China Labor and Employment Disputes Are Increasing. Yeah, We Knew That.

The China Labor Bulletin just did a post revealing something my law firm’s China lawyers (especially our China employment lawyers) have sensed/felt for quite a while: China employees increasingly know their rights and have no compunction about doing what they can to enforce them:

While latest national LDAC case data compiles data only up to 2015, local government reports reveal more recent statistics, and tell stories of the rising rights awareness of workers.

A whitepaper on labour disputes from Guangzhou noted the increasing diversity of grievances raised by workers in recent years. Unpaid social insurance, for example, account for over 40% of all arbitration cases over the past three years. Women workers are an increasing portion of all cases, and are taking action against unequal treatment, illegal firings or wage cuts during pregnancy or maternity leave, and discriminatory hiring practices.

Though this article does not specifically address employment cases against foreign companies doing business in China, I would venture to bet that employment disputes between Chinese employees (and expat employees as well) and foreign companies have increased at an even faster pace. We see this in the number of emails we get from both employees (expats mostly) seeking to sue and from employers threatened with lawsuits. In virtually every employment dispute we take on as counsel, however, the parties eventually settle, meaning they never become a part of any Chinese government statistic.

I wrote on this last year for Above The Law, in an article entitled, China Employment Disputes: Settle, Settle, Settle: Attorney Dan Harris says there’s only one way to deal with labor disputes in China. That article started out with the following:

Every few weeks, one of our China lawyers gets an email from a foreign company (virtually always a WFOE) that is in a dispute with one or more of its China-based employees. These foreign companies are usually surprised to find themselves in such a dispute because they are of the view that they did nothing wrong. They too often believe that hiring my law firm will consist of us spending an hour or two reviewing the facts and the law and then telling them that they did nothing wrong and then making the case go away.

The only difference today is that we are getting those emails every single week, and usually more than one. But what hasn’t changed is what causes foreign companies to get themselves in this situation, nor what they need to do to get out of them. The two leading causes for the employment disputes we see are a failure to have a well-crafted set of Rules and Regulations combined with maladroitly handled employee terminations. See China Employee Termination: Avoid These Mistakes. We also have seen no slow down in foreign companies getting into big trouble for having “employees” in China without their actually having a China WFOE to serve as the employer. See Doing Business in China with Deportation or Worse Hanging Over Your Head.

Bottom Line: China wants foreign companies doing business in China for financial reasons and those companies that are not fulfilling their China financial duties, be it via taxes or employee payments are at risk.

We will be discussing the practical aspects of Chinese law and how it impacts business there. We will be telling you what works and what does not and what you as a businessperson can do to use the law to your advantage. Our aim is to assist businesses already in China or planning to go into China, not to break new ground in legal theory or policy.