Trade unions help workers to recover unpaid wages

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, December 30, 2003

Trade unions help workers to recover unpaid wages

Chinese trade unions have vowed to increase efforts to press employers who fail to pay wages to their workers.

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Chinese trade unions have vowed to increase efforts to press employers who fail to pay wages to their workers.

"We will mobilize trade unions at all levels to help the workers deal with the unpaid wages in the new year," said Dong Li,director of the Financial Auditing Committee of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), at a press conference here Monday.

The emphasis would be on helping migrant workers in the construction and catering industries, where the problem of unpaid wages was especially serious, said Dong.

Statistics from the ACFTU show China has 94 million migrant rural laborers, whose employers are in arrears totaling 100 billion yuan (12.1 billion US dollars). Construction firms accountfor over 70 percent of wage defaults, followed by the catering industry.

The present Labor Law, passed in 1994, required the prompt payment of wages unless there are reasonable delays, but these were difficult to define, said Dong, adding that there were no effective penalties to prevent defaulting.

Investigations by trade unions show that overdue wages were oneof the three major causes of poverty among workers, the other two being long-term unemployment and serious illness.

Some local practices had proved effective in preventing defaulting, said Dong. In Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province,the local government had clearly limited the period of delay to two weeks and the delay had to be approved by the local authorities.

In Nanhai, also in Guangdong, an electronic credit system had been established to supervise wage payments. People would avoid working for companies with records of delayed payment, said Dong.

Many workers in state enterprises that were in financial difficulty also suffered from overdue wages, Dong said.

Every year, migrant and state enterprise workers were subject to a total of 40 billion yuan (4.8 billion US dollars) in delayed payments.

The problem was easier to resolve in state enterprises, which were legally obliged to give priority to paying overdue wages before they announced bankruptcy, Dong said.

Unions push for new law to help workers

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions wants to help migrant workers get paid quickly.

The federation is pushing for new legislation that will clearly stipulate how quick workers should get paid.

"We hope there is a regulation with specific articles to guarantee every labour's immediate payment," Ding Dajian, a senior official with the All-China Federation of Trade Unions told China Daily Monday.

Ding said his federation has delivered a report to the State Council, urging it to revise the current payment regulation.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Security unveiled the regulation in 1995, with related articles to "avoid vicious delayed payment."

"It didn't go into details and punishment articles," said Ding.

Unionists want to add three articles in the new regulation.

First, as Chinese workers and employees, migrant workers should be paid monthly or weekly.

Second, payment can be delayed on the condition that trade unions agree. But the deadline should be within two weeks.

Third, the detailed punishment articles should be written into the revised regulation.

"We should ensure farmers-turned-workers have an effective weapon in hand," said Ding.

Recently, some local legislative bodies were praised by Ding's federation for their timely revision of local payment regulations.

In Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, the local legislature said the deadline for payment should not exceed two weeks after pay day of every month.

But now, many migrant workers are not allowed equal opportunities to negotiate and sign labour contracts and they are usually paid once every year.

Yesterday, another senior official with the federation, Dong Li, also said the unions will try to prevent migrant workers from being left penniless as the Spring Festival approaches.

The festival, which falls in January next year, is often not a cause for celebration for the huge number of workers who have travelled to cities to find employment.

But statistics show that employers across the country owe 100 billion yuan (US$12 billion) to the nation's huge army of 94 million migrant workers.

Meanwhile, delayed payments also exist in State-owned enterprises, said Dong.

To help solve knotty difficulties of laid-off workers in some, the federation has earmarked 30 million yuan (US$3.6 million) to distribute among the needy nationwide during festival season.

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