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Laws are neutral. Law enforcement can be strict or lenient. China’s labor law enforcement is above average for a developing nation, but will not match Germany’s or France’s for at least a decade.In 1995 the usually critical Voice of America reported⁠[1], “China enacted a labor law granting all workers the right to a wage, rest periods, no excessive overtime and the right to carry out group negotiations. Beijing, hoping to push local authorities to address the situation, issued a notice to local governments to make improving labor relations an ‘urgent task’ and work to ensure employees are paid on time and in full, launch programs to provide better labor protections for rural migrant workers and call on employers to improve workplace safety. Although many labor protesters have been detained, few have been criminally prosecuted.”Mao’s constitution protected the right to strike and, though the right was revoked after his death, striking is not technically forbidden. An Jianhua⁠[2], of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions Federation, explained, “China has a huge population, so striking doesn’t help because there are plenty of laborers to replace workers.” So the ACTFU has taken a more conciliatory approach.The union, whose three hundred million members outnumber the rest of the world’s combined, persuaded the government to ratify four of eight UN Labor Conventions⁠[3], two of four Governance Conventions, and twenty-two of one-hundred seventy-seven Technical Conventions. The Labor Contract Law’s termination for cause clause forces employers to publish detailed regulations, keep careful records, and negotiate with unions because they can unilaterally terminate employees–with severance pay–only if they remain incompetent after training or reassignment. The ACFTU resolves labor disputes through legislation, consultation, arbitration, and legal action in labor courts staffed by communist judges–where the union rarely loses a case.Employers pay thirteen percent of wages into a tax-exempt fund for employees’ housing deposits and a further⁠[4] thirty percent into retirement, medical, unemployment, maternity and occupational injury funds–which employees match one hundred percent, which explains why personal savings rates are so high. Employees with less than ten years cumulative work experience are entitled to three months’ sick leave⁠[5] and paid from sixty percent to one-hundred percent of salary depending on their years of work.Workers enjoy considerable political efficacy and pressure on business is intensifying⁠[6], At a business hotel in Guangzhou, a hundred human resource executives heard Bob Zhong, a labour law and employment consultant, warn that labour costs for private businesses will rise dramatically in 2019 due to stricter collection of social security payments, an expected ten per cent rise in the minimum wage and a growing number of labour disputes filed by demanding workers. “I think all of you here can agree that one-third of small and medium-sized private entrepreneurs here will have to shut down if they have to pay their social welfare contributions in full,” Zhong warned.Factory workers are mostly young, happy, and carefree, gossiping, flirting, listening to music and–except in bigger corporations–wearing what they please. Adjusted for productivity, regulations and benefits, they cost⁠[7] their employers more than their American cousins because their base wage rises with seniority and comes with one hundred percent annual bonuses plus a thirteenth monthly payment at Chinese New Year. Monthly manufacturing wages average⁠8 $1500 and overtime, bonuses, company housing and free meals let workers send money home. In 2019, Mentech, a telecom manufacturer in coastal Dongguan, was offering regular monthly wages, $1,100 guaranteed overtime, air-conditioned dorms, free Wi-Fi and birthday presents. A friend of the author who reviewed this chapter and hires factory workers in both the US and China, commented bluntly:At our US facility our only requirement for assemblers was a high school degree, US citizenship, passing a drug and criminal background check and a simple assembly test: looking at an assembly engineering drawing and then putting the components together. While the vast majority of Americans were unable to complete the assembly test, in China they completed it in half the time and 100% of applicants passed. Hiring for an assembler position in the US would require thirty interviews a day and produce twenty-nine rejections, not to mention all the HR hassles of assemblers walking off shift, excessive lateness, stealing from work, slow work speed and poor attitudes. The position starts at $12 an hour in flyover country which is pretty reasonable compared to other jobs that only require a GED and no prior work experience. It offers medical, dental and annual raises with plenty of opportunity to move up in the company and earn an average Production Assembler salary, $33,029 if they stay beyond five years. Identical positions in China pay the same wages as other positions there with only a high school degree and no work experience. Yet the applicant quality is much higher and this also applies to the white collar support professionals: schedulers, quality inspectors, equipment testers and calibrators, engineers, supply chain managers, account managers, sales. Their labor quality is simply higher. At the end of the day, high-end and middling manufacturing is not moving to either the US or Mexico because average workers in flyover country there are as dumb as rocks.Workers covet overtime because, after their forty-four hour workweek labor laws stipulate overtime at one-hundred fifty percent of base salary, two hundred percent on Saturday afternoon and Sunday, and three hundred percent on national holidays. Employers can hire workers on contracts twice (e.g., two six month contracts) after which they automatically become permanent employees. Tenure, based on cumulative experience with all