As the Lunar New Year approaches, the Zhongshan Human Resources and Social Security Bureau has launched a winter campaign to clear back pay and help workers to get their wages for the New Year. In response to illegal wage withholding and back pay, the human resources and social security departments recently launched a campaign in a bid to "clear all unpaid wages relating to government-invested projects and the projects of state-owned enterprises that were launched before the end of October", and to "dynamically clear other back pay cases on time before this coming Spring Festival".

This campaign will focus on engineering construction sites and labor-intensive processing and manufacturing industries that mainly employ migrant workers, and give special attention to government-invested projects and the projects of state-owned enterprise, processing and manufacturing enterprises, and other enterprises that tend to withhold the wages of migrant workers. Those who withhold wages will not only be "blacklisted", but also be imprisoned if they have malicious back pay behaviors. Once they are "blacklisted", they will face the joint punishment by 30 departments, which means they will be excluded from project bidding, credit financing, among others, but also will not be allowed to travel by plane or high-speed rail in premium seats. Once convicted of the crime of refusing to pay labor remuneration, the offenders will face a maximum sentence of 7 years. 

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How to file complaints and reports about back pay?

Workers who encounter back pay or discover illegal acts of wage arrears can file complaints and reports to human resources and social security departments in the jurisdiction where the employing unit is situated or call 12333.