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CHINA - A report recently released by the All China Federation of Trade Unions Labour (ACFTU) concludes that worker lawsuits against employers are at a new record high totalling 300,000 cases for 2005. This number is up 20.5 per cent over the previous year figures.
The majority of the lawsuits were over wages, insurance and welfare benefits.
Economic industrial towns such as Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Shanghai, Beijing, Zhejiang and Sichuan accounted for more than two-thirds of last year's suits, the report said. Guangdong was the leader in the number of lawsuits with 61,000 filed, followed by Jiangsu with 50,800 cases and Shandong with 26,000.
Hu Xingdou, professor of Economics and China Issues at the Beijing Institute of Technology, was quoted in the South China Morning Post stating that the sharp rise in labour disputes throughout China was the result of companies failing to address worker concerns.
"Many disputes happen because governments go ahead with development of the local economy regardless of labour rights. This is a very dangerous mistake for the nation," Hu said.
Despite the grim situation for Chinese workers, the report found that employees won almost half of all cases last year, while employers succeeded in only 15.8 percent of the cases.
The ACFTU is the official trade union federation of China.
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