previous employers, allows job-changers keep their seniority and accumulated vacation time if they switch jobs: five days for the first nine years, ten for the next nine and fifteen days thereafter.Since current workers were born, their salaries have doubled every ten years, The Wall Street Journal reported⁠[9], “In 2012 alone, the average wage rose by 14 percent. Western corporations such as Crystal Group, which produces clothes for Abercrombie & Fitch and Gap, have pulled out because of rising labor costs.” Yet complaints of labor shortages are widespread⁠[10], “Waves of migrant workers from the countryside filled China’s factories for the last three decades and helped make the nation the world’s largest manufacturer but many companies now find themselves struggling to hire enough workers and, for the scarce workers they do find, pay has more than quintupled in the last decade.”Surprisingly, Beijing has yet to build an effective individual database to collect income and property taxes and knows much less about its citizens than America’s IRS. China collects barely twenty percent of GDP in taxes, compared to America’s twenty-seven percent the OECD⁠[11] average of forty percent. In 2019 barely two percent of people paid taxes and a 2018 Congressional consultation on income taxes–legally required before all new legislation–attracted 130,000 comments, one hundred times the average.Yet despite low taxes, strong unions, labor laws, sympathetic courts and rising wages, China is far from being a Communist workers’ paradise. Nationwide, only three quarters of workers reported receiving paid annual leave, paid days off and union representation (after years of workers’ failure, in 2019 Qingdao City government sent officials to act as ‘labour union chiefs’ and add muscle to frustrated employees’ efforts). In 2018, ten years after it promised a union, Walmart’s employees were still struggling to establish one and Apple’s Taiwan-owned manufacturer, Foxconn, allowed employees to unionize only after media exposed its practice of forcing employees to stand for illegal, twelve-hour shifts.The laws are on the books. The real work is enforcing them–perhaps Social Credit will help.________________________________________________________________1 Labor Strikes Surge in China. By Shannon Van Sant. April 9, 2015. VOA News2 China’s labor movement keeping pace with globalization. People's World,June 18, 2018, by JOHN BACHTELL AND CAROL RAMOS WIDOM3 The US has ratified two, one and seven respectively.4 Mandatory Social Welfare Benefits for Chinese Employees: n overview of social welfare obligations and costs for employers of Chinese staff. By dam Livermore. http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2012/02/21/mandatory-social-welfare-benefits-for-chinese-employees.html5 Annual Leave and Sick Leave Entitlements in China: A Guide for Overseas Employers. Shield GEO. 20196 Small Chinese firms seek ‘lessons in survival’ as they brace for impact of social welfare taxes. SCMP NOV 26, 20187 Oxford Economics, quoted in 'Made in China' labor is not actually that cheap. by Sophia Yan CNN. March 17, 20168 Wages in Manufacturing in China. Trading Economics.9 Rising Wages Pose Dilemma for China. WSJ. Tom Orlik May 17, 201310 Cheaper Robots, Fewer Workers.The New York Times. April 24, 201511 Tax - Tax revenue - OECD Data

It just makes me piss off. Most of my generation is already very upset because it is the Hong Kong people, a lot of people like me born in the 1950s and 60s, working hard to make HK prospire. I am not being proud or arrogant. A lot of people like me worked long hours, 6 days a week, no annual leave to create what people say the economic miracle in the 1980s. There was no China trade and HK was working alone.Live should be easier for the younger generation because HK is having a good reserve, education is better and HK has developed a better reputation worldwide. Instead they become lazy, expecting a treat which they are not deserved. Like those spoiled or over protective kids, they cannot face challenges and difficulties. When I was working in those days, we always tried to learn as much as possible, how the company operated and if other staffs were busy or in holidays, the billing staffs could handle logistics, infantry control. We organised practice groups by ourselves when pc were introduced to the company. If you know what is DOS, Lotus 1-2-3, wordstar or word perfect, then you know what I mean. Nowadays when you ask a question, the usual answer would probably be, “OK, I understand but this is not my responsibility, I will transfer you to another department. “The frustration encountered by the present generation is their own fault because of incompetence. They believe that HK is a first class city and economy, so they regard themselves also as first class or better than others. Unfortunately it is just like a NCAA player in a NFL or NBA game. A lot of university students from China are more knowledgeable, sophisticated and have a more international prospective. If you ask the young people in HK how about Japan, they probably will tell you which restaurant is good, where to buy chic fashions or which pop group is popular.They complain that they have no opportunity and can't understand that nothing is God granted. Instead they now believe if they are in control, they can choice their destiny. In the district council election last year, a number of young candidates under the flag of Democrats were elected, but they didn't even know how to run a proper or legitimate meeting. Several even admitted when being interviewed, saying that they felt uncomfortable because the applicant for assistance was more experienced, with higher education achievements.HK is just recovering from the strike by the COVID-19 with an unemployment of 5% and expecting to keep on rising. These morons are trying to block the subways, main intersections so that normal people cannot go to work when the PRC political consultative Council was having meetings discussing the national security act last week.

