By outdoor-nature-child.com Employment is the cornerstone of people’s livelihoods. In recent years, the rapid development of the platform economy has not only optimized supply and demand matching, accelerated economic circulation, and promoted high-quality development but has also created numerous job opportunities. This has effectively expanded new employment spaces and played a vital role in maintaining, stabilizing, and expanding employment. With a significant increase in the number of gig workers relying on internet platforms—such as delivery drivers, ride-hailing drivers, truck drivers, and online marketers—there are emerging new situations and challenges regarding labor rights protection. Supporting and regulating the development of new employment forms and enhancing the protection of labor rights for workers in this sector can help broaden their avenues for income growth while also providing stronger and more sustainable momentum for businesses. Furthermore, stabilizing employment can stimulate new drivers for economic development and transformation, promoting high-quality growth.
The central government, led by Comrade Xi Jinping, has paid close attention to safeguarding the legal rights and interests of workers in new employment forms. Relevant departments have issued guidelines, such as the “Guiding Opinions on Protecting Labor Rights and Interests of Workers in New Employment Forms,” to encourage companies to comply with labor laws and strengthen protections for these workers. The recent third plenary session of the 20th Party Congress outlined strategic deployments for “perfecting employment-first policies,” including major measures to “support and regulate the development of new employment forms” and “strengthen labor rights protection.” These initiatives will better safeguard the rights of workers in new employment forms. To further implement the spirit of the 20th Party Congress and its second and third plenary sessions, the “Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Implementing Employment-First Strategies to Promote High-Quality Full Employment” was recently released. This document emphasizes ensuring “equal employment rights” and establishing a “social security system for new employment form workers.” We must put the significant deployments from the third plenary session of the 20th Congress into practice, further enhance the protection of labor rights for workers in new employment forms, and promote high-quality full employment.
Improving the rights protection system for workers in new employment forms is essential. The existing labor laws and regulations in our country are primarily designed around traditional labor relationships, which presents some mismatches when compared to the development of new employment forms. Enhancing the rights protection system for these workers will help address these issues promptly and effectively. This includes immediate research and development of laws and regulations that protect the rights of new employment form workers, improving various support and protection policies; implementing fair employment systems, strengthening minimum wage and payment protection systems, and ensuring compliance with labor safety and health responsibilities to fill gaps in labor rights protection; increasing the flexibility and inclusiveness of social security policies by removing household registration restrictions for insurance participation in employment locations, thereby guiding new employment form workers to choose appropriate social insurance based on their circumstances.
Enhancing the services that protect the rights of new employment form workers is crucial. Providing tangible support enables these workers to feel genuinely valued and cared for. To achieve this, it is important to actively promote pilot programs for occupational injury protection, expand coverage to more workers in new employment forms, and optimize employment and entrepreneurship services to offer career introductions, guidance, and training to various gig workers. Additionally, we need to streamline social insurance service processes to develop models of social insurance administration suitable for new employment forms and enhance vocational skills training to help workers improve their abilities. Strengthening market regulation and labor protection law enforcement is also necessary to effectively combat issues such as employment discrimination, wage theft, and unlawful dismissals, thus ensuring that workers in new employment forms have their dignity preserved and their rights protected.
Creating a collaborative effort for the rights protection of workers in new employment forms is essential. Supporting and regulating the development of these new employment forms, while also leveraging their role in promoting high-quality full employment, requires the coordination of employment policies with regulations from other sectors. We should vigorously develop new business types and models in response to new trends in social and economic development, fostering new career paths and discovering new employment growth areas. Furthermore, companies should be guided to establish industry conventions and standards to enhance self-regulation and compliance with labor laws, fulfilling their responsibilities for employment and rights protection. Strengthening supervision of human resource markets and enforcing compliance by scrutinizing employment practices can mitigate unreasonable employment phenomena through heavy regulation and penalties.
(Yu Feiyue, East China Normal University, School of Public Administration)
Source: People’s Daily