Are Chinese Courts Pro-Labor or Pro-Employer?

As a socialist nation with laws promoted as “pro-labor”, the official representation is that China’s legal system (in particular its courts) gives special protection to employees. China’s labor statutes (in particular, the Labor Contract Law) favor employees. The debate on whether Chinese courts are “pro-labor” or “pro-employer” has been going on for many years. The established perception is that Chinese courts are “pro-labor”. By examining 2054 sampled dismissal cases for serious breach of the employer’s internal regulations, this article shows that Chinese courts are in no way “pro-labor”. The employers have won by a substantial margin. Courts in most cases only conducted a simple factual review to see if the employer’s internal regulations have been violated by the employee. Courts in most cases did not conduct a substantive assessment of whether the dismissal was fair or unfair (“fairness review”). The data reveals that the fairness review is pivotal in the determination of litigation outcome. Had the court conducted a fairness review in every case, the employees would have prevailed. The failure of the court to conduct a fairness review is solid proof that courts favor employers. This ground-breaking finding contradicts the established perception that courts are “pro-labor” and past empirical literature that suggests employees are winning in labor disputes lawsuits. This study shows that despite the “pro-labor” perception, the Chinese courts are, in fact, “pro-employer”. This revelation has profound implication for the study of judicial protection of labor rights in socialist authoritarian regimes.