Abstract

The essay begins by exploring the enhancement of workers protections as achieved by Chinese law in 2007 with three regulatory interventions aimed at reducing flexibility. Later sections focus on some developing areas, such as the progressive establishment of social insurance and the collective bargaining of wages. The author highlights, in particular, the obstacles preventing the development of a real collective bargaining process, which are the double role of Chinese union and its consequent lack of autonomy. The spontaneous strike actions of 2010 might anyway have a positive impact on collective protection of workers rights. In the third section, the article analyses the current debate on social dumping,where the prevailing opinion opposes any questioning of free competition in international commerce and any sanctions against social dumping.