A Study On Issues Of Labor Rights Protection In China: Based On SA8000 Standard

Since the reform and opening-up to the outside world, Chinese economy and construction have made remarkable achievements, and the drawing effect of export is much more obvious, especially after China's entry into WTO. However, Chinese export-oriented enterprises have encountered a series of difficulties in recent years, for example the "rural migrant workers' shortage" in eastern costal areas which has lasted since the second half year of 2003. Recruiting workers remains difficulty for most enterprises, and the lack of labor rights protection system and its deficiency in performance increases the costs of rural migrant workers engaged in non-agricultural jobs. Moreover, Chinese enterprises are confronted with denouncements from foreign companies and governments. Many products became victims of anti-dumping and products from "sweatshop" are not accepted by multinational enterprises or foreign consumers any longer. Therefore, the entry into WTO not only offers a great opportunity to China, it raises a sharp question as well: how to resolve the conflict between economic development and labor rights protection.SA8000 (Social Accountability 8000), whose tenet is to safeguard labor rights and to regulate illegal employment, is a social accountability management system which can be applied to the third-part certification. The adoption of this system brings great pressure on enterprises and causes controversy that whether it is a trade barrier set by developed countries or an instrument employed to elevate Chinese international competitiveness. To respect labor rights and perform a continuous and healthy development of Chinese economy, we should take the carry-out of SA8000 as a good opportunity to perfect the labor rights protection system in China by taking in its advantages.Through extensive literature collection and classification, this thesis employs comparative analysis to make a comparison between Chinese labor rights protection policy and SA8000 based on a thorough analysis of its background and contents. Considering the current situation of labor policy in China and the shining points of SA8000, the thesis gives some suggestions on how to perfect the labor rights protection policy. The specialties and creativities of this thesis are as follows: Firstly, it makes a all-around comparison between SA8000 and the labor rights protection policy in China, and analyzes the causes of their differences in depth; Secondly, it gives an introduction to the CSC9000T which is put forward by the textile industry of China by means of case study; Thirdly, some suggestions are brought forward on enterprises' construction of social accountability management system with the respect of SA8000's demands on management system.