<正>ON June 29, after a long period of discussion and broad public participa-tion, the Standing Com-mittee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) – China’s top legislative organ – adopted the La-bor Contract Law. It comes into effect on January 1, 2008. This decision came ear-lier than expected, owing to recent me-dia reports about worker abuse in Shanxi Province brick kilns, and other instances