The Shanghai Municipal Labor and Social Security Bureau is conducting a month-long crackdown on illegal practices in the employment sector in order to better protect employees' social security benefits, according to bureau officials.
Labor inspection teams, under supervision of the bureau, are responsible for the program.
"The campaign is meant to enforce the local laws concerning employment issued one month ago," said Yao Guangwei, vice-director of the teams.
The new laws stipulate that employers should pay social security fees, including medical insurance, unemployment insurance, public housing subsidies and pensions, for their employees.
The laws also establish that defrauding employees in work contracts and forcing staff to work excessively overtime are illegal.
Right after the laws were issued, the municipality announced that any employers who have not paid the proper fees for their employees have one month to settle up. In addition, any employees who find that their employers have broken the laws should report it either to the bureau or to the teams which are scattered through different districts. Employees can report via the hotline number 83666.
The bureau has thus far received 287 calls from employees reporting illegal practices.
Therefore, the bureau has assigned the teams to handle the lawbreaking cases revealed by the complaint calls.
To date, the teams have inspected 204 companies. The majority is privately owned.
In the inspection process, the teams found that 60 of the companies did not pay social security fees, which was the most common offense.
The second largest category was defrauding employees in work contracts, with a total of 39 cases.
(China Daily August 23, 2002)
