Guangdong court to clear back pay cases before Spring Festival

Guangdong High People’s Court has promised to introduce a green channel to help handle cases involving arrears of wages before the Lunar New Year, which begins on Feb 16.

“All such cases will quickly be accepted, put on file for investigation and organized public hearings by courts,” Tan Ling, vice-president of Guangdong High People’s Court, said.

She urged courts across South China's Guangdong province to further shorten the investigation period and raise trial efficiency on cases involving wage arrears in the weeks ahead.

“The move aims to help ensure the mass migrant workers who have contributed to Guangdong’s economic development will be able to get their back payment to return home to spend the Lunar New Year, which is traditionally the biggest Chinese festival, with family members, and fight against malicious back pay in the province to help build a harmonious society,” Tan told a press conference in Guangdong's provincial capital on Monday.

The number of court cases involving back pay has witnessed an annual average growth of 39 percent year-on-year in Guangdong since 2013, according to Tan. And Guangdong’s cases involving in back pay accounted for about one-tenth of the country’s total in 2017.

Last year, courts in the entire province completed a total of 253 cases involving back pay. Of the 269 defendants, 122 have been sentenced to serve time in jail.

As one of the country’s economic powerhouses, Guangdong, home to a myriad of foreign-funded companies, joint ventures and privately-run firms, has the country’s largest number of migrant workers.
“And that is why Guangdong’s cases involving back pay have represented a big percentage of the country’s total,” Tan said.

Most of the cases involving arrears of wages have taken place in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan and other prosperous cities in the Pearl River Delta.