Vice Minister of Labor and Social Security Sun Baoshu hailed the newly-adopted law on labor dispute mediation and arbitration as vital to "efficient and just legal remedy to laborers."

The new law takes effect on May 1, 2008, which aims at "fair and timely" settlement of disputes and lower costs for workers seeking to safeguard their rights.

"The new law reduced the cost of initiating a labor dispute. According to the stipulation, the mediation and arbitration of labor disputes will be free of charge." Sun made the remarks in an interview with Xinhua recently.

The valid period is extended from 60 days to one year between the occurrence of a dispute and the application for arbitration, in order to avoid the situation in which the unknowing employees miss the application deadline and lose the chance for an arbitration, Sun said.

The changes that helps protect the labor rights also include a cut down on arbitration period, whose actual process was often long and therefore expensive.

China's modern labor arbitration system began in 1987, leading to the establishment of procedures to cope with labor disputes through the steps of "mediation, arbitration and trial." Regulations on labor-management disputes and the Labor Law were promulgated in 1993 and 1994.

The procedures and practices for dealing with labor disputes have won wide public acceptance.

According to NPC statistics, labor disputes have risen continuously in recent years. Those statistics also show that labor dispute arbitration organizations at various levels dealt with 1.72 million cases involving 5.32 million employees from 1987 through 2005, with a growth rate of 27.3 percent annually.

(Xinhua News Agency January 2, 2008)