Remember the controversy a few weeks ago in south China involving Western fast food firms underpaying their university workers?  Well, the China Economic Review offers this update:

Students in Guangdong province that have to work to support themselves are not protected by labor laws.

New legislation that kicked in earlier this year sets minimum wages for part-time workers at a less-than-princely US$0.95 or RMB7.5 per hour but, as it turns out, these rules can be really more like guidelines or suggestions as far as students as concerned. Reporters from a local newspaper in Guangzhou, the Kuai Xin Bao, reported in March that McDonald’s and Yum! Brands (owner of Pizza Hut and KFC) pay their part-time student employees about US$0.52 or RMB4 per hour.

The scoop prompted much discussion and comments of abuse while the companies maintained they had done nothing legally wrong.

As it turns out, they were right. The labor protection bureau in Guangdong cleared them last week, Forbes reported. Provincial officials declared that the relationship between employer and student worker is not a formal working relationship.

To read more:

http://www.chinaeconomicreview.com/editors/2007/04/16/students-not-protected/