By Zhu Zhe (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-12-06 06:58

The national workers' union on Wednesday pledged to work closely with authorities to issue a detailed regulation on the Labor Contract Law as soon as possible, to assist its application starting January 1.

"We'll actively promote and participate in the legislation and relevant legal interpretations to make the law more applicable, especially by making suggestions on some hotly debated issues," Liu Jichen, head of the legal affairs department of the All China Federation of Trade Unions, said at a press briefing.

Liu did not elaborate or disclose a timetable, but the Outlook Weekly, a magazine under the official Xinhua News Agency, reported on Monday that an implementation regulation of the Labor Contract Law was expected by the end of the year. It also reported that a judiciary interpretation, drafted by the Supreme People's Court, would also be adopted soon to regulate loophole jumping.

The Labor Contract Law, passed in June after 18 months of heated debate and public consultation, is considered the most significant change in the country's labor rules in more than a decade. It targets bosses and officials who exploited workers by establishing standards for labor contracts, use of temporary workers and severance pay.

However, business lobbies worry that stricter contract requirements could increase costs and give them less flexibility in hiring and firing.

The country's leading telecom equipment-maker Huawei Technologies in October encouraged some 7,000 veteran employees to resign and rehired them immediately afterward.

The Labor Contract Law stipulates that an employee who has worked for a company for more than 10 years is entitled to sign an open-ended labor contract.

However, the legislative affairs commission of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, made it clear on Saturday that such sidestepping is useless, because although the contracts end, employment relations still exist.

At yesterday's conference, Liu said Huawei's dodge is only one of the three tactics the union discovered violating or circumventing the current Labor Contract Law. Firms would also fire employees and rehire them soon afterward as dispatch workers. The other strategy uses mass layoffs.

For example, United States retailing giant Wal-Mart fired about 100 employees at its sourcing center in China last October, claiming the layoff was part of its global restructuring.

"The cause of these problems is that a small number of enterprises is trying to evade responsibility to optimize profits," Liu said. "We've begun intervening to stop such activities."