Facing the difficulty of "asking for wages" of migrant workers

The end of the year is approaching, what is the situation of ensuring the wage payment of migrant workers? Where is it difficult for migrant workers to ask for wages? Is there any good way to solve the wage arrears of migrant workers? At a time when China launched a special inspection on the wage payment of migrant workers, Qiu Xiaoping, Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security, and other relevant people were interviewed by reporters on the above issues.

Old problems + new challenges, the situation is still grim

Qiu Xiaoping pointed out that migrant workers are the main body of China's industrial workers and have made great contributions to economic and social development.

Protecting the rights and interests of migrant workers' labor remuneration in accordance with the law is an important responsibility of governments at all levels, which is related to economic and social development, social fairness and justice and the maintenance of social stability.

Recently, various regions have actively improved the long-term mechanism for preventing and solving the problem of wage arrears to migrant workers, stepped up efforts to crack down on the outstanding problem of wage arrears, and achieved remarkable results: in the first three quarters of this year, the country investigated and dealt with a total of 174000 cases of wage violations, of which 2.317 million migrant workers were involved, with wages of 23.48 billion yuan, down 8.8%, 13% and 9.3% respectively compared with the same period last year.

"while affirming the achievements, we should also be soberly aware that the situation of ensuring wage payment for migrant workers is still grim." Qiu Xiaoping said frankly.

On the one hand, the old problem has not been fundamentally solved. The deep-seated contradictions causing wage arrears have not been eliminated, the system and mechanism for the treatment of wage arrears is not sound enough, and the problem of wage arrears in the field of engineering construction is still very prominent.

On the other hand, the new challenges are gradually highlighted. At present, China's economic development has entered a new normal, increasing economic downward pressure, serious overcapacity in iron and steel, coal and other industries, and difficulties in the production and operation of some enterprises, further increasing the difficulty of solving the problem of wage arrears of migrant workers. With the advent of the end of the year and the beginning of the year, the situation of ensuring the wage payment of migrant workers is still grim and complicated.

The reasons are complicated, and the field of construction is still a "hard-hit area".

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Affairs, from 2013 to 2015, more than 80% of the cases and amounts of arrears of wages investigated and dealt with nationwide were in the field of engineering construction, and even as high as 90% in some provinces.

"the problem of wage arrears in construction units is mostly caused by economic contract disputes and labor disputes, forming a long debt chain, which increases the difficulty of solving wage arrears." Qiu Xiaoping said.

According to some grass-roots cadres, in the field of engineering construction, problems such as linked contracting, illegal subcontracting and layer-by-layer subcontracting have been banned repeatedly, and a large number of unqualified labor subcontracting companies and even natural persons (contractors) have organized the construction of migrant workers, and a long "debt chain" has been formed between the construction units and migrant workers, which makes it difficult to implement the main body responsible for paying wages. Once the capital chain breaks or contract disputes occur. Migrant workers at the end of the chain of interests are easy to become direct victims of unpaid wages.

At the same time, the current "illegal cost" of arrears of wages is on the low side: according to the current labor security laws and regulations, the people's social department can only order enterprises in arrears to pay wages, and if they fail to pay within the time limit, it shall be ordered to pay compensation in accordance with the standard of more than 50% of the amount payable and less than 100% of the amount payable.

If the employer is ordered to make corrections or refuses to carry out the administrative decision, the personnel society department shall only impose a fine of not less than 2000 yuan and not more than 20, 000 yuan.

Except for a few cases suspected of refusing to pay labor remuneration, the illegal cost of enterprises in arrears is too low to play a deterrent role.

As a matter of fact, there are also some technical factors for repeated crimes of arrears of wages, such as the high cost of safeguarding rights: it may take more than two years to complete a whole set of procedures of "one adjudication and two trials" (one labor arbitration and two court decisions). Many places have established wage deposit, "blacklist" and other systems, which are effective in practice, but they are not ideal.

Reject the "hidden rules" and let migrant workers enjoy the same treatment

From November 15, 2016 to the Spring Festival in 2017, 12 departments, including the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Affairs, will jointly organize a special inspection on the wage payment of migrant workers throughout the country.

Through special inspection, we will ensure that remarkable results have been achieved in resolving wage arrears for migrant workers, achieving a significant decline in the number of cases and the number of people involved in wage arrears before the Spring Festival, as well as a significant decline in the number of mass incidents caused by wage arrears.

Zhou Tianyong, a professor at the Central Party School, and other experts believe that in addition to special inspection, we should also speed up legislation on arrears of wages. In view of the current problem of low legal liability for arrears of wages, the regulations on the guarantee of Enterprise wage payment should be issued as soon as possible to standardize the wage payment behavior of enterprises, and upgrade the effective wage payment safeguard measures in practice to the provisions of laws and regulations. we will increase the penalties for illegal acts such as deduction and arrears of wages by enterprises.

At the same time, we should timely initiate and amend the Labor Security Supervision regulations to give certain administrative compulsory measures to the labor security supervision and law enforcement departments, so that they have the right to inquire about assets such as enterprise accounts in arrears of wages, and can be frozen if necessary, so as to enhance the coercive force of administrative law enforcement.

Qiu Xiaoping believes that the "fundamental solution" to solve the wage arrears of migrant workers is to pay full monthly wages in accordance with the law. The Labor Law promulgated and implemented in 1994 stipulates that wages shall be paid monthly to the labourers themselves in the form of money. This law has been in force for more than 20 years, but in areas such as construction projects, only monthly living expenses are paid, and the general ledger according to the progress of the project or the end of the year is still an "hidden rule."

"this is actually passing on operational risks to workers. If according to this logic, then all manufacturing enterprises can not pay monthly wages on the grounds that the products are not sold or the payment is not recovered. " Qiu Xiaoping said.

Liu Yachen, a professor at Shenyang Construction University, said that developers and builders should set up special payroll accounts for regular payroll payments, and the competent units should supervise the responsible units to make monthly payroll payments. If this measure can be promoted throughout the country, even if wages are owed, it will be a month's wages at most.