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Surge in violations of migrant worker contracts

By WANG WEN CHINA DAILY
Updated: 2010-04-15 00:00

Contract violations involving mainly migrant workers surged to 3,207 cases in Beijing last year, a 22 percent jump over the previous year.

The labor supervision authority said on Wednesday that the increase was alarming, given that 2008’s figure was more than 20 percent higher than that of 2007’s.

Liu Bin, supervising chief of the authority in Chaoyang — where there are nearly two million workers — said the problem of contract violations was highest among migrant workers at construction sites.

Many contractors at such sites would not sign contracts with short-term workers, nor would some private businesses such as supermarkets and domestic help firms, Liu said.

“Cases of contract violations top the reported incidents in our district right now,” he said.

One such case involves Mu Fengshen, 48, a migrant worker from Hebei province and his 30 colleagues.

In April last year, they tried to sue their employer for three months of back pay, but he disappeared.

As none of them had signed a contract, they could not prove their relationship. “We did not know anything about any contract as the employer did not tell us to sign any contracts,” said Mu.

In December, a district court found for Mu and his colleagues, but because the employer had disappeared, they couldn’t get their money.

Wang Fang, director of the Zhicheng legal aid and research center for migrant workers, said the low signing rate was a problem when the center tried to help migrants claim their backpay.

The 3,200-odd cases are just a part of some 18,700 investigated by the Beijing Labor Supervision Department of the Bureau of Human Resource and Social Security for violating labor laws and regulations.

 Of these, about 9,000 were problems of back pay, said Wu Antai, head of the Beijing Labor Supervision Department.

As a result, more than 50,700 workers received arrears in salaries amounting to much as 211 million yuan (30.9 million).

Wu said most of the problems were in the construction industry, but forecast a decrease in cases this year due to a reduction in the number of building sites in Beijing.

Most of the labor law violations were in private enterprises, with 17,900 cases reported.

Some foreign companies also broke labor laws, but the number was small.

Liu Qinglin, deputy director of the Beijing Labor Supervision Department, said the authority had only 400 staff to investigate 96,100 companies in 2009.

 “This has always been a problem in the department,” said Liu.

Liu said while most of the companies complied with the authority’s decisions, 1,067 companies were fined last year for refusing to do so.