LABOUR RIGHTS

Labour Rights in China through the International Labour Rights Law and the Chinese National Law

Labour Rights in China through the International Labour Rights Law and the Chinese National Law

In Western industrialized nations, rise of communal labor rights, or “industrial citizenship,” was the response of working class to employers' power in capitalist economy. They grew out of prior existing civil rights and political rights and were an extension of these two types of rights to employees as the generic social category. The evolution and institutionalization of such communal rights are basis for development and establishment of institutions of industrial associations as well as welfare regimes that ensure employees' social rights. The evolving trajectory of “industrial citizenship” in West, rooted in its historical development, does not necessarily apply to other social contexts.

Pre-reform China was the society where employees enjoyed basic social and economic entitlements without having substantive communal rights. But as China moves to the market economy and state abandons its paternalist role, how employees' individual rights can be effectively protected from abuses by employers becomes problematic. The government's approach is to manage labor associations through laws that codify employees' individual rights and specify grievance procedures. It is unfair to say that employees cannot benefit from newly established legal framework aimed to protect their rights. But very often, these laws are ignored by employers, while redressing rights' abuses has to rely on employees' personal efforts—or communal unrest. Employees have had little influence on terms and conditions of employment, such as wages, hours of work, working conditions, and grievance procedures, as well as workplace management. The above factors point to lack of communal rights as the major cause. Communal rights, in other words, become necessary for safeguarding employees' individual rights and their status in labor associations as state has abandoned its paternalist ...