Could Labour Rules Apply to Foreign Labourer?
How does Labour Law protect foreigners?
In every labour contract, there are statutory clauses and promissory clauses. The statutory clauses shall be stipulated in accord with labour law, and the promissory clauses could be stipulated by contractual parties with free will as long as they don’t violate other laws in China.
The difference between Chinese labourer and Foreign labourer when concluding a labour relation in China is the foreign labourer has more promissory areas. Due to statutory rules are used to protect labourer, the Chinese labourer is protected more.
| Statutory areas for Chinese labourer | Statutory Areas for foreign labourer | |
| National Rules | Shanghai Rules | |
| Minimum Wages | √ | √ |
| Working Time | √ | × |
| Rest and Vacation | √ | √ |
| Safety and sanitation | √ | √ |
| Social insurance | √ | × |
| Arbitration and Litigation | √ | √ |
| Termination and Revoke of labour contract | × | × |
| Compensation | × | × |
| Probation Period | × | × |
*When I talked about statutory areas, I don’t mean the entire area is statutory, it’s just there are certain rules in this area shall be complied with. For example, about the working time, the law just draws up the maximum working hour per day and per week, any agreement lower than this maximum limitation is allowed.