Shanxi slaves and the Labor Contract Law

Zhang Xubo, whose legs were severed in a Shanxi “black” brick kiln in 2002

On Friday, June 29, the National People’s Congress voted to pass the Labor Contract Law. Media coverage, including articles in China Daily, The New York Times and The Washington Post, has hastened to situate the law’s passage in the context of the recent “Shanxi black brick kiln incident.” Meanwhile, Chinese law makers revealed that, during the Standing Committee deliberations, members demanded that the Labor Contract Law “handle” the Shanxi slave situation.

Speaking at an NPC press conference yesterday afternoon, legislator Li Yuan said that the Shanxi kiln case resulted from “dereliction of duty” by government agencies. As a consequence, language was appended to the Labor Contract Law making relevant government bodies and their staff liable if they harm workers or employing units (用人单位) by failing to carry out their duties or if the government bodies or their staff violate the law in the exercise of their powers.

Notwithstanding the media coverage connecting the Shanxi slaves with the Labor Contract Law, the new law has only the scantest relationship to Shanxi’s illegal kilns. Passing a law in China takes years, and the Labor Contract Law has been under consideration since 2005. In addition, the key passages of the law — which include requirements for written labor contracts and payment of severance wages, as well as restrictions on fixed-term contracts — offer no solace to slave workers. When bosses kidnap children and force them to work without pay, while the local government looks away and squelches local press reports, a law requiring written contracts is beside the point. Moreover, as Li Yuan pointed out during the press conference, to the extent that the Labor Contract Law explicitly addresses the dereliction of duties that led to the scandal in Shanxi, it’s redundant: laws prohibiting the dereliction of duty already exist.

What’s significant about the passage of the Labor Contract Law is not that it addresses the Shanxi kiln problem, but that the NPC wanted to create the impression that it would. In other words, the NPC used the Labor Contract Law as an opportunity to appear responsive to public outrage and to pander to public opinion. For a legislative body that isn’t popularly elected, it’s behaving an awful lot like the U.S. Congress.

Still, whatever might be said about the NPC’s sleight-of-hand theatrics, both domestic and foreign press coverage have been accommodating of the illusive connection between the Shanxi slaves and the Labor Contract Law. And for a foreign press that’s free of government censorship, it’s behaving an awful lot like Xinhua.