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Labor Dispute Resolution in China

Sophie Mao LegalTips 2023-01-12

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In China, if mutual negotiation can’t solve a labor dispute, then the local Labor Management Department under the State Council will need to be involved for an effective solution.

Unlike in general civil or commercial disputes, the parties could choose the authority to solve the dispute---arbitration or lawsuit, either party to a labor dispute has to apply for a labor arbitration first instead of going to the court directly. The reason for the initial arbitration phase is to try to solve the dispute without getting the court involved in order to avoid wasting judicial resources. However, since the cost for labor arbitration and lawsuit is low--either party has to pay 10 RMB to file for it—sometimes, one party will appeal until the last phase just because they want to hold off executing the result. A total waste of judicial resource of the other party’s time.
Labor disputes must be submitted to the Labor Arbitration Commission in the district where the employer is located. The application to arbitrate must be filed within one year from the date the cause of action arises, and the arbitration panel has 60 days from the date of filing to issue a decision. The decision of the arbitration commission is binding, but a party may bring the dispute to the courts if dissatisfied with the arbitrator’s decision. Like any other civil or commercial disputes, you only get one appeal. So a labor dispute could be solved within three months, but it could take as long as one and half years, if the whole procedure has to be gone through.
Since 2008 when the Labor contract law and relevant arbitration laws came into effect, the amount of labor dispute cases has increasingly risen. Two main reasons for which are as follows:1. Generally, younger generations have more right-protection awareness and are apt to         using judicial resources to settle disputes.2.The fee is negligible. Unlike civil or commercial disputes, the majority of the burden of         proof is borne by the employer, so most employees can do it by themselves as long               as they know the related provisions. However, for an employer, the process will not be         simple. Most of the time, they have to hire a lawyer unless their HR staff has enough          experience to handle the process.Though most labor disputes filed by employees are to defend their rights, some may be filed by disgruntled employees hoping to get extra compensation. So the employer has to be very careful when dealing with labor disputes. The reason “employee did something wrong” is not enough to justify the firing of the employee, the employer has to provide enough evidence to prove that:1. The “employee did something wrong” is an objective conclusion instead of a subjective judgment;2. The employer has done their job in line with the laws, such as warn or notify the employee.
It’s a little tricky, right? This is not an easy job for most of the HR staff of SMEs.  That’s why we provide the service package “HR solution”. Anyone interested may contact us for further info.


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