Biweekly Symposium No. 565: Political Parties and Their Development from a Historical Sociological Perspective.

Lecturer: CHEN Bulei

Host: QIN Sidao

Commentators:SHI Xiuyin, WANG Jiangsong, DAI Chun, CHANG Kai

Professor CHEN Bulei started with cases where the parties of the labour markets clashed in recent years, and continued with an exploration of a new “worker representation institution”. He thought the emergence of such an institution was attributed to China’s execution of labour policy and labour legislation featuring “institutional substitution”. He also introduced the modern labour law system that emerged from the mid-20th century with its core being the mutual recognition of the basic rights of labour for economic purposes, and the recognition by international treaties of such rights. He stressed that the self-empowerment in the form of “worker representation” was not a mainstream practice, which could only be expected to solve some procedural problems instead of concrete legal issues. Professor CHEN proposed that the real solution to this issue was adjustment of the labour relations by law with mutual recognition of the main entities of the labour market, the acknowledgement of natural rights, and the observation of the principles of rule of law. 

Professor QIN Sidao moderated this session. Professor SHI Xiuyin, Professor WANG Jiangsong, Professor DAI Chun, and Professor CHANG Kai commented afterwards.