Authorities calling for wage rises
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Chinese labor authorities are aiming to have the wages of business employees rise by 15 percent a year during the next five years.
One step toward that goal will be taken through reforms made to the means businesses use to distribute wages, said Yang Zhiming, vice-minister of human resources and social security, at a national work conference on labor relations on Monday.
The main targets of the changes will be non-public businesses in labor-intensive industries. Collective bargaining will occur at such places to help ensure that the wages they pay rise in a regular manner, he said.
He said human resource and social security bureaus throughout the country will continue to release guidelines on local wages and to provide basic rules for collective bargaining.
He said workers should enjoy wages that rise at the same or a faster pace than their employers' profits.
"The country will try to make sure employees earn wages that rise by 15 every year, so we can realize a target set out in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) period, calling for such wages to be doubled (from what they were from 2006 to 2010)," he said.
For many people, the labor authorities' plan comes at a good time, when the annualized rise in the country's consumer price index - a standard gauge of inflation - hit a high of 5.4 percent in March.
But some doubt that their wages will increase as quickly as labor authorities want.
"If employees' wages double, that could result in a doubling of labor costs, as well as a drop in profits for businesses," said a netizen at an online forum run by Xinhua News Agency. "That will surely hamper the expansion of businesses."
