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On the basis of case records from Xinjiang and Shanghai between 2013 and 2016, this article examines how dispatch work law has changed in practice and in theory during that period. It demonstrates that in using dispatch agencies as legal “protective shields” to dispose of obligations to workers, the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have behaved much as what the case records from 2012 used in my earlier study (Part I) showed. What has changed is that public institutions and large private enterprises have followed the example of the SOEs to reduce old personnel as well as to hire new personnel through dispatch work. The new cases also show that, within that overall trend, the courts have tried to tighten their regulation of dispatch agencies, especially with respect to obligations for social insurance and compensation for unilateral dismissal of workers. At the same time, dispatch agencies (along with enterprises) have adopted some countermeasures to deal with the new pressures, especially by signing only short-term contracts and rotating a worker among different agencies. Even so, as far as the “black hole” in legal theory and practice is concerned—of an artificially constructed separation of the worker’s person from his or her work—managerial abuses, especially with respect to overtime and vacation work and unilateral termination of workers by enterprises, have continued apace with little restraint from the courts. The situation cries out for stronger reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's Labor Contract Law ("LCL") came into force on January 1, 2008. The first major piece of labor legislation since the 1994 Labor Law, the Labor Contract Law expanded legal protection for workers by mandating that labor contracts be in writing and delivered to all workers. Employers, predicting that the law would effectively raise the cost of employing full-time, long-term workers, sought methods of "creative compliance" with the law. One avenue for creative compliance emerged through the loophole in the LCL for so-called "dispatch workers." Dispatch workers are formally employed by third-party dispatch service agencies and thus not covered by employment contracts with the firms where they perform their job ("accepting entities"). In the first five years following the LCL's enactment, dispatch workers grew from a negligible share of China's labor force into a pervasive phenomenon. The dispatch worker exception began to swallow the rule, eroding the intended labor protections of the LCL. In response, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress amended the LCL, effective July 1, 2013. These amendments drastically reduced the permissible scale and purpose of dispatch labor and augured tighter regulation for the dispatch industry. Following a period of public comment, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Services provided specific departmental rules regarding the licensing of dispatch agencies and standard industry-wide practices, effective March 1, 2014. The new regulations restricted enterprises from hiring more than ten percent of their workers as dispatch workers and clarified the obligations of dispatching agencies as employers. With reports of abuse of dispatch workers continuing to surface, the effects of the amendments and the provisions on labor remain unclear. This comment addresses China's effort to intervene in employment arrangements via legislation. It first surveys the background of labor legislation in China from the Mao era, through reform, and into the twenty-first century. It then examines the interaction of the labor market and labor legislation, as employers respond to changes in China's labor regime through the introduction of Amendments to the LCL. Finally, this comment suggests that reform in labor legislation based on individual contract should be secondary to expanding collective labor rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]