Labor officials in the city forced companies to pay 280 million
yuan (US$36.98 million) in delayed wage, social insurance fees and
illegal deposits from employees from January to June, the Shanghai
Labor and Social Security Bureau said yesterday.
The bureau received more than 10,000 complaints about delayed
wages or other fees during the period and inspected more than
20,000 companies around the city. They found 6,987 violations of
the law involving about 370,000 workers in total.
The bureau wouldn't provide comparison figures from previous
years.
About 39 percent of complaints investigated involved social
insurance fees, while delayed wages accounted for 26 percent and
unpaid overtime was the focus of 19 percent of grievances.
About 150 million yuan in delayed payments were cleared up
during the six-month period.
"The number of cases of deliberately delaying wages dropped
during the first half of the year," said bureau official Zhang
Yuan, without providing detailed numbers.
"Most of the delayed payments were for extra work or overtime
working, and the delays were only one or two months, rather than as
long as a year," Zhang said.
The bureau said most of the companies found violating the law
were private firms based in the city's suburbs. It wouldn't say how
many fines were handed out.
(Shanghai Daily July 23, 2007)