China’s Communist Party sets out plans to extend its reach in platform companies and among gig workers
Updated: 52 minutes ago
BEIJING | 1 November 2026
China’s Communist Party published a Central Committee resolution on 1 November calling for a stronger Party presence in digital platforms and innovative technology firms, and closer ties with workers such as delivery riders and ride-hailing drivers. It places political guidance alongside services, management and the protection of workers’ rights. For someone earning a living through an app, the distinction matters: the resolution sets out where the Party intends to organise. It neither sets the price of a delivery nor changes an individual rider’s employment status. [1][2][3]
The fifth plenum adopted the resolution on 29 October. Its communiqué already identified emerging sectors as a priority. The full text now specifies which businesses are of particular interest, who is to guide the work and how it is to fit into company operations and local governance. The English government website marks its resolution page as updated at 18:50 on 1 November and Xi Jinping’s accompanying explanation at 18:30. Those are publication times. They do not date the adoption or demonstrate simultaneous changes across platforms. [1][4][5]
Why single out these sectors? The committee’s own diagnosis is that some grassroots organisations are weak and that its reach and effectiveness are uneven in emerging industries. It calls for responsibilities to be allocated by sector, for branch secretaries to be chosen and for personnel to be sent to advise on Party work. It also wants a mechanism for adjusting which higher Party body oversees an internet company’s Party organisation. That concerns political reporting lines; it does not put the assignment of individual deliveries in the hands of a higher Party committee. [1][2][6]
The resolution addresses two distinct constituencies. In companies, the emphasis is on strengthening Party organisations. Among workers, it seeks support for Party leadership through political guidance as well as better services and management. The South China Morning Post also identified technology firms and gig workers as targets in its report on Sunday evening. In his explanation to the plenum, Xi said he headed a drafting group set up in January which formally began work in February. The measure emerges from that central policy process, rather than from the settlement of a dispute at a particular platform. [2][3][5]
The wording also varies by institution. Trade associations, learned societies and chambers of commerce are to incorporate Party-building requirements into their charters, a step the resolution links to industry self-regulation. For people in new forms of employment it speaks instead of services, management, rights and political guidance. A charter can be inspected for changes. Whether workers join an organisation or can choose their own representatives is a different question. Requiring an association to amend its charter does not impose Party membership on individual riders. [2][4]
Huang Jianfa, a deputy head of the Central Organisation Department, said on 30 October that the Party wanted greater appeal, cohesion and influence in emerging sectors. The official employment category is broad: it includes app-based transport and online marketing as well as delivery. The official estimate of about 84 million refers to people in these forms of employment, not to the number of riders or Party members. The resolution offers no corresponding count of workers in contact with Party organisations or of disputes resolved through them. [6][7]
Political organisation and workplace protection have developed through different channels. Guidance released in April by the general offices of the Central Committee and State Council called for platforms and courier companies to take the task and its intensity into account when setting pay, to pay in full and on time, and to give workers information, participation and choice in relation to algorithms. The International Labour Organization’s policy tracker describes a framework covering rest, occupational safety and dispute resolution as well as remuneration. It predates the plenum; its provisions are not wage rates introduced on 1 November. [7][8]
Order allocation is a matter of pay as well as software design. Labour ministry guidance published in 2024 called for platforms to disclose rules on the distribution of orders, pay, working time and rest, and to explain algorithms that bear on basic rights. Consider a rider who receives fewer jobs. A drop in earnings will not tell the rider whether local demand fell, an allocation rule changed the order of priority or the account was restricted. Knowing the rule makes it possible to identify a decision to question and the organisation responsible for it. [9][10]
A separate instrument, more directly relevant to that situation, remained open for comment on 1 November. The labour ministry published draft safeguards on 8 October, with submissions due by 8 November. They address, among others, people managed by enterprises whose working arrangements do not meet all the tests for an employment relationship. Under the proposal, decisions with serious consequences, such as suspending orders or banning an account, would require human review. Publication of a Party resolution did not bring this proposed departmental rule into force. [11][12]
Who manages the work matters when something goes wrong. A 2024 ILO working paper, drawing on cases and interviews with labour arbitrators, identified actual subordination as central to the employment question. Messaging apps, algorithms and intermediaries can all be instruments of management. Whether someone is free to log on is one question; whose instructions they must follow once they accept work is another. The name on a contract or the brand on an app may not, by itself, identify the party exercising control. [12][13]
The ministry draft would distinguish the documents required according to how work is actually organised: an employment contract where the criteria are met, and a written work agreement for some workers under management who fall short of that test. Joint management by a platform and a partner could call for a three-party agreement. Riders might receive orders through the same app yet be rostered and paid by different contractors. Recovering unpaid wages then entails identifying who recruited them, managed the work and owed the payment. Establishing a Party organisation at the platform does not adjudicate that claim. [12][13]
Two riders interviewed in Shenzhen by Singapore’s CNA in October described different bargains. A 24-year-old said he had worked for more than 20 days without a day off; his contractor-run station allowed four days off a month but chose when he took them. A 42-year-old crowdsourced rider valued choosing his own hours, despite earning about 5,000 to 6,000 yuan a month and receiving no social insurance contributions through the work. These accounts predate the plenum. They are neither reactions to the resolution nor a national sample of pay and hours. [14]
Meituan had already described a link between Party work and algorithm design. Material published on its website in June said its Party secretary led a group examining long hours and late-delivery deductions. It said the company ended those deductions nationwide in 2025 and switched to a points system. Ending one penalty is not the same as ending performance assessment: the significance of points for bonuses, and whether an exceptional delivery can be reviewed, depend on the rules and the case. This report had no access to dispatch records with which to test the effect on earnings. [15][9]
Different records answer different questions about protection. Publishing a tariff helps a rider anticipate what a job pays; an itemised record makes it possible to check what was actually paid. A review with reasons offers a way to put an error right. Disclosure of a tariff does not show that the other two steps work. The policy material catalogued by the ILO distinguishes information and participation from dispute resolution, and the ministry consultation provides a separate opportunity to comment on the proposed rules. [8][9][11]
By publication, this report had found no public response from a major platform or an identifiable rider representative to the specific provisions released on Sunday. Earlier company statements and rider interviews illuminate workplace disputes but cannot supply that missing response. Two developments merit separate scrutiny: which workplaces come under new Party arrangements and what duties they assume; and, after the labour consultation, which safeguards survive and whether workers can obtain records, a human answer or unpaid earnings. The first measures organisational reach. The second would help establish what remedy is available when a rider needs one. [1][2][11][14][15]
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