China hopes to promote justice in employment by new law
(Xinhua)Updated: 2007-03-11 10:06
However, some experts think that there is still some room for improvement in the draft law.
Lin Qiang, a member of NPC standing committee commented, "Now the draft law has only prohibitory provisions on job discrimination, however, there is no corresponding legal obligation." Lin suggested that the legal obligation of discrimination should be clarified in the future.
Another member of NPC standing committee, Yuan Hanmin, suggested that the present draft law is too "soft" to curb the discrimination in employment. He also suggested that some foreign experience should be taken for reference.
"In order to avoid gender and racial discrimination, American employers have to keep certain ethnic and gender proportions in their companies." As the draft law mainly focuses on discrimination based on age, gender and hukou, Yuan also suggests that more attention needs to be paid to the 120 million carriers of Hepatitis B.
Chinese netizens have welcomed the government's efforts to promote employment and oppose discrimination on web forums, however voices that doubt the law's effectiveness in anti-discrimination remain.
"Where employment exists, employment thresholds exist," said Luo Baiwei, a lawyer from South China's Guangzhou City, "therefore, a job seeker may have formal equal rights in employment, but he may suffer from de facto discrimination. Any differences in gender, age, appearance and background will become the pretexts for employers to decide to hire or not."
As Luo said, it is difficult for the government to decide what kinds of behavior are discriminatory, since there are no specific standards. Furthermore, anti-discrimination is not always good news for everyone, especially for those who have gender, age and hukou advantages. At the same time, the employers will face more restrictions when hiring people.
"Laws cannot create employment, but a fair environment, which will undermine
the efficiency and lead to different impacts to different groups," said Luo.
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