China no paradise for workforce

China has emerged as role model for most developing economies with strong GDP growth, rising foreign direct investment etc. But its industrial and labour relations were poor.

"On this front China has no lessons for us " , said Sarosh Kuruvilla , professor in the School of Industrial & Labour Relations, Carnell University, USA, said at the workshop on " Emerging Patterns of Employment Relations in China - Comparison with Indian Practices" organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Despite having impressive indicative figures , China's problem was lack of managerial expertise and knowledge about how human resource operates in present global environment, he said.

Moving forward from the old system where the state owned the industrial enterprises gave employees facilities like life long employment, housing, medical benefits, and where allocation of labour were administered irrespective of price mechanism with no inter-regional as well as inter-enterprise mobility, the Chinese were facing hurdles as decentralisation in decision making was taking place.

As contractual labour system has come into practice with the advent of foreign invested enterprises taking the front seat, China was finding it difficult to cope with the expected restructuring.

In fact , it is started showing negative movement in important areas like HDI as inequality and exploitation as a result of surplus labour was increasing.

Kuruvilla identified lack of effort in educating the people as the major hurdle in the path of collective bargaining.