Courts vow to fight dishonesty in workplace

Beijing courts vowed on Monday to fight dishonest behavior in employment disputes, aiming to uphold justice and help improve the relationship between employers and employees.

"As witnessed by a rise in labor cases in recent years, we've found more disputes were caused by dishonest conduct in job seeking or employment," said Shan Guojun, chief judge of the No 1 Civil Division at the Beijing High People's Court.

He added that such irregularities must be prevented by rule of law.

For example, some people were taken to court after they cheated employers by falsifying resumes and educational certificates to obtain jobs or promotions, while some were accused by employers of breaching contracts, such as by leaking employers' business secrets, Shan said.

"On the other hand, employers were also dishonest at times," he said.

"A few employees, for example, came to us to argue that their companies either refused to pay them overtime or lowered their social insurance payment."

At Monday's news conference, the judge released details of 10 disputes caused by the dishonesty of employees and employers, calling on the city's courts to increase punishments, such as fines or detention.

From January to October, courts across the city filed more than 28,000 employment-related cases, up 8.2 percent year-on-year, according to the high court.

"The number of cases stayed high between 2012 and 2015, but it has begun rising rapidly since 2016, when some new jobs appeared in the internet era, such as car-hailing drivers and food service providers," said Ma Qiang, vice-president of the high court.

He also encouraged judges in the city to have zero tolerance for dishonesty in related cases in order to play a role in building a credible China.

Jiang Junlu, head of the labor law department at the Beijing Labor Law and Social Security Law Society, said, "If the capital's courts can clarify dishonest behaviors by employers or employees in rulings and disclose them online, more people, I believe, will be discouraged from being dishonest."

He also suggested courts across the city set up an information sharing platform with other labor-related departments, including social insurance and tax authorities.