China's top legislature on Sunday started to read the draft law on labor dispute mediation and arbitration amid an increasing number of labor disputes that have emerged throughout the country.

The draft law was submitted on Sunday to the seven-day 29th session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, for the first reading.

According to NPC statistics, labor dispute cases in China have been continuously increasing in recent years. Statistics show that labor dispute arbitration organizations at various levels have dealt with 1.72 million labor dispute cases involving 5.32 million employees from 1987 to the end of 2005, with a growth rate of 27.3 percent annually.

Xin Chunying, Vice Chairman of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee, said during the legislative session that in addition to the increasing number of labor disputes, other problems also exist. For instance, unprofessional personnel in arbitration organizations lack credibility. Also, the arbitration process for labor disputes is long, making the costs high.

China resumed using the labor dispute arbitration system in 1987. Procedures were designed for coping with labor disputes as "mediation, arbitration and trial" after the regulation on handling corporate labor dispute and Labor Law was promulgated in 1993 and 1994.

The public has widely accepted the procedure and practice for dealing with labor disputes, Xin said.

The draft bill is meant to strengthen mediation and improve arbitration in order to gain a just resolution of labor disputes without going to court. In this way employee's legitimate rights are safeguarded and social harmony is promoted, she explained.

The draft bill said that a corporation was justly entitled to establish a labor mediation committee in order to solve the labor disputes that have occurred inside its own corporate boundaries in order to solve disputes at the grassroots level. The corporate labor mediation committee should consist of employees and managerial representatives.

When labor disputes occur, litigants can turn to the corporate mediation committee, or to the grassroots people's labor disputes mediation organization, the draft bill said.

The draft bill noted that labor disputes concerning pay, medical fees for job-related injuries, compensation and pensions whose relevant sums did not exceed 12 months of local minimum monthly wages could all be solved via arbitration. The arbitration documents are legally binding.

Labor disputes regarding work hours, holidays, social insurance and collective contracts could also be solved by legal arbitration, according to the draft bill.

(Xinhua News Agency August 27, 2007)