Rights Defense Network Policy and Regulations Commentary: Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security Publishes the Draft Measures for Protecting the Rights and Interests of Workers in New Forms of Employment for Public Comment — New Forms of Employment Protection Order: The Officials’ Fire Still Burns, While the People’s Lamps Are Blown Out

Special Commentator: Zhang Haoran

On October 8, 2026, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, together with several other departments, issued the Draft Measures for Protecting the Rights and Interests of Workers in New Forms of Employment for public comment. The deadline for comments is November 8, 2026. The draft measures mainly apply to platform workers in new forms of employment, such as food delivery riders, ride-hailing drivers, and freight workers. The document sets out classifications for various employment arrangements and prohibits platforms from evading employment responsibilities by inducing workers to register as individual businesses, subcontracting through multiple tiers, or using other methods. It covers specific matters including the settlement of labor remuneration, platform algorithm management, working hours and rest arrangements, reasonable remuneration for holidays, and restrictions on fines. It also clarifies procedures for handling labor disputes and the corresponding legal responsibilities of relevant parties. Members of the public may submit proposed revisions through various channels, including website comments, postal mail, and email. (For details, see: https://www.mohrss.gov.cn/SYrlzyhshbzb/zcfg/SYzhengqiuyijian/zq_fgs/202610/t20261008_585156.html?use_xbridge3=true&loader_name=forest&need_sec_link=1&sec_link_scene=im&theme=light )

Commentary: New Forms of Employment Protection Order: The Officials’ Fire Still Burns, While the People’s Lamps Are Blown Out

On October 8, 2026, the Draft Measures for Protecting the Rights and Interests of Workers in New Forms of Employment appeared out of nowhere. Every provision targets employment regulation, and every sentence speaks of protecting rights and interests. On paper, it presents itself as a champion of the people. Yet examined closely against the reality of economic downturn and a depressed market, this document, which raises high the banner of human rights, looks more like a governance show that reverses rights and responsibilities: it does not pursue the decades of accumulated debts in labor enforcement or address market inequities between state-owned and private enterprises, but instead piles pressure onto the market entities already most vulnerable, just as small and medium-sized businesses are struggling to survive and working people at the bottom are trying to earn a meal. Since ancient times, “officials may set fires, but the people may not even light lamps”; how similar today’s situation is.

The chronic ills of China’s labor sector have never been due to a lack of laws, but to long-standing tolerance of laws not being followed and enforcement being lax. As early as 1995, the Labor Law was proclaimed to the world; its provisions on labor contracts, social insurance, and overtime pay were precise and clear about rights and responsibilities. Yet more than three decades have passed, and while the law hangs high in the halls of power, unwritten rules prevail among the people. Small, medium-sized, and micro enterprises failing to sign contracts, pay social insurance contributions, or compensate overtime have long been open secrets in the industry. Selective enforcement and flexible accountability by regulators have made “the cost of violating the rules is far lower than the cost of compliance” a market consensus. The law’s net may be vast, but it has always picked on the easiest targets. Now, as economic growth slows and corporate profits hit bottom, officials suddenly remember that they must enforce the law strictly and make up for past failures. How is this protecting rights and interests? It is plainly imposing, all at once, the cost of decades of governance failures on private businesses already struggling to move forward.

Even more troubling is the inherent tilt in the market competitive environment. Today, government projects and public business in many places are invariably allocated on the principle that “those near the water get the moon first,” with priority given to government-run enterprises. Even when their efficiency is low and their capabilities insufficient, they can still secure contracts. These government-run enterprises, which control resources, are often poor at the practical work of running a business; they then subcontract projects through multiple tiers to private enterprises, arbitrarily driving down the price and pocketing the proceeds, taking most of the profits. The private enterprises that do the real work and bear the risks can only gnaw at the meager scraps left over. As the saying goes, “Those covered in fine silks are not the ones who raise silkworms”: state-owned enterprises make a fortune on the strength of their status, while private enterprises struggle at the edge of survival through hard labor. Given this market structure, failing to break up monopolies, clean up subcontracting, and restore fair competition for private enterprises, while instead relentlessly tightening and scrutinizing labor practices, is like piling another bundle of straw onto a camel already carrying a thousand pounds.

From the perspective of businesses, inducing workers to register as individual businesses and sign cooperation agreements has never been an inherently malicious act; it is a survival strategy forced by high regulatory costs. Paying the full five types of social insurance and the housing provident fund, implementing the minimum wage, and paying statutory overtime means labor costs rise by more than 30 percent. For small and medium-sized service businesses whose net profit margins are generally below 5 percent, full compliance is tantamount to a direct death sentence. A business is not a charity; survival comes first. When the cost of compliance is closing down and making everyone unemployed, a business that chooses flexible arrangements to preserve jobs is less evading responsibility than protecting the last means of livelihood for workers at the bottom. If policy ignores this basic reality and relentlessly pushes to “eliminate flexibility,” the result will never be a beautiful picture in which everyone has social insurance and receives overtime pay. It will only mean fewer jobs, platform layoffs, and millions of flexible workers losing their means of making a living. From the most basic human rights perspective: the right to subsistence is the foundation of all rights, and the prerequisite for the right to work is having a job available. When people at the bottom cannot even secure the means to support their families, even the most perfect list of rights on paper is nothing more than a castle in the air and empty promises.

The deeper paradox lies in the misallocation of responsibility for social security. The underlying logic of these measures remains the old idea that “employment means providing a safety net,” as if it were only natural that businesses pay for workers’ pensions, medical care, and unemployment protection. But one fact is deliberately avoided: every citizen is a taxpayer under the law and contributes to the state treasury. The state’s public services should, by their very nature, bear responsibility for ensuring citizens’ basic subsistence; this should not be a privilege available only by taking a full-time job and having an employer pay social insurance contributions. Flexible workers and individual businesses also obey the law and pay taxes according to the rules; their basic protection should not have to be achieved by compelling businesses to provide it. The state passes the pressure of social insurance income and expenditures down the chain to market entities. On the surface, this appears to protect workers, but in practice it transfers the state’s public service responsibilities to businesses. Small wonder that people say “the real intention lies elsewhere”—what looks like protecting workers’ rights is in fact filling the social insurance shortfall, with private businesses and workers at the bottom sharing the cost.

The ancients said: “When a dynasty prospers, the people suffer; when it falls, the people suffer.” So it is with dynastic changes, and so it is with the rise and fall of policies. A policy that truly takes a human rights stance should not only calculate the balance of rights, but also the balance of survival; it should not only focus on businesses’ responsibilities, but also examine the government’s own duties; it should not only pile burdens onto the weak, but also take aim at privilege. If monopolies held by state-owned enterprises are not first broken up, subcontracting abuses cleaned up, fair market competition restored, and the boundaries between the state’s and businesses’ responsibilities for protection clarified, then simply using the yardstick of labor law to measure private businesses buffeted by storms will ultimately hurt those workers at the bottom who want to earn a living through their labor, and those small and medium-sized businesses that want to do honest work. Justice on paper is never true justice; ensuring everyone has a way to make a living and something to look forward to is the greatest human right.