Regarding non-payment of holiday pay, many workers said they would not report violations for fear of retaliation or dismissal.

"I saw the news scrolling on TV that there was a hotline for workers to report companies that wouldn't give them their extra holiday pay," said Xu Peiying, who works for a mid-sized supermarket in Northeast China's Liaoning province and did not get extra compensation for working five of the seven days of the Spring Festival holiday.

"But what would the company do to informants if it found out they were tipping off authorities?" she said.

If labor inspectors do not audit businesses, workers have to cope with the violations.

Some business owners, however, object to the universal application of the holiday pay policy, saying they will suffer losses if they comply.

Qiao Fan, who runs a foot massage shop in Chongqing, said the shop's income was not enough to cover labor costs if workers were paid three times a normal wage. He had to close shop during Spring Festival.

The inefficiency of grassroots trade unions is also blamed for the labor rights violations.

Some grassroots unions have not properly represented or protected workers' rights, said Chang Kai, a human resources professor at Renmin University of China. None of the 300 strikes across the country in 2010 was organized by the trade unions, he said. Some of the strikes, in fact, demanded the restructuring of grassroots trade unions.

Meanwhile, grassroots organizations that advocate workers' rights are sprouting up across the country, but they are struggling to gain legal status.

Existing social organizations, such as trade unions, are sufficient to eliminate labor rights violations, said Liu Jun, founder of Honghuacao, an organization in Shenzhen to protect workers' rights. "But their performance falls short."

"Workers don't have faith in these organizations," he said. Therefore, many turn to NGOs like Honghuacao for help.

But many organizations like Honghuacao are seen as troublemakers by authorities, and have a hard time registering as NGOs so that they can exert more influence than providing legal education and entertainment for workers.

"No government department is willing to serve as their business administrators, which is required of civil service agencies that intend to register as an NGO," said Zhang Zhiru, head of Chunfeng, one of the largest and earliest grassroots organizations in Shenzhen to offer consulting services to workers.

Referring to his experience trying to find a business administrator for Chunfeng years ago, he said: "They passed the buck to each other."

Chunfeng had to register as a commercial enterprise instead of an NGO.

Liu Ce contributed to this story.