Recently, a wave of “wage arrears” incidents has been breaking out in various parts of China, where construction workers, fed up with long-term wage arrears, have been dismantling completed steel structures. Employees of companies have been recording videos publicly advocating for their rights, while interns have been deprived of basic labor protections by signing “internship agreements.” Labor experts have warned that if the wage arrears grievance mechanism continues to malfunction, it may lead to larger-scale social unrest.
From construction sites to manufacturing workshops, from performance venues to office front desks, wage arrears have been cropping up across China. In the past four days, provinces such as Shandong, Hainan, and Guangdong have reported incidents of companies withholding wages, project investors absconding, and laborers left with no recourse for seeking justice.
According to videos and comments circulating on social platforms like Douyin, on July 23, employees of Shandong’s “Meibang Panel Industry” company collectively posted online alleging that the company boss went missing after withholding wages, causing the company to halt operations, with employees failing to receive their wages despite multiple attempts to claim them. The following day, employees of Guangdong’s Foshan “Fengcai Baby Products Co., Ltd.” also openly accused the company of long-standing wage arrears. The employees claimed that despite repeated promises of payment next month, the company had yet to fulfill them.
Datang Labor Market in Haizhu District of Guangzhou is a well-known gathering place for temporary workers in southern China. Mr. Li from Luoyang, Henan, has worked in Guangzhou for three months but has not received his wages. He has a unique background – he is the father of a child who was a victim of a vaccine incident, and due to years of fighting for justice, has been struggling to make a living by taking on temporary jobs. He told Dajiyuan, “The company can’t pay me, and now I have no job. I went to collect my wages last Friday, and the company said they had no money, asked me to come back next week, but this has been going on for many times. What am I supposed to do?”
Mr. Li mentioned that he contacted the local labor supervision hotline for help, but they only responded with “we will contact you after verification,” and till now no one has reached back to him. “Even those who owe money are arrogant now, and the government doesn’t care at all. Do we, people like us, have the right to speak? ‘Everything for the people’ is all a lie.”
The issue of wage arrears has also affected large public events. On July 24, during the “International Horse Racing Brewery Festival” held in Jinan, it was revealed that the organizers had failed to pay the laborers for their exhibition setups and constructions. Workers posted videos seeking help on social platforms, stating that their wage claims had been unsuccessful. A netizen commented, “We have been working since June 25, and by July 1, our wages were still not settled. Aren’t we human beings?” Some mentioned calling the Jinan city hotline 12345 for help, only to be told that the issue was “not accepted.”
On July 25, an employee of Hainan’s “Guangan Hecreat Decorative Engineering Co., Ltd.” posted a video online demanding unpaid wages since before the Chinese New Year, but after the contact person was changed, they were unable to reach anyone, suspecting that the company had disappeared without a trace.
What has drawn wider attention is the intense protest that occurred on July 26 at the construction site of “Zhongjun World City Phase III” in Gaomi City, Weifang, Shandong.
Videos showed several construction workers angrily removing steel bars at the construction site, filming protest videos accusing the project investors of long-term wage arrears. Although the related videos were quickly removed from platforms like TikTok and Weibo, screenshots have circulated widely, resonating with a large number of netizens.
Mr. Wang, a Chinese labor rights advocate, told Dajiyuan that some workers no longer trust official channels for seeking justice and have started to protest by “dismantling completed projects.” “I’ve seen some videos recently where renovation workers smashed laid tiles, walls, and even installed glass windows. This is their new form of protest, and it is a choice made out of helplessness. Since they have no other way, they protest in the most direct way.”
Meanwhile, interns have also become victims of wage arrears. On July 26, a young female accounting intern in Shanghai released a video stating that she had interned at a company for two months, with an agreement stating a monthly salary of 5000 yuan. However, when it came to settling the salary, the company refused payment citing that the “internship agreement does not constitute a labor relationship.” Despite applying for labor arbitration and receiving support, the company ended up only giving her 200 yuan in cash on the spot.
According to the female accounting intern’s disclosure on social platforms, the company later sent multiple letters to her university demanding that she “return all the wages” and threatened to “make it difficult for her to find a job in the industry after graduation.”
In response to this, labor rights advocate Mr. Wang expressed to the reporter that China’s definition of “internship” in terms of the law is vague, and many companies exploit this by using “internship agreements” to evade labor law obligations, thereby causing a vast number of students to be exploited without any labor protections.
An anonymous labor law researcher from Zhejiang University told Dajiyuan that many companies are financially strained, and when faced with operational issues, it is often the workers’ wages that are the first to be sacrificed. He stated that while China’s labor rights mechanism may appear sound on the surface, in reality, it often encounters dilemmas like “arbitration going through the motions,” “employers going missing,” or “court rulings with no one enforcing them,” leading to a situation where a large number of laborers are left helpless.
He further mentioned that local governments, in their bid to attract investment, often turn a blind eye to issues like wage arrears in companies. Workers end up having to save themselves by dismantling structures, recording videos, which is a very dangerous signal.