Thanks, Asaf Ali for the questionHow is Sabarimala Melshaanthi selected?Well in any Kerala temple there is a hierarchy of priest system.The head priest of temples are called Tantri and by convention and law, its hereditary positions limited to certain Tantri Families (Nampoothiris). These families have representation in autonomous Kerala Tantri Samajam (formerly it was Tantra Sabha, a legal institution to decide on tantric rules and laws which ceased after the accession of the Cochin Kingdom with Indian Union in 1949). However, Tantris don't participate in every day poojas. They are more like a consultant appointed to a temple to advise the priests on pooja techniques, rules and regulations to be followed under Tantric law. However, Tantri by law has full rights to define the pooja techniques and procedures associated with the deity and no one can interfer into that, including the other priests who have to obey the orders of Tantri. However saying so, Tantri is an outsider to the temple pooja process and not part of the temple administration or any such things.The real priest of any temple in Kerala would be Melshanti who does the actual poojas in the temple who will be assisted by junior priests- Kezhshantis and support priests- Parikarmis. And these Melshantis, Kezhshantis and Parikarimis are essentially the staff of the temple and appointed by the temple devaswom to do the poojas. Normally it's a permanent job and in State Devaswom boards, its akin to a govt employee status and even a transferable job between temples of the devaswom board. But essentially a Melshanti is normally appointed for a temple for a tenure of 3 years minimum, similar to Govt officials.Sabarimala temple has a unique proposition. The temple doesn't have regular Melshantis or any temple staff. It has only hereditary Tantri from Thazhamon Kandararu family. This is because the temple traditionally used to open only for 41 days in a year. So unlike usual temples, the temple had only part-time/temporary Melshanti in past appointed just for 41 days.After the restoration of the temple in the 1960s, the temple started opening for the first week of every Malayalam month apart from the 41 days of the pilgrimage season. So as part of this, a full-time priesthood system came, but again with another unique custom- appointed for only for a year, not the usual 3 years + tenure as for other temples.Sabarimala’s priesthood system also has another uniqueness. The appointed priest/Melshanti along with Junior priests are called Purapadashanti which means they cannot leave the temple for the appointed tenure of one year. As the temple is located in deep forest, this custom came since the 1960s when the appointed priest must reside inside the temple complex for a year untill the next priest takes over the charge. During this tenure, they must not exit the complex even during the worst crisis back at their home (barring personal medical conditions). This is a clause which the priest must sign and vow at the time of taking the charge. However, almost all priests consider it as a great virtue as they will be in full service of the deity for the next 365 days.AK Sudheer Namboothiripad, the current appointed Melshanti-Designate of the temple for the Malayalam year 1195 ME (2019–2020)Appointment processTravancore Devaswom Board, the administrating body of the temple, normally issues a gazette notification in the month of Mithunam or Karkidakom (June-July) seeking applications for priests of the temple.http://travancoredevaswomboard.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Melsanthi-Notification.pdf(Notification as issued in 2016 to understand the concept.)The rules of the appointment process are under the guidance of the Devaswom Bench of Hon. High Court of Kerala and carried out under observances of court-appointed Devasom Ombudsman or special amicus curiae.As per the Kerala High court verdict that set rules of appointment in 1974, only priests aged between 35 - 60 can apply for the position. They must complete the 35 years by Chingam 1st and must not exceed 60 years on the same date.They must not be involved in any police case or listed as trial accused or being convicted. Applicants must produce PCC (police clearance certificate) at the time of application and selected candidates will be subjected to vetting by Intelligence Bureau or Special Branch.Applicants must not have any serious medical disorders. Applicants must obtain a medical clearance as per the Devaswom Medical Clearance format from any government hospital. Selected candidates will have to undergo a detailed medical check-up as they must not have any breathing troubles, lung disorders, cardiac disorder history etc.Applicants must be well versed in Tantrasamuchayam and must be trained in Kerala Tantric pooja systems. They must be versed in Sanskrit version of Tantrasamuchayam and should know all the poojas of the day as prescribed in the book.Applicants must have passed SSLC examinations as minimum education qualifications and must be versed in Malayalam, Sanskrit and any other language, preferably English.Only Nampoothiris (Malayala Brahmins, which excludes Brahmins of Tulu descent- the Embranthiris) can apply for this position. This was the standard law for Devaswom untill 2014, but the government allowed Non Brahmins like Dalits etc who knows poojas and trained in Tantra as Priests in other temples. However Govt of Kerala excluded Sabarimala out of the new rule which became a contention among Non-Brahmin priests and they challenged this matter in Kerala High court and currently its under court’s consideration. As of now, only Nampoothiris by birth and family can apply for this position.Only