Help the Little Man

At the turn of 2008, China’s new Labor Contract Law, which includes more stringent labor protection articles, will take effective. Recently, Shanghai’s labor dispute arbitration department warned that some employers might dismiss a large number of old employees, who are eligible for fixed-term contracts, before the new law comes into effect, in hopes of slashing labor costs.

This is a well-intended warning, but the fact is that common workers actually have no means to bargain with employers, or rather, to protect their own rights. The Labor Contract Law is designed with a view to improving the current unfavorable situation employees always slip into when encountering disputes with their employers and to ensure their legitimate rights by the means of law. Against the law’s pending implementation, if some employers still dare to fire old employees illegally, what’s the deterrent of the law?

Some people are good at taking advantage of loopholes in laws to maximize their profit margins. Since the laws are not fully developed, the government must take action to gradually and continuously improve them, to prevent these interest groups from further abuse.

To give a warning is just the first step. Compared with weak employees, the authorities have much more power to cope with the potential blow that old employers may be dealt with.

Yanzhao Metropolis Daily

Food and Drug Admin Gets Teeth

The State Food and Drug Administration recently announced a series of new regulatory regulations on food and drugs, putting focus on standardizing the recall system concerning substandard medicines and medical equipment. If the system operates well, it will benefit China’s pharmaceutical market, hospitals and more importantly, the patients.

While defining hospitals and pharmaceutical companies’ responsibilities, this system can also help to build up a good reputation for China’s medical products. An effective incentive mechanism is one of the basic ways to ensure good product quality.

Fake and inferior commodities are penetrating the market, damaging the reputation of indigenous brands. Every year, 2.5 million patients suffer from problematic drugs, with 200,000 deaths recorded from adverse drug reaction.

To a large extent, the poor quality of commodities should be blamed on the lack of an effective recall system. Without such a system, manufacturers bear little liability for quality errors. When there are some actions taken, the regulations are not stringent or clear enough to curb maverick manufactures. Worse still, some foreign manufactures use China’s legal deficiencies to practice obvious discrimination against Chinese consumers.

The recall system should apply not only in the food and drug industries, but also in the automobile, toy and toothpaste industries, and the establishment of this system should be taken as an opportunity to improve the quality of all Chinese products.

The Beijing News

Cut off the Leeches

Zhanhua is an underdeveloped county in east China’s Shandong Province, of less than 400,000 people. However, an August 10 report on Economic Information Daily revealed that, apart from one county magistrate and six vice magistrates, the local leadership also consisted of 15 magistrate assistants, of which 13 were appointed without undergoing formal procedures.

This phenomenon is related to the local economic level. A magistrate’s assistant is functionally equal to a vice county magistrate and enjoys almost all the benefits of a vice magistrate. In poor areas, government positions are much sought-after as they bring many benefits.

More importantly, to appoint a magistrate’s assistant, the county magistrate usually has the final say, with no need of democratic voting or approval from the local legislative body.

Strong supervision and power limitation is needed to prevent the number of officials from ballooning.

China Youth Daily

Hoarding Housing for Gain Is Sinful

For years, low-rent houses have been preserved for only a small fraction of those who can’t afford houses, namely the lowest-income families. Although there are government-subsidized affordable apartments for low- and middle-wage earners, due to the extremely limited supply, only a few families have access to them. This situation makes it possible for real estate developers to make huge profits by selling houses at absurdly high prices.

The Central Government announced on August 1 that by 2010, the low-rent housing system would cover not only the lowest-income families, but also the vast low-income families. This ambitious program is in fact said to become reality by the end of 2008 in economically developed eastern regions.

Recent years have seen the Chinese Government taking a series of measures to curb soaring housing prices, mainly through raising transaction taxes and reducing loans to property developers, which proved less effective to curb the manipulation of the housing market. If there are sufficient houses, low-rent or affordable, real estate developers will find it hard to exploit the situation by deliberately hoarding houses to drive up market demand.

China Economic Times