From Forbes.com:
The American fast-food giants McDonald’s and Yum! Brands have been cleared of charges that they underpaid part-time workers in China, but only because China does not extend legal protection to the legion of student workers who man the nation’s fast-food counters. [Full Text]
Read also Students not protected by Alfred Romann on The China Economic Review Editor’s blog:
Students in Guangdong province that have to work to support themselves are not protected by labor laws.
New legislation that kicked in earlier this year sets minimum wages for part-time workers at a less-than-princely US$0.95 or RMB7.5 per hour but, as it turns out, these rules can be really more like guidelines or suggestions as far as students as concerned. Reporters from a local newspaper in Guangzhou, the Kuai Xin Bao, reported in March that McDonald’s and Yum! Brands (owner of Pizza Hut and KFC) pay their part-time student employees about US$0.52 or RMB4 per hour.