those born in Kerala to a Nampoothiri family based in the state and lived a minimum 10 consecutive years in the state from the date of application will be considered.Nampoothiris applicants must have a minimum of 12 years of experience in priestship in any public temples, out of which they must be in the capacity of Melshanti for a minimum of 10 years.Devaswom board priests can apply for the position provided they completed a 10-year tenure with State Devaswom temples as Melshanti.Priests must also know 12 sets of special Yajna and Homas as prescribed by the Devaswom Board.Priests must not hold any other employment with any company or any business ventures in their name at the time of application and tenure. They must hold no offices of profit etc. They must not be members of any party or hold any active leadership positions in any political party. So as they must not hold any leadership positions in any organizations during the tenure except those approved by Devaswom and High Court.Priests must not be followers of any Non-Sattiv deities or grey deities (Doordevathas or negative spirits of regular deities). They must not be in any dedicated services of positive deities or any sort of occult (both positive/negative- Sattika Mantravadam/Door Mantravadam). This rule was brought as there are few priests who were in dedicated services deities like Kuttichattan, Garuda, Hanuman etc…Applicants must be aware of pooja techniques of deities of Sabarimala and its rituals. They must be in position to vow their allegiance to Shasta and Mallikkapuram Devi if appointed.The applications will close normally by Chingam 1st week and detailed scrutiny will take place. Currently, this process is handled by State Devaswom Recruitment Board, a specialized agency on likes of PSC, to work on the HR Process. Every candidate will be scrutinized by a team of Devaswom Viligance Officer, representative of Tantri, Devaswom Commissioners and Devaswom Medical officer under the supervision of Devaswom Ombudsman or Amicus Curiae.Shortlisted candidates will be notified for an interview. Earlier they used to be a written test, but not removed under orders of the High court. The interview will be held under the chairmanship of Temple Tantri (Tantris from Kandararu Family) along with a panel of senior priests of TDB temples and Devaswom Commissioners. After the interview, a rank list is prepared by State Devaswom Commissioner and submitted to Devaswom Ombudsman for review approval of the court. Once approved, it will be forwarded to Travancore Devaswom Board President for final approval. Once the Board approved, the top 9 of the rank list makes to the final round each for Dharmashasta and Mallikkapuram devi (total 18).The names of top 9 rankers will be listed in a chit and drawn in front of the deity on a random lottery basis. This is to ensure the will of the lord to determine his servant for the next year.A random kid will take the chosen one from the pot that has chits of all 9 probables in front of the deity in presence of Devaswom President, Tantri, High Court’s representative, Commissioners and Viligance head.The final selection process as happened 3 weeks before for the upcoming season.The lucky two ones, will be appointed as Melshanti of Sabarimala Sree Dharmashasta as well as Melshanti of Sabarimala Mallikkapuram Amma when the Devaswom Ombudsman/Amicus Curiae makes an official proclamation in front of the deity under the seal of the court.Sudheer Namboodiri to be next Sabarimala MelsanthiTheir tenure starts on November 1st- Kerala Day when they have to climb the mountains and be in the temple for the coronation ceremony/ Sthanaroham Ceremony. For the next 14 days, the Tantri will train them with Moolamantram and other key rituals of the temple. They officially take charge on the Malayalam month of Vrishickam 1st (Nov 16–17) when the temple opens for the annual Mandalam Pilgrimage.The Sthanaroham Abishekam or Coronation ceremony held in front of the deity when the Tantri pours holy waters over the newly designated Melshanti and advise him with Moolamantram. After the ceremony, they will enter into the Sreekovil/Garbhagriha/Sanctum Santorium with the Tantri giving the keys to himPrior to taking charge, they must sign a bond with the Devaswom as well as take an oath in front of the deity (Satyaprathinja/Oath of Allegiance to the deity).The post of Sabarimala priest is so prestigious among Nampoothiri community. Apart from the spiritual significance, even in monetary wise, its something big for the family. Apart from a higher salary scale with a priest enjoys in Sabarimala, they do get huge voluntary Dakshinas from the devotees (normally on average, a Priest enjoys approx Rs 4–8 lakh rupees of annual income just from Dakshinas alone as per a study by a private News channel).After discharge from Sabarimala, their social status changes as an elite priest who was lucky enough to serve Dharmashasta. This means they would be invited for presiding some of the biggest Yajnas/Homas and similar ritual ceremonies in the state. So as richer families always take pride in inviting them for such private homas/yagas at their home as it elevates their prestige when saying former Sabarimala priest did the pooja. In short, once served as a priest in the temple, its an instant way to riches for the majority. I personally know a former Sabarimala priest who recently brought a Range Rover only because his income levels went so high. Apart from monetary benefit, its a great social status and a legacy for their future generations….Its one key reason, every Nampoothiri aspires to serve the temple once in their lifetime as it benefits them and their families in a big way.