How can the difficulty of migrant workers' wage claims be solved? Confronting the crux behind wage arrears
As the end of the year approaches, what is the situation regarding ensuring payment of migrant workers' wages? Where does the difficulty of migrant workers' wage claims lie? What good strategies are there for resolving wage arrears for migrant workers? As China launched a special inspection of migrant workers' wage payment, Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security Qiu Xiaoping and other relevant figures accepted interviews with reporters on the above issues.
Old problems plus new challenges, the situation remains severe
Qiu Xiaoping pointed out that migrant workers are the main body of China's industrial workforce and have made enormous contributions to economic and social development.
Protecting migrant workers' rights to labor remuneration in accordance with the law concerns economic and social development, social fairness and justice, and the maintenance of social stability, and is an important responsibility of governments at all levels.
For some time now, all regions have actively improved long-term mechanisms for preventing and resolving the problem of wage arrears for migrant workers, and stepped up efforts to rectify prominent wage arrears problems, achieving notable results: in the first three quarters of this year, nationwide a total of 174,000 wage-related illegal cases were investigated and handled, involving 2.317 million migrant workers, with 23.48 billion yuan in wages and benefits recovered and paid, down 8.8%, 13%, and 9.3% respectively compared with the same period last year.
"While affirming the achievements, we must also clearly see that the situation for ensuring payment of migrant workers' wages remains severe," Qiu Xiaoping said frankly.
On the one hand, old problems have not yet been fundamentally resolved. The deep-seated contradictions causing the chronic problem of wage arrears have not yet been eliminated, the institutional mechanisms for governing wage arrears are not yet sound enough, and the problem of wage arrears in the engineering construction sector remains very prominent.
On the other hand, new challenges are gradually becoming prominent. At present, China's economic development has entered a new normal, downward pressure on the economy is increasing, overcapacity in industries such as steel and coal is severe, and some enterprises face difficulties in production and operations, further increasing the difficulty of resolving the problem of wage arrears for migrant workers. As the end of the year and the beginning of the next approach, the situation for ensuring payment of migrant workers' wages remains severe and complex.
The causes are complex, and the construction sector remains the "disaster area"
According to statistics from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, from 2013 to 2015, among wage arrears cases investigated and handled nationwide, more than 80% of cases and amounts belonged to the engineering construction sector, and in some provinces it was even as high as more than 90%.
"The wage arrears problems that arise at construction units are mostly economic contracting disputes intertwined with labor disputes, forming a very long debt chain, which increases the difficulty of resolving wage arrears," Qiu Xiaoping said.
Some grassroots officials introduced that in the engineering and construction sector, problems such as affiliation contracting, illegal subcontracting, and repeated subcontracting at each level are endless, and large numbers of labor subcontracting companies without qualifications and even natural persons (labor contractors) organize migrant workers for construction. A very long "debt chain" is formed between construction units and migrant workers, making it difficult to implement the main body responsible for paying wages. Once a break in the capital chain occurs or a contracting contract dispute arises, migrant workers at the very end of the interest chain are likely to become the direct victims of wage arrears.
At the same time, the current "cost of violating the law" for wage arrears is on the low side: according to current labor security laws and regulations, for enterprises that delay wage payments, human resources and social security departments can only order them to pay wages; if they fail to pay within the time limit, they are ordered to pay additional compensation at a standard of 50% or more but no more than 1 times the amount payable.
If an employer refuses to make corrections after being ordered to do so, or refuses to execute an administrative handling decision, human resources and social security departments are also limited to imposing a fine of 2,000 yuan or more but no more than 20,000 yuan.
Apart from a small number of cases suspected of the crime of refusing to pay labor remuneration, the cost of violating the law for enterprises with wage arrears is too low to serve as a deterrent.
In fact, there are also some technical factors behind the persistence of wage arrears crimes despite repeated crackdowns, such as the excessively high cost of defending rights: completing an entire set of procedures of "one arbitration and two trials" (one labor arbitration and two court judgments) may take more than two years. Many places have established systems such as wage guarantee deposits and "blacklists." From practice, although they have had effects, the results are not ideal.
Reject "unspoken rules" and let migrant workers enjoy equal treatment
From November 15, 2016 to before the 2017 Spring Festival, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and 12 other departments will jointly organize a special inspection of migrant workers' wage payment across the country.
Through the special inspection, ensure that notable results are achieved in resolving wage arrears for migrant workers, and realize a clear decline before the Spring Festival in cases of wage arrears for migrant workers and the number of people involved, and a clear decline in the number of mass incidents triggered by wage arrears.
Experts such as Zhou Tianyong, a professor at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, believe that in addition to special inspections, legislation related to wage arrears should also be accelerated. In response to the current problem of low legal liability for wage arrears, the Regulations on Ensuring Enterprise Wage Payment should be issued as soon as possible to regulate enterprise wage payment behavior, elevate effective wage payment guarantee measures in practice into legal provisions, and increase the penalties for illegal acts such as enterprises deducting or delaying wages.
At the same time, the Regulations on Labor Security Supervision should be amended in due course, granting labor security supervision and law enforcement departments certain administrative compulsory measures so that they have the power to inquire into assets such as the accounts of enterprises with wage arrears, and freeze them when necessary, thereby strengthening the compulsory force of administrative law enforcement.
Qiu Xiaoping believes that the "fundamental" solution to wage arrears for migrant workers is to pay wages in full on a monthly basis in accordance with the law. The Labor Law promulgated and implemented in 1994 stipulates: wages shall be paid to workers themselves in monetary form on a monthly basis. This law has been in effect for more than 20 years, but in fields such as construction engineering, paying only living expenses each month and settling the total account according to project progress or at the end of the year is still an "unspoken rule."
"This is in fact shifting operational risks onto workers. If this logic were followed, then all manufacturing enterprises could refuse to pay wages monthly on the grounds that products have not been sold or payment for goods has not been recovered," Qiu Xiaoping said.
Liu Yachen, a professor at Shenyang Jianzhu University, said that developers and builders should set up special wage payment accounts specifically for regularly paying wages, and competent units should supervise the responsible units so that wages are settled monthly. If this measure can be rolled out nationwide, then even if wages are owed, it would be at most one month's wages.