Li Hongyang
In many smaller agencies, the rules governing employers are rarely stated clearly or adhered to, so most workers are not fully protected by the contracts they sign.
Yang Liping, who has been employed by several agencies simultaneously for the past two years, said the main purpose of the smaller outfits is to charge introduction fees. They don’t care how their employees are treated, because the client is the most important person in the relationship.
“Agencies don’t dare to offend clients — their gods — by speaking up for the employees, because the former are a fixed group in the city, while the latter are mostly migrant workers, and streams of them flow into the city at all times of the year,” she said.
“Job seekers pay the agency 300 yuan a year to be introduced to clients. However, these women, most of them unqualified and from rural areas, are usually cast aside without work after one or two postings. The agencies are not interested in supplying qualified workers; they just want