It is sometimes confused with the Labour Contract Law of the People's Republic of China because of their similar names and focuses, as well as imprecise media reports. As the Labour Contract Law is more recent, having gone into effect January 1, 2008, the Labour Law is also sometimes called the "old labour law", though this is incorrect as both are still in effect simultaneously.[2]
Contents of the law
The law has 107 articles in 13 chapters. The titles of all the chapters are listed below.[3]
General Provisions
Promotion of Employment
Labour Contracts and Collective Contracts
Working Hours, Rests, and Leaves
Wages
Labour Safety and Sanitation
Special Protection for Female Staff and Workers and Juvenile Workers
The purpose of the law, stated by Article 1 in the first chapter, is to "protect the legitimate rights and interests of labourers, readjust labour relationship, establish and safeguard the labour system suiting the socialist market economy, and promote economic development and social progress".
There are 20 articles concerning labour contracts and collective contracts in the third chapter. In 2008, the 98-article-long Labour Contract Law came into effect to further regulate related behaviours.
The law was amended with minor correction in 2009.[4]
Criticism from the public
The law is widely criticised for its defects. This is one of the reasons for the promulgation of the Labour Contract Law which came into effect on January 1, 2008. For example, though collective contract has been put into laws for more than 15 years, collective bargaining is not doing well in China.[5] The term collective negotiation (集体协商) first appeared in laws in 2007, instead of collective bargaining (集体谈判), which is less decisive than the latter.[6]
Related laws
This is a list of related Chinese laws, but does not cover every law related.