Manditory Salary Adjustments?

Here is a positively brilliant idea. The government has already made it more expensive to fire someone. Now let's tell companies what a "reasonable salary increase" is.

Sun Baoshu, vice minister of China's Ministry of Labor and Social Security, disclosed at a recent meeting that China is drafting a Salary Rule to solve such social problems as low salaries, slow increase of salaries, problems of collecting back pay for workers and establishing a normal salary increase and payment mechanism.

Sun says that to protect workers' rights in getting paid, the Chinese government at various levels are working to clear unpaid salary and improve their salary payment mechanisms. Sun says that by the end of 2007, most provinces in China will finish solving the unsolved salary problem and a few provinces that had more of such problems will finish the task in the first half of 2008.

The government just can't let the market work. Working on ensuring that workers get paid is a good move. Frequently construction workers are not paid by general contractors and other individuals in low level positions will get paid when and if the employer has the money. These practices need to stop.

But hopefully the government will back off issues of increases.