Procurement of Legal Aid and Collective Negotiation Services from the Commercial Law Firms in Shenzhen and Guangzhou City

Shenzhen FTU was the first trade union federation to outsource legal services to commercial legal firms. In 2008, the FTU set a budget of RMB3 million to contract seven commercial legal firms to provide free legal aid to its members. According to the Vice-President of the FTU Wang Tongxing, the trade union is facing new challenges due to the rapid changes in labour composition and labour relations. The traditional form of trade union is inadequate to resolve the new contradictions and other social actors including professional lawyers are needed to assist the trade union in serving its members. The FTU began by inviting tender from commercial law firms. Out of the 45 applicants, seven law firms were chosen. By 2008, the FTU had established an in-house legal aid program served by 298 lawyers, while 61 of them were the core program lawyers under the FTU. The legal service is provided to the members of the Shenzhen trade unions only and the labour dispute case must have taken place in Shenzhen. The FTU will assess the legal aid applications and assign a lawyer to provide free legal aid services to the worker ranged from mediation, arbitration to litigation depending on the nature of the case. The lawyers are contracted on a three-year basis subject to the appraisal of the federation. Those who have been complained by workers thrice will not be hired by the FTU anymore. In return the hired lawyer will receive RMB3000 per case from the federation and more if the dispute case is a collective one. The plan of the FTU in 2008 was to expand the role and services of the union’s lawyers to participate in shopfloor collective negotiation in 110 enterprises identified by the federation. These identified enterprises included the Fortune 500 companies based in Shenzhen. By 2011, the legal aid program has developed further to include 95 lawyers who have given free services in 1052 labour arbitration and litigation cases, claiming back compensation worth of  RMB330 million for the workers they represented.   

Academics and Lawyers Take Part in Collective Negotiation and Labour Disputes Mediation
On 27 September 2011, the Shenzhen FTU launched the formation of the Consultation Committee of Harmonious Labour Relation, as well as the Collective Negotiation Campaign and the Harmonious Campaign. Zhang Xiping, member of the Standing Committee of the Shenzhen CCPC and the Chief of the United Front Work Department attended the ceremony[NOTE1]. The Consultation Committee of Harmonious Labour Relation is composed of 14 academics of economics, sociology, sociology and law, as well as 90 professional lawyers from 10 legal firms based in Shenzhen. According to Zhang, professionalism is needed in shopfloor collective wage negotiation and yet in most of the time, workers are positioned unfavourably vis-à-vis the employers. In actual situations shopfloor labour relation is “lop-sided”. Professional participation from the third party is necessary to tip the balance. Besides providing free legal aid to workers, the Committee will participate and give advice in shopfloor collective negotiation. The Committee and its members will give recommendations to the government in legislation related to collective negotiation. Due to the objection from the trade associations to collective negotiation, the Ordinance on Collective Negotiation of Shenzhen, first proposed in 2010 was suspended and a third reading of the draft ordinance has not been scheduled.

Under the Plan of Deepening the Promotion of Collective Negotiation 2011-2015 of the Shenzhen FTU, the federation has set to cover 55% of the enterprises with collective wage agreement in 2011, to be increased to 75% in 2015. At the same time the unionizing rate of the Fortune 500 companies should reach 88% in 2011 and 100% in 2013. In September, the Action Month set by the FTU, the federation and its subsidiary unions had sent out letters to 603 major companies requesting collective wage negotiation with the employers.
 

Procurement of Legal Aid Services Has Become a Model in Guangdong Province
At the provincial level, a Trade Union Lawyers’ Delegation was formed and led by the Guangdong Provincial FTU, the Department of Justice and the Lawyers’ Association in July 2010. The provincial FTU chairs the leadership committee of the delegation whose office is placed under the Legal Aid Department of the provincial FTU. The provincial Trade Union Lawyers’ Delegation is composed of the Provincial FTU’s delegated lawyers and those under the twenty one federations in the province. In total the delegation has 1012 professional lawyers to serve the trade union[NOTE2]. The Lawyers’ Delegation provides professional services to the unions, namely mediation in mass labour disputes, providing advice and assistance to the unions in commencing collective wage negotiations, and drafting labour legislations. Started in Shenzhen and rolling on to more federations, it is increasingly a common practice that the regional trade union federation sub-contracts the legal aid and other services to the commercial lawyers. These include legal rights training and consultation to workers, as well as legal training to the grassroots trade union officers. The outsourcing model is highly regarded as effective in widening the coverage of services under the banner of the trade union.   

The provincial FTU has formulated a number of provisions and rules to lay down the objectives, the duties and work of the lawyers, as well as the procedure of providing legal aid and services etc, based on which the regional federations develop their own provisions. From amongst the pool of the lawyers’ delegation, the Provincial FTU identifies and selects lawyers to act as instructors in collective negotiations and mediators in labour disputes including wild cat strikes.

To finance the work of the delegation at the provincial level, the provincial FTU has budgeted RMB2 million this year, whereas the regional federations shall fiancé the overheads and outsourced services from the local lawyers’ delegation. The lawyers’ delegation is supervised by the Leadership Committee formed by the FTU, the Department of Justice and the Lawyers’ Association which meets quarterly to report and coordinate the work of the delegation. The delegation is given the institutional role to share the mediation workload of the Labour Tribunal and the court.

According to the provincial FTU, this is a model recognized by the workers, the employers, the Party and the government. By widening the service coverage of the trade unions, an enhanced sense of belonging to the trade unions amongst the workers is expected. Since its formation, the provincial delegation has provided legal aid services to 2594 cases involving 5392 workers, recovering wages and compensation worth of more than RMB80 million. Besides, the Delegation has mediated 759 dispute cases, participated in collective wage negotiations in 313 enterprises and provided assistance to 213 enterprises in reviewing and revising the corporate labour regulation[NOTE3]. In March 2011, the lawyers’ delegation under the Guangzhou City FTU took part and assisted the federation in drafting the Ordinance of Collective Negotiation of Labour Relation of Guangzhou City, and the subsequent public consultations before submission to the People’s Congress. The Ordinance was revised and passed as the Regulation on Tripartite Negotiation of Labour Relation in the People’s Congress of Guangzhou in September this year.

The Guangdong model of the Trade Union Lawyers’ Delegation was endorsed and regarded highly by Wang Guozhao, the President of the ACFTU and member of the Politburo of the CCP. The experience of Guangdong, according to Wang should be carefully concluded and propagated to the rest of the country’s union federations.

IHLO

NOV 2011