China's courts across the nation are battling to address a growing number of cases involving labor disputes, partly because of the global financial crisis over the past two years, top court officials said on Tuesday.

Labor dispute cases have become one of the most difficult and central tasks for Chinese courts, said Sun Jungong, spokesman of the Supreme People's Court (SPC).

Statistics from the SPC showed that courts nationwide handled 295,500 labor dispute cases in 2008, a year-on-year increase of 95.3 percent.

The figure then jumped to 318,600 in 2009, up by 7.8 percent over the previous year.

The number of new labor dispute cases reached 207,400 from January to August this year.

The global financial crisis has had a "grave impact on China's economy and its foreign trade in particular," said Sun at a press conference.

"A lot of enterprises, especially export companies, are unable to satisfy workers' requirements for higher salaries."

China has entered a time when production costs are causing a lot of pressure on businesses, Sun said.

"Some enterprises tend to ignore the protection of workers' rights in order to maximize profits and minimize labor costs, with illegal employment and violations of employees' legitimate rights being common," he said.

The workers' growing awareness about protecting their own interests and rights has also prompted more of them to resort to lawsuits, the spokesman said.

China implemented the Employment Contract Law, as well as the Law on Mediation and Arbitration of Labor Disputes, in 2008 to offer workers easy access to lawsuits to settle labor disputes if they are not satisfied with mediation and arbitration results.

The SPC on Tuesday issued its third judicial interpretation about hearing labor disputes cases since 2008 in a bid to facilitate the trials of such cases.

The interpretation was meant to better safeguard workers' rights and to balance the bilateral interests of the employers and employees, the SPC said.

To better protect workers, the interpretation stipulates that courts have to accept lawsuits regarding the following labor disputes: when an employee does not get due social insurance from an employer and asks for compensation; when disputes arise after the restructuring of enterprises; and when an employee sues for not being paid for overtime.

The interpretation also stipulates who should be accused in certain labor dispute cases, given that sometimes, employers and agents try to shift responsibility to the other when employees' rights are violated.

He Li, a Beijing-based lawyer, said different areas in China have different judicial practices regarding labor disputes. The new judicial interpretation from the top court will help guide the practice nationwide, making it more consistent, He said.

About 80 percent of enterprises in China are privately run or foreign owned, employing about 75 percent of the country's total urban workforce, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

(China Daily September 15, 2010)