China mulls amendment to improve insurance for coal miners, construction workers
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China's top legislature on Wednesday began to discuss an amendment to laws regarding coal miners and construction workers, aiming to improve their insurance cover.
Besides the access of work-related injury insurance, the draft amendment offers a complementary insurance against accidents to the miners working underground and construction workers involved in dangerous operations, according to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) during a bimonthly session.
The work-related injury insurance policy, covering expenses on rehabilitation and assistive devices for long-term care, could provide higher compensation amounts than the one-off accidental injury insurance policy, said Shi Xiushi, who chairs the financial and economic affairs committee of the NPC.
Employers would pay the premiums for these two types of insurance policies, according to the draft amendment.
The work-related injury insurance is supported by the new social insurance law, which states that all workers should have such insurance. This law was approved last year and will take effect on July 1 this year.
The previous articles of the Coal Law and the Construction Law, enacted in 1996 and 1997 respectively, only mandated insurance against accidental injury.
The draft amendment to these two laws now mandates enterprises offer obligatory work-related injury insurance for the workers instead of accidental injury insurance, and the latter becomes optional as a complementary measure.
Shi said the amendment was meant to bring in line different laws, and it would help improve social security for the workers.
After three days of discussions, lawmakers will vote for the draft amendment.
