Draft law on labor contract submitted to NPC

Source: CCTV.com | 12-25-2006 14:24

For further protect the rights of China's workers, a draft law on labor contract has been submitted on Sunday to a legislative session of the National People's Congress, NPC, for the second reading. If approved, it will be China's first law governing labor contracts.

The draft law was published for public consultation on March the 20th. During the period, NPC received over 190 thousand pieces of public suggestions.

Based on the public opinion, the draft law states specified rules on cracking down on illegal behaviors such as docking or delaying employee's pay.

Hu Guangbao, deputy director legislative affairs committee, NPC, said, "If the employers didn't pay in time or the certain amount of salary, the employees could ask help from the local court for an order of payment. If the employers refuse to cooperate, the local court will take punitive measures."

Besides that, an additional 50 to 100 percent of the delayed salary has to be compensated to the workers if employers procrastinated their payments.

Regarding the labor contracts, the new law prohibits the extensive trail period of using the workers, as well as breaking contracts without sound reasons.

Hu Guangbao said, "The trail period should not exceed one month if the validity period of the labor contract is less than one year, and it should not be longer than two months if the labor contract period is between 1 to 3 years."

The law also requires that the salary of the worker who's under trail period should be paid no less than 80 percent of the salary on the same post.

The new draft law is expected to help establish a stable and harmonious relationship between the employers and employees.

Editor:Du Xiaodan