Draft law aims to ease labor tension

GUANGZHOU - The Guangdong provincial legislature is drafting a new regulation to help ease tense labor relations in the booming province, which has seen a number of industrial strikes in recent months.

The draft - Democratic Management Rules of Enterprises - stipulates the use of "collective negotiation mechanism" to resolve labor disputes.

The regulation states the mechanism should start if over 25 percent of all workers in a company request a pay hike, under which circumstances the trade union in the company should organize all staff for a democratic election of negotiators to represent the workers.