News**: Justice.com
Editor: In October 2023, the Wuyi County Procuratorate organized multiple departments to hold a collaborative linkage meeting in the field of protection of the rights and interests of "silver-haired workers".
With the support of the Wuyi County Procuratorate of Zhejiang Province, Tao and 12 others signed a mediation agreement with Zou, the contractor who owed wages, and Zou was paying the arrears of wages one after another. Recently, the court actively promoted the establishment of a coordinated and linkage working mechanism for the protection of the rights and interests of "silver-haired workers" with the courts, the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, the Federation of Trade Unions and other units, so as to effectively protect the rights of "silver-haired workers".
Tao, 69, lives in a remote mountain village in Wuyi County and makes a living from farming. Although he is old, he feels that his body is still strong, and he can't afford to do odd jobs everywhere to support his family. In May 2022, Tao was introduced to an outsourced tea ** project in the county to make sewage pipelines, and verbally agreed that the daily salary would be 320 yuan.
For nearly a month after that, Tao left home at 5 a.m. every morning and took a bus to the construction site for two hours. Although the work intensity is relatively high, when he thinks that the salary is considerable, Tao gritted his teeth and persevered.
But what Tao didn't expect was that when the construction period was over and the wages were settled, the contractor began to disappear. At this time, Tao and 12 other elderly workers panicked, and their families were in urgent need of money, and they didn't know what to do.
In desperation, the old people made an appointment to go to the labor inspection window of the Wuyi County Social Governance Center to report and complain. However, due to the fact that they have reached the statutory retirement age, their situation is recognized as a labor dispute and cannot be handled in accordance with the relevant provisions of the labor law. The staff told the elderly that they could defend their rights by filing a civil lawsuit with the court.
This makes it difficult for the old people: due to their lack of legal awareness, they have never signed a contract with the contractor, and they don't even know the full name of the contractor, and they only have their own records of the small account of the work.
After learning of this situation, the prosecutor of the Wuyi County Procuratorate, who was working at the Social Governance Center, informed the elderly that if it was really difficult to file a lawsuit, they could apply to the procuratorate to support the prosecution. On May 29, 2023, the elderly walked into the Wuyi County Procuratorate to apply for support for the prosecution, hoping to recover the arrears of wages through legal channels.
After accepting the case, the prosecutor who undertook the case further learned about the details of the work from the old people, asked the middleman, went to the tea **, village committee and other places to investigate and visit, and finally verified that the contractor was Zou, and Zou had owed the wages of the elderly workers more than once.
After the identity of the contractor was confirmed, the prosecutor in charge helped these elderly people recall and collect contact records with Zou on various platforms such as mobile phones, and sorted, fixed, and strengthened relevant evidence. On July 10, 2023, the Wuyi County Procuratorate sent a letter of support to the Wuyi County Court.
After the case entered the litigation procedure, the Wuyi County Court cooperated with the procuratorate and the labor inspection department to resolve the employment conflict. After many contacts and explanations of the law, Zou, who had not appeared for a long time, came to the court. In the face of conclusive evidence, he gradually relented when he refused to admit the fact of unpaid wages. After several court mediations, the two parties reached a mediation agreement, and the arrears of wages of the 12 elderly people were finally settled.
Nowadays, there are more and more "silver-haired workers", and how to unite the joint efforts of multiple governance and effectively protect their rights and interests has become an important livelihood issue that the procuratorial organs are concerned about.
In the process of handling the above-mentioned cases, the Wuyi County Procuratorate summarized and sorted out some weak links in the protection of the rights and interests of "silver-haired workers", such as the failure of the construction unit of the construction project to strictly comply with the provisions on guaranteeing the wages of migrant workers, the need to effectively screen whether the employment relationship is a labor relationship or a labor relationship, the insufficient punishment of wage arrears, and the weak legal awareness and evidence collection awareness of the elderly.
In order to further promote the governance of litigation sources, the Wuyi County Procuratorate issued a procuratorial recommendation on social governance to the human resources and social security departments on October 19, 2023, proposing four recommended measures to further strengthen the supervision of the special account for migrant workers' wages. At the same time, the court also promoted the countersigning of the "Opinions on Establishing a Collaborative and Linkage Working Mechanism for the Protection of the Rights and Interests of "Silver Workers" with the courts, the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, the Federation of Trade Unions and other units, effectively integrated multi-departmental resources in the county's social governance center to open up a "green channel", and promoted the "one-window acceptance, speedy circulation, and quick resolution" of employment disputes involving the elderly, so as to better realize that the elderly have something to do and the elderly have something to do.