if a foreign enterprise employed a local cadre's spouse (and th spouse had no connection with the army/government), what would the pension requirements be [hint: not the same as a cadre or a normal employee]? What about a former government worker that filled a later position in a private company? Nothing like that is known by anyone other than a local tax office.

Almost everyone knows the basic stuff. Hard stuff is interesting. Posting common rules, while useful, doesn't reflect the pain and confusion caused by regional and obscure semi-observed national principals.

Most stuff in the link, in terms of regulatory requirements and policies, while cool, would be refused by a local tax, municipal, and national policy enforcers (of various sizes).

Edited August 5, 2009 at 03:48 PM by AxelManbow
I thought he was a spammer!

[gato]

I thought he was a spammer!

You thought he was an agent for the National People's Congress? Hehe.

[AxelManbow]

Quote:

I thought he was a spammer!

You thought he was an agent for the National People's Congress? Hehe.

LOL no. Just a precursor to the expectation of an agency claiming expertise.

I guess regional forums have turned me into a curmudgeon.

[imron]

Admin here are usually pretty vigilant about that sort of thing and actively discourage/prevent it (most soft-spam is from new users, and never even makes it past the moderation queue). If someone has a few hundred posts under their belt, it's probably a fair indication that they're not going to be a spammer (long-time members with businesses to promote will know the appropriate place for links is in their signature).

That being said, it does highlight the importance of including more than just a link and a one line comment when starting a post (hint hint).

(ps, it amuses me that the official English translation of China's labour laws are: "interesting reading, but must be taken with a pinch of salt" ).

[Hero Doug]

AxelManbow, could you explain how it's "a collection of principals and references to other laws"?

I readuch of the document I linked to (I'm only interested in one section myself) and it's fairly specific. As an example:

Article 40 The employing unit shall, during the following festivals, arrange holidays for its labourers in accordance with the law:

(1) The New Year's Day;

(2) The Spring Festival;

(3) The International Labour Day;

(4) The National Day; and

(5) Other holidays provided by laws, rules and regulations.

It seems fairly cut and dry to me. Can you provide an example of the references you speak of?

Also, I'll remember to bring up your point on the enactment of national laws at the lower levels of government should I cross paths with a lawyer anytime soon.

I'm not so concerned about arguing law with government officials because frankly I'm not sure such a case would even go to court; but I believe suing a company is a whole different story. Maybe China is more corrupt than I think it is. Maybe you don't need that much guanxi to have the presiding judge rule against the law. I've never been to court here, so I really don't know.

[wushijiao]

but I believe suing a company is a whole different story.

Actually, workers win well over 50% of their cases, especially in routine labor cases, and that number can go well above 90% if they have lawyers.