All workers in Henan Province will be required to sign labor
contracts before the end of 2008, under the three-year labor
contract enhancement action plan that began officially on August
14.
So far, 2.261 million employees in the public sector
(state-owned enterprises) have signed labor contracts, accounting
for 97 percent of the total. In urban areas, among other types of
enterprises, 935,000 employees, or 50.3 percent, have signed
contracts. In private enterprises and in smaller businesses,
859,000 employees or 41 percent of the workforce, have met this
requirement.
While these figures may provide an encouraging start, in other
industries, the contract-signing ratio is still very low. The
number of migrant workers coming to Henan Province exceeds 17
million. According to a survey on 11 industries including
construction sites, mining facilities and manufacturing plants
which was conducted during the first half of 2006, of the 1.576
million migrant workers employed, 746,000, or 40 percent had been
provided with contracts. In the manufacturing industry, this number
falls to below 30 percent, with only 111,000 out of 368,300 migrant
workers being contracted in 5,484 enterprises.
Meng Xia, a researcher with the Henan Provincial Department of
Labor and Social Security's wage office, announced that the three
year action plan aims to regulate the enterprises' attitude towards
employment and to ensure that all employees, no matter their
status, are regulated under official labor contracts.
By the end of 2006, the ratio of contracted employees in
state-owned and collective enterprises should have risen to over 90
percent. This ratio should reach more than 80 percent among other
types of enterprises, in urban areas.
Over the next two years, this scheme should see all public
sector enterprises fully comply with this regulation by the end of
2007 and all private sector employees being contracted by the end
of 2008.
Zhao Ming, vice director of the Henan Provincial Department of
Labor and Social Security's supervision office said that the labor
contract should be signed directly between qualified employers and
the employees themselves, ruling out all illegal substitution
signing. Contract deadlines should be made clear by both sides and
contracts should be reported to the labor authorities for
recordation. All contracts should also clearly point out the paying
standard of the wage, the adequate form of pay-slips and the time
of payment.
(China.org.cn by Li Xiaohua, August 17, 2006)