China won´t revise labor contract law amid financial crisis: lawmaker

Source: Xinhua | 03-10-2009 08:14

BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- China will not revise the Labor Contract Law to compromise workers' rights as suggested by some people to help enterprises cope with the global financial turmoil, a legislator said here Monday.

"The labor contract law has nothing to do with the financial crisis and won't be revised for it," said Xin Chunying, deputy director of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's legislative body.

"China's labor relations are basically stable and orderly, and it can weather through the test of time," she told a press conference on the sidelines of NPC's annual session, when asked if the law will be changed because increased labor costs have led to rising cases of bankruptcy on the Pearl River Delta.

Citing a survey that tracts figures in the first nine months of the 2008, she said the law has indeed driven up enterprises' labor costs by two percent, but it has also greatly curbed labor relations issues that have been afflicting workers as well as employers for years.