Abstract: The criteria for the identification of labor relations have the normative effect of defining labor relations and clarifying the scope of adjustment of labor law. They are the key and challenging issues in handling current labor disputes and doctrinal research. Subordination theory is the primary basis for the reasoning in labor relationship determination, but the divergence in the type of elements, the crosscutting content of the elements, and the unclear effect of the elements lead to obvious subjectivity and uncertainty. With the development of new employment patterns, greater certainty is required of the identification of labor relations, and the 42nd batch of guiding cases issued by the Supreme People's Court suggests that the essence and core feature of labor relations is dominant labor management, which draws on the kernel of “other people determining the labor” in the theory of subordination to focus on the fact of employment and labor management. Labor management is a local original concept in China, and dominant labor management is a distillation and restatement of labor management in the context of the changing trend of labor patterns in the digital age, which is conducive to promoting the localization of the theory of subordination and constructing a Chinese concept of an autonomous labor law knowledge system. 

Keywords: labor relations; new forms of employment; platform employment; dominant labor management; subordination

Author: WANG Tianyu, research fellow, CASS Institute of Law;

Source: 2 (2025) China Journal of Applied Jurisprudence.