Five-year plan offers guidance on protecting workers

BEIJING, Sept. 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A report from China Daily.

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions has issued a five-year plan that it says will help trade unions at all levels implement its major policy decisions, promote high-quality development of their work, and contribute to building a strong country and advancing national rejuvenation.

The plan is organized into three sections, comprising 13 parts and 40 articles. The first section sets out the guiding principles, goals and tasks for China's trade union work during the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), while the third specifies the safeguards for implementation.

The second section, serving as the core part of the plan, lays out priorities in 11 areas, including mobilizing and inspiring workers to contribute to development through innovation and creativity, resolving the pressing difficulties and problems faced by key groups, strengthening the federation's international engagement and its work related to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and deepening the reform and development of trade unions.

Moreover, nine special columns accompany the text, covering areas such as publicity, ideological and cultural work, labor and economic work, and the reform aimed at building a stronger industrial workforce.

A notable feature of the plan is its emphasis on fulfilling the fundamental duty of protecting workers' rights and providing services, with an eye to advancing common prosperity. Two separate parts are devoted to improving the quality and effectiveness of rights protection and services, and to addressing the urgent concerns of key groups — with particular attention paid to protecting the rights and interests of those in new forms of employment.

Delivery riders, couriers, truck drivers and ride-hailing drivers have become an indispensable part of economic and social life in the digital age. The plan calls for sustained efforts over the next five years to bring these workers into trade unions, safeguard their rights and provide services tailored to their needs.

Among the measures, the plan pledges to urge platform companies to employ workers in compliance with the law, to advance the establishment of a sound occupational injury protection system, and to improve policies on vocational skills training and grading and the evaluation of professional titles.

Li Yi, deputy director of the federation's research office, said the plan continues to make negotiations with platform companies over algorithms and labor rules a key priority.

"Steps to establish and improve the occupational injury insurance scheme for new forms of employment, and to bring flexible workers and those in new forms of employment into the social insurance system for employees — including accident injury insurance — are all spelled out in the plan," she said.

The plan also proposes a series of special programs for workers in new forms of employment, including dedicated health checkups, mutual-aid accident insurance, subsidized meals provided by trade unions, support services for truck drivers and outreach to delivery riders.

It also calls for improving the maternity insurance system, ensuring maternity leave and accompanying care leave, and building more rest and nursing rooms for female workers. Over the five years, the federation aims to recruit an additional 7.5 million members in new forms of employment.

High-quality development cannot be achieved without high-quality labor. The plan devotes a chapter to deepening the reform to build a stronger industrial workforce, setting out measures to improve the skills formation system for industrial workers and promote their well-rounded development.

It specifies 12 indicators across eight areas, including the cultivation of national master craftsmen and the development of innovation studios led by model workers, and makes specific arrangements in three respects: launching labor and skills competitions, unleashing workers' innovative and creative vitality, and giving full play to the exemplary role of model workers and master craftsmen.

By 2030, around 1,000 nationally recognized master craftsmen, 5,000 provincial-level and 25,000 city-level craftsmen are expected to be cultivated. The total number of innovation studios led by model workers and master craftsmen at all levels is projected to reach 160,000, while funding will be provided to support 3 million industrial workers in upgrading their professional skills and academic qualifications.

Under the plan, at least 15 million online and offline employment services will be provided annually by 2030. The document also addresses income distribution and wage growth mechanisms, the protection of workers' occupational safety rights, and the rights of workers past retirement age and dispatched workers.

Blue book released

Alongside the five-year plan, the federation published a blue book on the reform to build a stronger industrial workforce. It is the first publication to systematically review the theoretical results of the reform and present its practical achievements, providing reference and guidance for further work.

Liu Xiaochang, director of the federation's department of labor and economic work, said the book consists of four parts. The first expounds the fundamental guidance, significance and experience of the reform, as well as its future prospects; the second summarizes progress in ideological guidance, contributions to development, skills upgrading, raising social status and expanding the workforce. The third highlights the distinctive paths taken by 10 sectors — including petroleum and petrochemicals, rail transit and new energy vehicles — in building world-class industrial and technical worker teams; and the fourth presents the practices of 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, as well as the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, in deepening reform.

The blue book includes a special study on the cultivation of national master craftsmen. On the institutional front, authorities have set up a dedicated fund to motivate and support master craftsmen and improved the mechanisms for their recommendation, recognition, publicity and services, so that institutional guarantees for skilled talent have been steadily strengthened.

On the platform front, three sessions of the Innovation Exchange Conference for Craftsmen of the Nation have showcased 4,900 innovative achievements and promoted 308 advanced operational methods, fully unleashing the innovative vitality of master craftsmen.

Six editions of the "Great Country Craftsman of the Year" selection and publicity campaign have spotlighted 60 exemplary figures, including Gao Fenglin and Hong Jiaguang, who have written remarkable chapters in serving the country with their skills.

Priority support has been given to building model worker and master craftsman innovation studios and craftsman academies, continuously expanding the platforms where skilled talent can contribute and innovate.

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SOURCE China Daily