Detailed standards implementing the trade union law amendment known as the 'yellow envelope law' have been presented. The core is clarifying which bargaining subjects may lawfully support industrial action.

Under the standards, a strike mounted solely to force a higher rate on a bonus whose payment criteria are already fixed would not readily qualify as legitimate industrial action. The test is whether the demand concerns the determination of working conditions.

Unions argue that narrowing the scope dilutes the purpose of the amendment, which was written to widen bargaining rights for subcontracted and specially employed workers but adds restrictions at the implementation stage.

Employers object from the other direction, saying that tidying part of the permissible scope of industrial action does not deliver predictability while the range of counterparties has widened.

In practice, much turns on the wording of each workplace's collective agreement, since how a bonus formula is written determines whether the same demand counts as a working-conditions matter.

Many in the Sinophone community run small businesses or work in manufacturing and logistics. Changes to dispute procedure and bargaining scope are practical information whichever side of the table one sits on.

The standards will be finalised at the enforcement decree and guideline stage, leaving room for the wording to shift.