Worker Rights
The Standing Committee of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) People's Congress recently completed a first stage of deliberations over draft implementation measures for China's Employment Promotion Law, according to October 9 and October 13, 2011, reports from Legal Daily.
Congressional-Executive Commission on China | www.cecc.gov
Statement of CECC Chairman Christopher Smith and Cochairman Sherrod Brown on the Release of the 2011 Annual Report
October 13, 2011
On October 13, 2010, the Yingjiang District People's Court in Anqing city, Anhui province, began China's first reported trial involving HIV-based employment discrimination, according to an October 14 China Daily article. Xiao Wu (alias) filed a lawsuit against the Anqing Bureau of Education (BOE) claiming that city officials' refusal to grant him a teaching position based on his HIV-positive test results "violated stipulations in relevant laws prohibiting discrimination against persons living with HIV/AIDS and infringed upon the plaintiff's lawful right to enjoy equal employment," according to the plaintiff's statement, cited in an August 26 Legal Daily report.
Hiring practices that discriminate against non-Han groups have continued in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). As documented by the CECC in recent years (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), job recruitment announcements from the region have reserved positions exclusively for Han Chinese in civil servant posts, state-owned enterprises, and private-sector jobs, including those advertised on government Web sites. The practices contravene provisions in Chinese law that forbid discrimination.
The Xi'an Municipal New City District Court in Xi'an city, Shaanxi province, sentenced labor lawyer and advocate Zhao Dongmin to three years' imprisonment on October 19, 2010, for "gathering a crowd to disrupt social order," according to an October 27, 2010, statement released by Zhao's lawyer, Li Jinsong (see a February 25, 2007, New York Times profile on Li).
In part to address official concern over the unequal distribution of wealth across China and its potential effects on "social unrest," the government reportedly has assembled a "basic framework" for a national regulation on wages. A November 19, 2010 China Business Network article reported that officials at the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS) have finished a framework for the Regulations on Wages (draft regulation), noting, however, that deliberations surrounding the pending legislation likely would not conclude in 2010. As of this writing, the full text of the draft regulation does not appear to be available on the Internet. Based on media reporting, the draft contains 10 sections, including provisions that delineate the "parameters for collective contracts, collective consultations, and minimum wages."
Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) continued to implement work-study programs in 2009 and 2010 that require students to pick cotton and engage in other forms of labor, according to various media and government reports from the region. (Internet access in the region was blocked in late 2009, and during that time, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China did not find any articles about work-study programs in the region that year.) As noted in past CECC analyses (1, 2, 3), the work-study programs have been used since the mid-1990s as a stated means of generating income for local schools and meeting local harvesting quotas.