Employers who improperly delay paying wages to employees will be forced to pay compensation to workers, and they will receive a black mark on their credit rating starting this year.

The Shanghai Labor Inspection Team announced yesterday it will send out 2,500 labor inspectors throughout the city to check for companies that are withholding salaries.

The crack-down campaign will mainly focus on overtime payments, a key source of complaints from workers, and private companies, which tend to hold back payment compared to state-owned firms.

The names of companies that are found to have held back a large amount of payment or repeatedly delayed salaries will be published in the local media on a regular basis, the team said.

Employers who still refuse to pay back wages will be ordered to pay extra compensation. The compensation will be 50 to 100 percent of the delayed amount.

Besides, the company's legal representative or manager will also receive a black mark on their personal credit report, making it tougher for them to get bank loans.

"Only by intensifying the punishment and connecting the issue with an employer's personal record can the city's delayed payment problem be effectively solved," said Lu Tingfei, publicity official of the inspection team.

Previously, companies were only ordered to pay off their delayed amount within a designated period, without any punishment.

Inspectors looked into 4,000 cases of delayed payments last year, accounting for 250 million yuan (US$30.86 million) in withheld wages. More than 60 percent of the cases involved the private sector, followed by state-owned enterprises and listed companies.

Companies in the city's suburban areas accounted for more than half of the cases investigated last year.

(Shanghai Daily January 28, 2006)