Practical assistance hub. This page is for workers in mainland China who have not been paid wages or labor remuneration, including migrant workers, construction workers, factory workers, service workers, contractors and others facing wage arrears. It explains available legal channels and the non-legal assistance Free China Movement (FCM) can provide. It is general information, not individual legal representation.
Start here: where is your case now?
- Wages overdue, no formal complaint yet: preserve evidence, calculate the amount owed, and consider negotiation, labor-inspection complaint, legal consultation or mediation.
- Complaint made but no effective response: document every filing, date, agency and reply; assess whether labor arbitration is available.
- Labor arbitration underway: preserve the filing receipt, evidence list, hearing record and award.
- You already won an award or judgment: focus on enforcement, asset information and proof of non-payment rather than restarting the case.
- Many workers on the same project are unpaid: coordinate evidence and timelines carefully, while protecting each worker’s personal information and safety.
Legal assistance pathway
China’s Labor Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Law covers disputes over labor remuneration. It provides routes including negotiation, mediation, labor arbitration and, where the law permits, court litigation. Evidence controlled by the employer can in some circumstances be required from the employer, and failure to provide it may carry adverse consequences. For certain agreements concerning overdue wages, workers may also seek a court payment order where statutory conditions are met.
- Preserve evidence: labor contract or work agreement, attendance records, wage slips, bank transfers, WeChat/SMS messages, work IDs, project records, photos, witness information, IOUs, complaint receipts, arbitration documents, judgments and enforcement records.
- Public legal-service consultation: China’s Ministry of Justice operates the China Legal Service Network at 12348.moj.gov.cn; local 12348 systems can provide legal consultation and information about legal-aid institutions.
- Legal aid: the Legal Aid Law includes claims seeking confirmation of an employment relationship or payment of labor remuneration among matters for which eligible people may seek legal aid.
- Labor arbitration: where the dispute qualifies as a labor dispute, workers may apply to the competent labor-dispute arbitration commission, subject to applicable rules and time limits.
- Court and enforcement: where a valid award, judgment or other enforceable instrument exists but remains unpaid, the issue may move from proving the wage claim to enforcing the existing decision.
Non-legal assistance FCM can provide
- Case organization: turn scattered facts into a dated timeline and structured case summary.
- Evidence inventory: help identify what documents exist, what is missing and which claims each item supports.
- Referral: identify appropriate public legal-aid channels, labor-rights resources and, where available, qualified lawyers or organizations. FCM does not claim to act as mainland legal counsel unless a properly licensed professional separately undertakes that role.
- Pattern detection: link multiple verified complaints involving the same employer, contractor, construction project or locality without exposing private data unnecessarily.
- Documentation and public-interest reporting: with informed consent and a safety review, preserve a public record of chronic wage arrears, enforcement failures or retaliation.
- Media support: for well-documented cases with public significance, help prepare a fact sheet, chronology and source packet for journalists or human-rights researchers.
- Policy evidence: aggregate anonymized case patterns to improve research on wage-payment enforcement without treating individual submissions as a representative national sample.
Before contacting us: make a 10-item case packet
- Your city/province and type of work.
- Employer / contractor / project name.
- Dates worked.
- Amount owed and how it was calculated.
- Last date any payment was received.
- Whether a written labor contract exists.
- Evidence already available.
- Complaints, mediation or arbitration already attempted.
- Any judgment, award or enforcement case number.
- Whether you consent to confidential review only, anonymized publication, or public identification.
Privacy and safety
Do not send identity-card numbers, bank passwords, private account credentials, home addresses or other unnecessary sensitive information. FCM should not publish a worker’s real name, contact information, family information or non-public case documents without explicit permission and a safety review. Public exposure is not appropriate for every case.
Request assistance
Use the FCM contact page and state “Unpaid Wage Assistance” in the subject or first line. Include the 10-item case packet above, but omit unnecessary sensitive identifiers.
Official legal references
- Legal Aid Law of the People’s Republic of China — National People’s Congress
- Labor Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Law — National People’s Congress
- China Legal Service Network (12348) — Ministry of Justice
Related FCM research: Migrant-Worker Wage Protection: Strong Law, Persistent Enforcement Gap, Better Remedies
Language: English · 简体中文