Time for rethink of Legal protections

Before Liu’s story was exposed online, the local court ruled Bowen College’s termination of labor relations with Liu as invalid. But the college ignored the ruling and stopped paying Liu’s medical insurance when it was urgently needed. During this period, Liu was abandoned by employees and driven away by chengguan when selling clothes on the street to pay her medical bills. The court’s ruling couldn’t be implemented. After she fell ill, she did not experience even a moment of warmth from the society until death.

Liu’s death has angered the public. Many started to shift their attention from the young teacher’s death to the background of her employer. In fact, Bowen College is separate from Lanzhou Jiaotong University, and differs a lot from the public educational institutions. Despite this, its contract with Liu is still protected by the labor law, and hence the dismissal of Liu was ruled invalid legally.

Liu’s tragedy was not simply a result of the college’s immorality or the failure in implementing the court’s ruling. After Liu’s death, under huge pressure by the public opinion, the college tried to take actions to remedy its reputation and cool down the public rage, pledging to negotiate with Liu’s families to settle the issue.

But this is not enough. The real question is: how can an ordinary employee have his or her rights and interests protected when in trouble and who should shoulder more responsibility for this?

The law regulates that employers have to inform workers in writing 30 days in advance or pay them an additional month of salary to terminate labor relations if the latter fails to perform their duties. In Liu’s case, the employer could legally fire Liu if she was still not competent at the job after receiving medical treatment.

It is a tough and complex task to amend the law to make it more favorable to employees. After all, it is inappropriate to order employers to offer endless insurance to employees. Even if the college paid the medical insurance for Liu, it would be of little help in curing her cancer.

It needs to be seriously discussed that what shares the employers, employees and the government should take when the employees need medical treatment for serious illness.