Profile: Chai Shanshan, a member of the Han ethnic group, comes from Laohekou in Hubei Province. He entered the Administrative Management programme at the Shanghai Branch of the Open University of China (OUC) in 2016, and now works receiving and delivering mail at the Central Bureau of the Shanghai Postal District of China Post Corporation. He was also a deputy to the 15th Shanghai People's Congress and the 13th National People's Congress.

The journalist learned about Chan Shanshan through the proposals he has submitted on improving the social security of gig workers in the new economy.

He says his concern for workers such as ride-share drivers, couriers, and delivery people has grown in recent years, especially with the boost Covid-19 has given to both full- and part-time employment in these areas. While the employment is welcome, the existing social-security system does not provide these workers with adequate coverage.

According to him, the new types of businesses prefer asset-light operations and the reduced labour costs crowdsourcing enables. These platform-based enterprises avoid referring to their workers as ‘employees’ in the normal sense, and thereby avoid offering them the security benefits employees are entitled to by law.

He also found that most such employees are part-time or temporary, that some pay for their social security themselves, and that some have no fixed contracts. Some also only have new rural-cooperative or urban-rural resident insurances back in their hometowns. For all of them, the problem is that they and their families are not adequately covered in case of injury or loss of employment.

His proposal was to clarify the responsibilities of the platforms and individuals, and to introduce work-injury insurance for members of the gig economy. Delivery people who have a certain level of hours with their platforms but are not covered with social security should be provided with social security by these platforms.

Reprinted by the OUC News Network from People’s Daily