Recorded on April 7, 2021.
Labor Protections for Overseas Chinese Workers
About this event:
China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which encourages Chinese companies to go abroad, has boosted the number of Chinese workers going abroad to more than half a million annually. Most are hired through brokers, some of which are informal and even illegal. Wage abuse and work injuries are common. How can these workers get help and find justice? Our speakers have analyzed Chinese court decisions to learn how the courts are handling returned workers’ claims. They also have suggestions for improving worker protections.
Further reading:
“Labour Protections for Overseas Chinese Workers: Legislative Framework and Judicial Practice,” with Xiaohui Ban, Chinese Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 8, Issue 2, 304-330 (September 2020).
Shorter version:“Legal Remedies for China’s Overseas Workers,” Made in China, Vol. No. 5, Issue No. 3 (2020), pp. 86-91.
About the speakers:
Aaron Halegua is the founding member of Aaron Halegua, PLLC and a research fellow at both NYU Law School’s Center for Labor and Employment Law and U.S.-Asia Law Institute. Mr. Halegua recently assisted over 2,400 Chinese construction workers trafficked to Saipan to recover $14 million in back pay, and he is currently litigating a case in a U.S. federal court to recover compensation for trafficked workers injured on that project. Mr. Halegua has also consulted for Apple, Asia Society, International Labor Rights Forum, Ford Foundation, Service Employees International Union, International Labor Organization, and Brown University on labor issues in China, Thailand, Myanmar and Mexico. He is the author of numerous book chapters, articles, and op-eds about labor issues, including the report Who Will Represent China’s Workers: Lawyers, Legal Aid, and the Enforcement of Labor Rights. Mr. Halegua has an AB from Brown University and JD from Harvard Law School. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Peking University Law School after college. He speaks, reads and, writes Mandarin Chinese.
Xiaohui Ban (班小辉) is an associate professor at Wuhan University Law School. He received his JSD from Wuhan University, and has been a visiting scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a postdoctoral fellow at Law School of the University of Montreal. His research focuses on labor law and international labor law. He has published numerous articles and several book chapters on such topics as atypical employment, the gig economy, and labor rights in international trade and investment.
Moderator:
Cynthia Estlund is the Catherine A. Rein Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, where she teaches labor and employment law and workplace governance. Her current work focuses on automation and the future of work. Her latest book, A New Deal for China’s Workers? (2017), takes a comparative look at labor unrest and reform in China. In her previous book, Regoverning the Workplace: From Self-Regulation to Co-Regulation (2010), she chronicled the current crisis of workplace governance in the US and charted a potential path forward.