Labor law gets new teeth(2)

Ke Yangzhi, head of the information office of the Higher People's Court in Henan Province, said there have been several indictments for the crime in Henan in recent months, and that the explanation establish a national standard.

According to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, labor security and monitoring agencies across the country handled 218,000 payment delay cases in 2012 and got 20 billion yuan of wages back for over 6.2 million workers. But these workers made up only a fraction of the whole, as many migrants  have limited access to legal aid, and the official arbitrary procedures often go on and on.

Wei Haomin, a landscape designer from Zhengzhou, Henan Province, told the Global Times Tuesday that his wages of 7,933 yuan for 35 days has been delayed since August last year and his contractor has been avoiding him since then.

"I've tried many ways but different government agencies always shuffle their responsibilities," said Wei, adding that he did consider litigation but had difficulties collecting evidence and paying court costs, especially since he didn't sign a contract when taking the job.

Wu, a worker with a Jiangsu-based shipyard, said that employees hadn't been paid since July. "We received one month's wages two weeks ago after thousands of our contract workers went on a strike last month. The company paid off a bank loan using the revenue instead of paying us," he said.

The major measures to solve wage disputes if negotiations fail include filing complaints to labor security and monitoring agencies, applying for dispute arbitration, and ultimately bringing litigation.

However, Zheng Jianhe, a Nanjing-based lawyer said that many workers simply don't know about these channels, and that only a few indictments have been made for this crime since 2011 because of the difficulty of collecting evidence and the lack of judicial efficiency.

"But the explanation will warn those employers who think that they can put anything away with money and delays," said Zheng.

Yan also said that litigation could only be filed after the employers failed to pay after administrative orders, but agencies seldom issue documents on time due to a huge amount of cases and a lack of efficiency.