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Qiu Jianming

Lawyer from Gansu Province

From a legal point of view, defaulting on wages is a breach of contract, an illegal act relating to Civil Law, which along with the Labor Law can be enhanced to punish such employers.

Employees only want to recover their money owed, not punish the employer. In fact, when the employees try to recover their back pay, their labor contracts are not terminated. They still work in the enterprises who owe their wages. Therefore, if the employers are punished by Criminal Law, it is not good for the employees, as the enterprises may become bankrupt in the process.

When implementing such a crime, there are still difficulties. It is hard to define malice. Furthermore, what worries me is that the head of these defaulting companies is likely to escape from punishment as the judges have the power of discretion and sometimes the evidence is not sufficient.

When I talked to migrant workers, major sufferers from back pay, I find that few of them would like to protect their legal interests by means of litigation, because this costs time and money. They would rather unite and go to the boss to ask for their wages back.

Even if this issue becomes a crime, the employees' legal interests still can't be safeguarded.

Fang Yifan

Jinhua News

Treating this as a crime has no actual effect.

As economic activities are complicated and unpredictable, the reasons for owed wages can vary from mismanagement, cash flow problems, or intent to default. It is therefore difficult to determine if withholding wages is intentional.

Enterprises who do not want to pay workers wages may use deceptive accounting to show that they have no funds. In this way, their withholding wages becomes legal.

Moreover, if this becomes a crime, the punished enterprises will face bankruptcy so that they will then genuinely be unable to pay wages.

To fix out this problem, an effective labor and social security system should be established.

Liang Jiangtao

Current affairs commentator

Facts have shown that this issue can be solved by the administrative organs, making it unnecessary to abuse legislative functions. Some local governments turn a blind eye to the enterprises that default on wages, as they are afraid of displeasing their most important tax contributors.

Some social security sectors treat the issue with negative attitudes using the excuse of lacking a legal basis. By making this a criminal issue, the real problem of weak administration is covered up, which in turn impacts on governments' ability to supervise.

Therefore, no matter from the perspective of improving the government's efficiency, or from rationally optimizing legislative resources, or safeguarding the employees' interests, it is not practical to make defaulting on wages part of the Criminal Law.