A graduate student has sued the new China National Grand Theatre in Beijing for discrimination against non-local job seekers, according to a 21st Century Business Herald report.
Huang Yuanjian , a Central University of Finance and Economics law student, filed the suit against the theatre in April after reading a job advertisement requiring that applicants for all 315 job vacancies at the theatre be registered permanent residents of Beijing, the report said.
Mr Huang said in his petition that the requirement did 'not conform to the spirit of the constitution and violated China's labour law'. 'This constitutes typical discrimination about a person's place of origin,' he said.
Mr Huang said that even though the advertisement described the theatre as a government-sponsored institution directly under the Beijing municipal government, this did not entitle the theatre to limit its recruitment to Beijing natives.
He said the central government's 2.69 billion yuan investment in the project and the use of the word 'national' in the theatre's name suggested the facility belonged to the whole nation, not just the capital.
But in the two months since Mr Huang filed his suit, Xicheng district has yet to agree to hear the case on the grounds that the law graduate did not apply for a job in the theatre himself and thus was not a victim of the discrimination.