118 people were owed 3.2 million yuan in wages by a central state-owned enterprise with registered capital of 9 billion yuan. The money had been overdue for more than four months. The public notice went online before the workers got paid.
I looked up the Hubei Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security’s notice of major labor and social security violations for the third quarter, posted in early October. The fourth case involved China Construction Seventh Engineering Division Corp., Ltd. (CSCEC 7th Bureau), at a project in Xiangyang called Gengdu Town. On March 25, the local human resources and social security bureau received a complaint. After investigating, it confirmed that 118 migrant workers were owed 3.2015 million yuan.
On May 13, an order to rectify the violation within a specified period was delivered to CSCEC 7th Bureau. Nothing changed. On August 6, an administrative decision was issued. More than four months passed between the complaint and the decision, and the money still hadn’t been paid.
This wasn’t the first time the company had failed to pay wages on this project. A notice from six months earlier named the same construction site: 18 workers, 398,500 yuan, and the same failure to comply with the rectification order. Both the number of workers and the amount owed had multiplied several times over.
The company’s name has appeared elsewhere, too. In Xinzheng, it was fined 9,000 yuan in February for failing to make an advance payment to cover wages. In September, Nanhai District in Foshan issued a district-wide notice about it and deducted five points from its credit rating. Tianyancha lists hundreds of enforcement records against the company.
My view is that the company can afford to pay this amount. With registered capital of 9 billion yuan and annual business volume exceeding 100 billion, 3.2 million yuan is barely a rounding error. The problem is structural: each tier waits on the one above it. The general contractor waits for payment from the client, subcontractors wait for the general contractor to settle accounts, and workers wait for subcontractors to pay up. Each tier can use the one above it as an excuse to do nothing.
Article 30 of the Regulations on Ensuring Payment of Wages to Migrant Workers is meant to close this loophole. The general contractor bears primary responsibility for paying migrant workers’ wages; legally, it cannot excuse itself by saying the client hasn’t paid. But even with that provision in place, 118 people still waited from March until August.
During that same period, other people’s wages took a different route. I read a report published in September by the blockchain data platform Allium. It found that stablecoin payments totaled at least $401 billion in the first eight months of this year, up more than 40% year over year, with $43 billion of that in wage payments. Cross-border stablecoin payments are growing seven times faster than traditional channels. The same 3.2 million yuan sent from New York to Jakarta could arrive within minutes, with fees charged in dollars.
On-chain payments won’t help those workers recover their wages; those 118 people aren’t going to open crypto wallets. My point is that technology has already eliminated the “waiting” step in other payment channels. The difference between four months and four minutes isn’t about goodwill. It’s about the channel.
The notice doesn’t say whether the 3.2 million yuan has been paid yet. Whether CSCEC 7th Bureau will be added to the blacklist for wage arrears and subjected to joint penalties depends on a separate announcement from the human resources and social security authorities. I don’t know.
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I looked up the Hubei Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security’s notice of major labor and social security violations for the third quarter, posted in early October. The fourth case involved China Construction Seventh Engineering Division Corp., Ltd. (CSCEC 7th Bureau), at a project in Xiangyang called Gengdu Town. On March 25, the local human resources and social security bureau received a complaint. After investigating, it confirmed that 118 migrant workers were owed 3.2015 million yuan.
On May 13, an order to rectify the violation within a specified period was delivered to CSCEC 7th Bureau. Nothing changed. On August 6, an administrative decision was issued. More than four months passed between the complaint and the decision, and the money still hadn’t been paid.
This wasn’t the first time the company had failed to pay wages on this project. A notice from six months earlier named the same construction site: 18 workers, 398,500 yuan, and the same failure to comply with the rectification order. Both the number of workers and the amount owed had multiplied several times over.
The company’s name has appeared elsewhere, too. In Xinzheng, it was fined 9,000 yuan in February for failing to make an advance payment to cover wages. In September, Nanhai District in Foshan issued a district-wide notice about it and deducted five points from its credit rating. Tianyancha lists hundreds of enforcement records against the company.
My view is that the company can afford to pay this amount. With registered capital of 9 billion yuan and annual business volume exceeding 100 billion, 3.2 million yuan is barely a rounding error. The problem is structural: each tier waits on the one above it. The general contractor waits for payment from the client, subcontractors wait for the general contractor to settle accounts, and workers wait for subcontractors to pay up. Each tier can use the one above it as an excuse to do nothing.
Article 30 of the Regulations on Ensuring Payment of Wages to Migrant Workers is meant to close this loophole. The general contractor bears primary responsibility for paying migrant workers’ wages; legally, it cannot excuse itself by saying the client hasn’t paid. But even with that provision in place, 118 people still waited from March until August.
During that same period, other people’s wages took a different route. I read a report published in September by the blockchain data platform Allium. It found that stablecoin payments totaled at least $401 billion in the first eight months of this year, up more than 40% year over year, with $43 billion of that in wage payments. Cross-border stablecoin payments are growing seven times faster than traditional channels. The same 3.2 million yuan sent from New York to Jakarta could arrive within minutes, with fees charged in dollars.
On-chain payments won’t help those workers recover their wages; those 118 people aren’t going to open crypto wallets. My point is that technology has already eliminated the “waiting” step in other payment channels. The difference between four months and four minutes isn’t about goodwill. It’s about the channel.
The notice doesn’t say whether the 3.2 million yuan has been paid yet. Whether CSCEC 7th Bureau will be added to the blacklist for wage arrears and subjected to joint penalties depends on a separate announcement from the human resources and social security authorities. I don’t know.
$USDC $USDT $BTC #农民工工资 #稳定币 #支付 #中建七局 #Binance Square