Supreme Law: Correct employment restrictions including gender discrimination according to law, and promote equal employment for graduates

The Supreme Law Court re-emphasizes the need to correct employment restrictions such as gender discrimination. On December 23rd, the Supreme Law Court held a press conference on “Strengthening the treatment of unpaid wages and protecting labor rights”. He Xiaorong, the vice president of the Supreme Law Court, introduced that from January to November this year, the courts across the country have accepted 590,000 first-instance labor dispute cases and 660,000 first-instance labor contract dispute cases. He Xiaorong stated that the proper handling of labor dispute and labor contract cases effectively safeguards the legitimate rights and interests of workers, protects the interests of employers in accordance with law, implements the reform results of China’s labor employment system and social security system, and is of great significance for promoting the construction of a scientific and harmonious labor relationship, maintaining the production and operation order of enterprises, and safeguarding the development of new economic formats. For example, proper handling of disputes over equal employment rights, correcting the employers’ behavior of not recruiting or refusing to sign labor contracts due to gender discrimination, regional discrimination and other unreasonable restrictions in accordance with law, promotes equal employment of college graduates and flexible employment and entrepreneurship through multiple channels. Another example is implementing equal employment and equal pay for urban and rural workers, improving the fast establishment, fast trial and fast execution channels for cases involving拖欠农民工工资, and advance execution for eligible cases to provide “early relief” in order to promote the improvement of long-term mechanisms for dealing with unpaid wages, and support the orderly integration of agricultural transfer population into urban work and life. In terms of rooting out unpaid wages, He Xiaorong said that from January to November this year, the courts across the country accepted about 1,000 criminal cases of refusing to pay labor remuneration and about 82,000 civil cases of pursuing labor remuneration; as of mid-December, about 69,000 cases involving migrant workers have been fully implemented, with a total amount of payment reaching 1.72 billion yuan. He Xiaorong also introduced that the court effectively implements judicial interpretations on criminal cases of refusing to pay labor remuneration, severely punishes malicious wage-related behaviors through criminal means, forms a powerful deterrence against those who are unwilling to pay wages on purpose. The court also gives priority to filing, implementing and paying out funds for cases involving unpaid wages. It fully utilizes “point-to-point” control systems to investigate and control the property information of those who are subject to enforcement. It also applies compulsory measures such as limiting high consumption to punish those who maliciously default on wages, and increases the punishment force for those who avoid or resist enforcement.