A grassroots mediation committee for labor disputes was
established in the Tianqiao
neighborhood in Beijing's
Xuanwu District yesterday.
The committee, the first of its kind in Beijing, is aimed at
resolving employment disputes in their initial stages, in a bid to
prevent situations from escalating and possibly leading to social
unrest, according to the district's Labor and Social Security
Bureau.
The bureau received a total of 826 labor dispute complaints
between January and July, a sharp rise of 205 percent compared with
the same period last year.
Most of the disputes centered around early termination of
employment contracts, employers' refusal to pay overtime, and
employers' failure to provide social insurance and welfare
benefits.
The bureau director Duan Zhanmin said the soaring number of
employment disputes have resulted mainly from the ongoing
restructuring and reform of the country's economy, which has led to
a more diversified and complicated employer-employee
relationship.
Meanwhile, the increased rights and legal awareness of workers
also contributes to the growth in the number of disputes, Duan
added.
Duan said the establishment of the mediation committee in
Tianqiao neighborhood is an attempt by the bureau to reach deep
down to grassroots level and remove any destabilizing factors that
may lead to conflict.
Hu Xiuting, a mediator with the five-member committee, said
apart from arbitrating labor disputes, she and her colleagues would
go to the companies involved and try to understand the dynamic of
the employer-employee relationship.
Hu said there are about 84 enterprises and institutions in the
Tianqiao community, employing a total of more than 20,000 workers.
The committee will set up records for each of the work units and
provide legal consultation for both employers and employees.
Yang Lu, another mediator, said they would try to build close
and stable relations between both parties. "Friendship and trust
might help bolster their confidence in us, thereby helping us
address the problems."
Yang said solving labor disputes in the early stages could
prevent confrontations spilling over into the
community-at-large.
(China Daily August 18, 2005)