The legal working group of the Guangdong’s People Congress Standing Committee has transferred the “Guangdong Province Firm Collective Contract Regulations” to the National People’s Congress asking if workers’ “right to stop work” could be included in the regulations. The NPC’s answer was that local governments “should not touch on this topic.”
Li Huanxin, Deputy Head of the Guangdong People’s Congress Standing Committee, Legal Working Committee, said in a speech that the right to stop work and to strike involved citizens’ basic constitutional rights and the country’s legal mission, therefore provinces did not have the power to legislate on these issues adding that these questions were “for the central government to reflect on”.
Li added that “we first need to make the workers’ right to consultation a reality, then we have to establish a basic consultation system. Once this system is in place, we need to create a mechanism that will resolve the system’s contradictions before finally passing legislation that protects labour rights and promote conflict resolution according to the law. We have to guide companies and workers to reasonably express their demands, allowing them to use the law as a means of obtaining reasonable and legal outcomes.”
Currently, Guangdong has sent over 100 people from trade unions and personnel offices to towns and counties to explain the new regulations.
