On The Design Of Relationship Between Labor Inspection And Labor Arbitration In China

It has been more than ten years since the enaction of Labor Law in P.R.C., when the workers get more statutory rights in law, while the processes for seeking relief are obviously not developed. During more than two decades of fast development in economy, a great deal of labor inspection cases and labor arbitration cases appeared in China, which demanded the two systems work with more efficiency and better quality. Under such expectation, Statute on Labor and Social Security Inspection was put into action at the end of 2004. It drew great attention to the design of relationship between labor inpection and labor arbitration, which had been a troublesome problem for many years, and not settled yet, even after the enaction of the new statute. On this problem, the attitude of the legislative body is inclined to the situation of overlapping. After the enaction of new statute, such overlapping was reduced, while the opinion of great overlapping design was preserved. Under such an overlapping design, it's very often that both labor inspection and labor arbitration had jurisdication over a same case, while due to their different standards, the same kind of dipute could get quite different result. At the same time, repeated management over the same case resulting from the overlapping design had caused much too high cost for government. In a word, the specific process shall be decided according to the law and regulations which are going to be executed. Different attributes of rights in labor law didn't get enough attention from those who support overlapping design. If the process for execution could not fulfil the request of rights protection, it's natural it could get half the result with twice the effort. It's reasonable and practical to design labor inspection and labor arbitration as two totally separated systems, which could get support from the legislative and judicatory experiences home and abroad. The scope of overlapping between labor inpsecton and labor arbitration is illuminated in the first beginning, then three opinions on this problem are analysized. After analysis about disadvantages of overlapping and demonstration about rationality of separated design, with the researching results on theory of labor law, a design on comprehensive enforcement system of labor law is provided with full consideration of legislative and judicatory practice home and abroad, as follows: labor inspection shall concentrate on the violation of labor standard law, and Labor arbitration deals with disputes arising from the implementation and interpretation of the labor contract. The two system shall work mutually. Besides, it is suggested that different means be introduced into the system for workers'seeking compensation, which could help protect the weak better and more effective. The overall demonstration is based on the law theory, involving a great deal of references on good practices of other countries; at the same time relating to the practice in China closely. The method of cases study is used frequently for demonstration, and the method of comparatively analysis is also a primary tool. By these means, a constructive suggestion is put forward on the design of relationship between labor arbitration and labor inspection in China.