New Guangdong wages rules rile business and unionists

New provincial collective bargaining rules passed last week in Guangdong have drawn fire from both unionists and industrialists in Hong Kong.

Unionists say the bill limits workers' bargaining rights while some employers insist it raises huge fears for business.

The Guangdong Provincial People's Congress passed the Regulation on Enterprise Collective Consultations and Collective Contracts last Thursday and published the bill on Sunday as part of its bid to reduce the growing number of strikes.

The regulations come into effect on January 1 and require employers to hold talks with workers over wages, benefits and working hours.

Stanley Lau Chin-ho, chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, said the rules posed "huge pressures for employers". "I'm a little disappointed it is being passed after repeated meetings with [Guangdong authorities]. We wanted the regulation to be aborted," Lau said, adding that the rules would affect an estimated 40,000 Hong Kong businesses in Guangdong, employing about 8 million workers.

The bill's first draft, tabled in the congress in March by the Guangdong Federation of Trade Unions, would have required employers to hold talks if one-third of their workers submitted a written request to do so. Employers would have been given 30 days to respond and workers could strike if talks failed.

But the right to strike was removed from the final version, while a clause was inserted banning public sector workers from taking such industrial action. It also raised the bar for collective contract talks from one-third to one-half of the workers, and said that workers' representatives in talks must be elected by unions. Under the new rules, talks can continue for up to five months, but there is no specific penalty for employers who refuse to negotiate. Should negotiations break down, workers can seek an arbitration ruling, according to the regulation.