Hubei Laohekou police crack case of refusing to pay labor remuneration and recover over 30000 yuan in unpaid wages

In northwest Hubei in March, the spring chill has not yet dissipated. In a residential house in a town in Laohekou City, six female workers who used to work at a clothing factory in front of their homes finally received their unpaid wages for over a year. The highest amount is 9400 yuan, the lowest is 2100 yuan, totaling 32800 yuan. They didn't have much money, not even enough to afford a banquet in the city, but when they walked out of the police station holding cash, someone's eyes turned red. This money was earned by them after sewing clothes for three months last spring. After the factory closed down, the boss went missing and they thought the money would never come back.

This case began in April 2023. The Labor Security Supervision Brigade of the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of Laohekou City has received complaints one after another, claiming that a clothing company in its jurisdiction has delayed paying workers' wages, and the legal representative Zhang cannot be contacted. After investigation by the supervisory team, it was found that the company had ceased production at the end of 2022 due to poor management, and owed six employees a total of 32800 yuan in wages from February to April 2022. The human resources and social security department issued the "Labor Security Supervision Deadline Correction Instruction" in accordance with the law. In the case of Zhang's failure to fulfill the deadline and loss of contact, the case was transferred to the Laohekou Public Security Bureau in June 2023.

When the police took over, the clues were extremely limited. Zhang is an out of town resident who rented a rural house to establish a clothing processing point. He has no fixed factory assets and left the building vacant after production was stopped. The police handling the case went to his registered residence for many times to investigate and visit the surrounding people. They found that Mr. Zhang had been divorced for many years, his original home property had already been sold, his mobile phone was shut down, and his social account was disabled, which was like evaporation from the world. This type of small-scale wage arrears case has always been a difficult point in cracking down on the crime of refusing to pay labor remuneration, as the amount involved is not high, the suspect intentionally conceals it, and the victim's ability to provide evidence is weak. But the Laohekou police did not put the case on hold due to its small value, and the security team established a special team to continue following up.

The turnaround occurred in January 2025. The specialized police officers found that Zhang had intermittent contact with a woman in a neighboring city by repeatedly sorting out his social relationships. Following the trail, the police have identified Zhang hiding in a rental house located in the urban-rural fringe of a county in Henan Province. On February 19, 2025, police officers from the Public Security Brigade of Laohekou City Public Security Bureau rushed to Henan and, with the cooperation of local police, arrested Zhang and brought him to justice. After arriving at the case, Zhang confessed to the crime of owing labor remuneration and hiding. Subsequently, the family members fully refunded the wages of six workers, totaling 32800 yuan. Currently, Zhang has been subjected to criminal coercive measures in accordance with the law, and the case is under further investigation.

32800 yuan is a figure that is easily overlooked in the face of economic crime cases involving millions of yuan. But the investigation time invested by the Laohekou police in this number has accumulated over four months, and the cross provincial tracking mileage is nearly a thousand kilometers. A police officer wrote a sentence in the summary of the case: For workers, this is not 320000 yuan, but the hard-earned money earned by staying up late and working on sewing machines for three months, the tuition fees for their children's spring school, and the life-saving money for the elderly to receive medical treatment and medicine. The police not only handle cases, but also people's hearts.

The crime of refusing to pay labor remuneration has been facing the triple dilemma of difficulty in obtaining evidence, evasion, and compensation in judicial practice since its criminalization in 2011. Suspects in such cases often evade payment obligations by changing their phone numbers, leaving their permanent residence, closing social media accounts, and using their family and friends' identities to hide their whereabouts, engaging in an asymmetric game of information asymmetry with the public security organs. And the victims are mostly migrant workers, temporary workers, and piece rate workers, lacking legal knowledge and weak awareness of evidence preservation. Some did not even hit the IOU, while others only remembered the boss's nickname. The successful investigation and full recovery of unpaid wages in the Laohekou case depend on the smooth operation of the execution linkage mechanism - the human resources and social security department's preliminary investigation fixed key documentary evidence such as employment records, salary statements, and IOUs, providing a solid basis for the police to file a case; The police pushed the suspect's information to a cross regional investigation platform, forming a joint force with the Henan public security organs to arrest them. This multi departmental and cross regional collaborative combat model is the institutional solution to eradicate the persistent problem of wage arrears.

The other significance of this case lies in its debunking of a long-standing misconception that only major and important cases deserve the use of criminal investigation resources. In fact, Article 276-1 of the Criminal Law clearly stipulates that refusing to pay labor remuneration to one worker for more than three months and the amount is more than 5000 yuan, or refusing to pay labor remuneration to ten or more workers and the cumulative amount is more than 30000 yuan, constitutes a crime. The total amount of unpaid wages involved in the Laohekou case has just exceeded the threshold for criminal prosecution, with less than ten victims, making it a typical "small wage arrears case". If the police refuse to file a case on the grounds of civil disputes, there is evidence in the law; If the case value is relatively small, it is reasonable to slow down the investigation. But they chose a more difficult path - in the case of the suspect crossing two provinces and hiding for six months, they used the most traditional methods of visiting and investigating, and pulled Zhang out of the crowd from a vague relationship clue.

Laohekou is a county-level city in northwest Hubei, neither along the border nor by the sea, and there are no earth shattering major cases that make headlines in the news. But this small case involving more than 30000 yuan reflects the true attitude of grassroots public security organs towards people's livelihood cases. 32800 yuan, six female workers, chased and escaped for four months, arrested across provinces, and fully compensated. In this concise equation, there is no grand story, only a simple creed that is once again practiced: the law is not just a contract made for the rich, and the police are not just security guards guarding buildings.

After the six female workers recovered their unpaid wages, they did not send any banners to the police station or give any media interviews. They just continue to work on sewing machines at another clothing factory in town, earning over 3000 yuan per month. This salary, which was delayed for over a year, was ultimately paid to them. In this sense, the police's actions not only completed the legal prosecution of Zhang, but also achieved a minor restoration of the dignity of the workers. This kind of repair, 32800 yuan is already sufficient, and the weight of the rule of law behind it is far more than that.