In China, When the Lawyers Ignore You
March 11th, 2008 | by This is China! |Reuters reports:
“When he [Qi Yunhui] came to Shenzhen in 2002, the fast talking native of China’s central province of Hubei worked in a leather shoe factory. Now, he is part of a new and growing breed of “citizens’ agents”, former workers offering cheap legal aid to fellow migrants involved in labor disputes.”
Opportunity of an unusual sort has arisen in China with a volatile mix: an immature legal system; Chinese lawyers chasing big bucks in real estate and M&A deals; a growing number of poor migrant workers who have no legal recourse when greedy employers do not pay their employees.
“In the past five years or so, these self-taught ‘barefoot’ labor lawyers have proliferated, filling an important niche in a country where migrant workers are increasingly caught in a dilemma — they are encouraged by the leadership to know their rights, but lack effective, efficient channels to protect them.”
And let’s not forget the kudos local governments get for solely supporting investment interests above the interests of its own citizens:
“Local governments seek economic benefits alone. They think protecting the boss is protecting their rice bowl, but it’s the workers who pay the price of sacrificing their health and lives,” said Zhou Litai, a self-taught lawyer who went a step beyond “citizens’ agents” like Qi by taking the national exams to receive his lawyers’ license.”
And the “profession” is growing:
“The factory-studded Pearl River Delta, an engine of economic growth, now has hundreds of ‘citizens’ agents’, Qi estimates, and nationwide there are several thousand. Most, like Qi, learned the law on their own through personal quests to get back pay.”
One citizens’ agent’s office has some 8,000 migrant worker cases over the past 20 years, most of them over compensation claims for workplace injuries or unpaid wages.
But that’s what you get when you heat up an economy in a pressure cooker:
“Pressure is mounting on the legal system, in part because workers in China are deprived of a key channel elsewhere for resolving labor disputes: independent unions, which are banned by the ruling Communist Party.”
Estimates are that the number of labor dispute cases China’s courts have handled rose about four-fold in the decade to 2004, reaching nearly 115,000.
Despite conniving employers, complicit local governments and the occasional bit of thuggery, the citizen-agent movement shows no sign of slowing:
“Even though enforcement is patchy and the government sends mixed signals, the band of citizens’ agents involved in the legal aid campaign is growing and their legal know-how is expanding.”
