The General Office of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-rural Development ("MOHURD") has recently issued the Guiding Opinions on Building Workers' Team for the Construction Industry in a New Era (Draft for Comment) (the "Draft for Comment") to seek opinions from the units concerned by November 24, 2017.
The Draft for Comment states that the year 2025 will see much better skills and qualities of construction workers, the number of construction workers at or above the intermediate level will reach ten million, a long-term mechanism will be established to protect legitimate rights and interests of construction workers, ways will be made open for skill-oriented talents to pursue their career development paths, and a large group of workers for the construction industry that is oriented to knowledge, expertise and innovation will be formed. To this end, the Draft for Comment lays down several major tasks, including "deepening the reform in the labor and employment system", "practically boosting the skills and qualities of construction workers" and "faithfully safeguarding legitimate rights and interests of construction workers". In particular, the Draft for Comment calls for improving the ratio of singing labor contracts, and requires that a construction general contracting enterprise shall incorporate the labor contract information into the real-name management system, and replacing labor contracts with labor subcontracting contracts is strictly prohibited and signing contracts on behalf of workers is also not allowed. By 2020, the conclusion of labor contracts will cover almost every aspect of the industry.