Worker Rights
Yu Youjun, the former provincial governor of Shanxi province, described as "unparalleled" the punishment of 95 local Communist Party officials for their role in a scandal involving the enslavement of more than 1,300 people, including kidnapped children and mentally challenged adults, discovered working in Shanxi brick kilns in May and June 2007. According to an October 22, 2007, China Daily article, "About 8 of the 95 officials were expelled from the Party and lost their jobs, 30 were dismissed from their posts and more than 20 officials were demoted." The head of the provincial department of labor and social security and the mayors of Linfen and Yuncheng cities were "required to make a self-criticism at an official conference."
Authorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) continued this year to force students in the region to pick cotton and do other physical labor, despite China's obligation to bar such work as a state party to international conventions addressing child labor and despite objections from both students and parents. As previously noted by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), the XUAR government, acting under central government authority bolstered by local legal directives, promotes the use of student labor, including labor by young children, via work-study programs to harvest crops and do other work. The XUAR government reportedly developed work-study programs to address labor shortages during the autumn harvest. Students do not receive pay for their work, and their performance in the work-study programs influences their promotion to higher grades.
The following translation was retrieved from the Ministry of Commerce Web site on January 23, 2013. The Chinese text was retrieved from the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China Web site on January 23, 2013.
Law of the People's Republic of China on Mediation and Arbitration of Labor Disputes
2007-12-29
(Adopted at the 31st Session of the Standing Committee of the 10th National People's Congress on December 29, 2007)
Congressional-Executive Commission on China | www.cecc.gov
CECC Statement for United Nations' Human Rights Day 2007:
China Continues To Fall Short of Its Commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
December 9, 2007
Congressional-Executive Commission on China | www.cecc.gov
Congressional-Executive Commission on China Finds Increased Citizen Repression, Stalled Development of Rule of Law, and Troubling Suppression of Information in 2007 Annual Report
Special Focus of Report is on Tibet as Congress Prepares to Award the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal Next Week
October 11, 2007
(Washington, DC)—Rep. Sander Levin, Chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), issued the following statement on the CECC’s 2007 Annual Report.
The Chinese government has granted sentence reductions to six political prisoners, and released three others on parole, according to a report in the Fall 2006 issue of Dialogue, a newsletter published by The Dui Hua Foundation, and a September 26 Dui Hua press release. Authorities subsequently granted an additional reduction to one of the six prisoners and released him, according to a December 11 Reporters Without Borders (RSF) report.
China's State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) and Ministry of Supervision jointly issued interim provisions on November 22 that aim to increase accountability for coal mine accidents. Under the new provisions, government officials and personnel in state-owned enterprises will be subject to penalties including warnings, demotions, and dismissal for violations of coal mine safety practices. The violations include failing to correct hidden dangers that result in an accident; concealing, misreporting, or providing a delayed report of an accident; and allowing mines with revoked licenses to continue operations. The provisions provide for legal prosecution where authorities suspect officials or personnel of engaging in criminal behavior. The provisions accompany other recent legal guidance also aimed at addressing coal mine and workplace safety:
Sun Chunlan, Vice Chair and First Secretary of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), called for the national union federation to continue efforts to protect the legal rights of migrant workers at an October 15 meeting on migrant labor, according to an October 16 Legal Daily report (in Chinese).
Most of China’s 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and directly-administered municipalities now have hourly minimum wage standards, according to a Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MOLSS) third-quarter work progress report (Report) released on October 25. Only Guangdong province and the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) do not, according to the Report. This represents an increase over the end of 2005, when only 23 provincial-level areas had hourly minimum wage standards, according to 2005 statistics published on the MOLSS Web site. Based on those statistics, Fujian, Qinghai, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shandong, and Heilongjiang provinces have since issued hourly minimum wage standards.