The Study On The Legal Application Of Service Period Rule

Service Period Rule is the only provision of Chinese Labor Contract Law to restrict laborers' right to resign. Under the background that Chinese Labor Contract Law focuses on protecting laborers' interests and right, Service Period Rule can help to balance the interests between the employees and employers. Moreover, it is also significant for building harmonious and stable labor relations. However, few legal scholars studied the legal application of Service Period Rule and different courts in China have different understanding and application of this rule, which has damaged the stability and predictability of Service Period Rule. Thus, it is necessary to study the legal application of Service Period Rule.First of all, this thesis concluded that the service period is a term that employees promise to work for employers due to the specialized technical training, and its essence is a special term during which employees' right to resign is restricted by contract.Then, this thesis analyzed the legal application of Service Period Rule and reached the conclusion as follows: there are three preconditions for the application of Service Period Rule. The first one is that employees and employers have signed a labor contract, the second one is that employers offer specialized technical training for employees and the last one is employers and employees have reached an agreement regarding the service period.At last, this thesis analyzed the legal application of Service Period Rule in the special cases and reached the conclusion as follows: the employers and contract workers can reach an agreement regarding the service period under labor dispatching; If the service period is longer than the term of labor contract, the term of the labor contract is automatically extended to the end of the service period only if there is no agreement regarding this issue; Employers and employees cannot reach a service period agreement regarding special treatment and the reached service period agreement shall be judged to be void.