If an employer violates the law by not providing an employee with any kind of social security, the employee should go to their local labour and social security bureau and ask them to sort the problem out. Consider then the case of Gu Jianqing, who has worked for 11 years without a single social security contribution from his employer, the Jiulongpo District Labour and Social Security Bureau in Chongqing. Who does he turn to?

The Guangzhou authorities plan, within the next three years, to establish new regional trade unions that would cover nearly all workers in the city's automotive and several other industrial sectors, the official media reported on 15 April.

In a rare legal victory for Chinese workers abroad, a Melbourne court has ordered one of the city’s most popular dumpling restaurants to pay a chef around A$200,000 in unpaid overtime and other benefits. Chang Chang, who moved to Australia in 2004, worked at the Camy Shanghai Dumpling and Noodle Restaurant 13 hours a day, six days a week for just A$100 a day. Despite being grossly underpaid and overworked, Chang only took legal action against his boss after he obtained permanent Australian residency. Like many other Chinese migrant workers abroad, Chang feared that if he sought redress before getting residency, he might lose his job and his employment visa would be revoked.

Hundreds of truck drivers staged protests in Shanghai’s port district this week, leading to clashes with the police and several arrests. The drivers, mostly independent operators from outside the city demanded an increase in their flat-fee haulage payment to offset rising fuel costs.