China Enacts Stronger Labor Law

New Rules to Protect Abused Migrant Workers

BEIJING, June 29 -- The Chinese legislature passed a law Friday to provide more protection to the millions of farm youths who leave home and become cheap labor in the factories and construction sites that have mushroomed in China's booming economy.

The Standing Committee of the China People's Congress, in approving the law, presented it as a bulwark against widespread abuses of the often-uneducated migrant workers, such as forced labor, withholding of pay and unwarranted dismissal. The country was alarmed two weeks ago, for example, by the discovery that hundreds of Chinese were forced to work in conditions resembling slavery at dozens of brick kilns in Shanxi province while local Communist Party officials did nothing to stop it.

In reaction, lawmakers at the last minute added a provision to the long-discussed labor code to mandate punishment for officials who are shown to be negligent or corrupt in allowing entrepreneurs to abuse workers. This and the unusual public rollout of the new law seemed designed to show the Chinese public that the central government of President Hu Jintao is determined to crack down on corrupt officials and protect those left behind by the swift economic growth of the past 25 years.

"The law is meant to protect the workers and their rights," Xin Chunying, who heads the Standing Committee's labor committee, said at a news conference. The Standing Committee is a permanent body of the China People's Congress, a legislature whose hundreds of provincial delegates meet once a year to voice approval for government policies.

Hu and his premier, Wen Jiabao, repeatedly have ordered crackdowns on negligent and corrupt local officials based on existing law, most recently after the kiln workers were discovered. Laws and regulations have long been in place to protect workers. But as is frequently the case in China, the enforcement of the rules has often been frustrated by collusion between local entrepreneurs and party officials eager to promote economic development and supplement their own bank accounts.

China forbids independent labor unions. The official All China Federation of Trade Unions, tied to the same party bureaucrats, functions as an arm of the government -- and thus of economic development -- more than as a watchdog for workers.

Legislators said one feature of the new law that might help workers is reinforcement of the requirement for detailed contracts spelling out what workers are entitled to in return for their time on the job. Construction workers in particular have found that frequently, after six months or a year on the job, their employers refuse to give them their pay, arguing that development companies ran out of cash and did not provide money to the construction companies.

Migrant workers -- as many as to 900 million have left farms to find jobs -- typically get dormitory-style housing and basic food as part of their benefits. They often work without pay until just before the Chinese New Year, when they are supposed to receive their back pay to enable them to return home and shower their families with gifts.