That could easily apply right here at home.

Look at it from the point of view of Chinese trade negotiators. … for China to agree to demands … in the context of a trade deal, would undoubtedly be seen as a concession that would have to be matched by an equal concession from the United States.

You are so right about this… but I think you …or your sources anyway, are wrong about this:

…The law is a carefully constructed attempt to redress the accelerating inequities caused by China opening up its labor force for the world's exploitation. …has come under sustained, vociferous criticism from U.S. employers operating in China who declare that it will raise their costs of doing business …

Granted, I did not read the article by Mr. Brown yet. Nevertheless, the first problem is that you are now putting two very separate issues together: compliance in outsourcing (the Newsweek article) , to compliance of multinational companies’ Chinese operations to Chinese labor laws. The first issue is really about how Chinese companies get around the law and fool foreign auditors. The second issue is about how the new regulations will affect MNCs’ own manufacturing and sales operations in China. The above quote is about this second issue.

Most WESTERN multinationals in China have excellent wage levels, working conditions, and environmental protection procedures. They have to because of two reasons: they come under much more scrutiny from Chinese regulatory agencies; and they need to try to instil their own corporate values into the Chinese management class in order to maintain international levels of productivity.

The laws now are unfair in there implementation…this therefore allows corruption and exploitation in Chinese companies. It’s a lot easier to audit a US-based company which employs 500 people in a highly-automated, lean factory, than say, a private Chinese company which employs 10000 people, and who’s GM is definitely connected into the local Party power structure (they are always connected because that is the only way they can get capital from the state-controlled banks)

I asked many expat business leaders, including the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing (Amcham), about the new proposed laws. They are against the proposed laws, but not because they want to continue to “exploit” workers. And they think that, generally, they think that Amcham and US businesses are getting a very bad rap in the press for their stance on this issue. They are against these proposed laws because:

• The laws strengthen the power of Chinese labour representatives…in other words, strengthen the power of the old CCP cadre who are assigned to larger factories by the CCP.

• The laws would give worker committees (lead by CCP labour representatives) the authority to edit and approve the employee handbook.

• The laws would make it much more difficult to fire people and stipulate much higher costs for severance packages. Note here that China job-security environment is not like the US. Companies today cannot easily fire or layoff people. Additionally, corruption is rampant in most companies here – foreign, state-owned, and private. And management quality is at a much lower level than in the West. So, with the introduction of the new laws, company managers fear they will lose the ability the change their managers. And if they do not have the ability to fire people for bad performance, they lose the ability to enforce quality standards.

• Lastly, everyone knows that the new laws will only be applied to foreign-owned companies.

Those are some good insights, jesse. I'm going to link to your letter from the original post. But I'd be interested in your take on Brown's analysis, because from his interpretation the law does seem to remedy some serious shortcomings -- for example, employers will often refuse to sign or offer labor contracts to workers, and then use the _absence_ of a contract as proof that they are not legally obligated to pay the worker what they owe him/her...

I guess I'm going to have to actually read professional periodicals and other blogs instead of just reporting what I hear :-o

About the problem you just mentioned...that happens to foreigners working in China too. Newly arrived-to-China English teachers are often cheated out of their wages by their “cram schools” employers. This happened to several friends of mine. They don't check...they assume there is a contract in place, and they get burned. Actually, many white-collar workers here are tricked in this way, as well as factory operators. There was an article in the Shanghai Daily several months ago about a Shanghai court that ordered an employer to pay back-wages to workers whom supposedly did not have an official contract. Of course, courts decisions in Shanghai have little practical affect on law-enforcement in other parts of the country.