Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 6 : Letter of Recommendation

"What's your relationship to him?"

The person behind the window pushed her ID card halfway back, a fingertip still resting on the photo.

"I'm his representative."

"Representatives need a Letter of Recommendation."

"I drafted one." She slid two printed pages out of the side pocket of her bag and passed them under the window. "Printed them at the shop downstairs last night. See if the format works."

She had copied it from the service guide: recommending organization, recommended citizen, client, matters entrusted. The last field was blank. The pen was in her bag.

The clerk studied the pages for half a minute, then pushed them back.

"The recommended person has to be a lawyer, right?"

"Doesn't have to be a lawyer," she said. "A citizen recommended by the party's community, workplace, or a social organization can also act as a representative. I'll be that citizen."

The clerk didn't answer. She went through the stack on the counter one item at a time: Ma Jianjun's ID copy, the IOU copy, the Case Receipt, the Residence Registration Form. The countertop was light gray. Only after the clerk finished did she realize her palms were sweating and the page corners had gone soft from her grip.

"Residence registration was filed on the fifteenth of last month." The clerk stopped on that page. "Who's he renting this place from?"

"The landlord. There's a lease."

"He's the tenant."

"He's the person living here."

The clerk squared the papers, gathered them into a stack, and pushed them back. She kept her hand on them and looked her over from head to toe.

"Do you have a lawyer's license?"

"No. I have a Legal Professional Qualification Certificate."

"I don't recognize this." The clerk pushed the little booklet back. "Wait here."

Ten minutes later, Wu Yuhua came out from the back. Mid-to-late fifties, sneakers, a thermos in one hand with the lid twisted halfway open. She didn't sit. She read the Letter of Recommendation twice standing up, then turned it over and read the back.

"Which firm are you with?"

"I'm not with a firm."

"Which firm let you go?"

"Hengzheng," she said. "They told me to cross out a few lines on a form. I didn't."

Wu Yuhua set the thermos down on the counter. The bottom knocked against the surface.

"Little girl, let me lay it out for you," she said. "I stamp this, you fight the case for him. You win, there's nothing in it for you. You lose, he doesn't even get the little bit right in front of him. Then he comes and sits in my lobby and won't leave. Who do I answer to?"

"He won't."

"You don't know him."

"Last week somebody cornered him outside the station and he took seven stitches in the head," she said. "At eight the next morning, he was still out running orders."

Wu Yuhua didn't respond. She laid the Letter of Recommendation face down on the counter and ran her fingers along the paper's edge twice.

"There's a section on the back. A promise not to charge," she said. "Write it out clearly. Only if it's clear will I dare stamp it."

"I can write it."

"First go across the street." She nudged the materials toward the edge of the window. "The workers' service center run by the Municipal Federation of Trade Unions. Ask for Lao Hao. Rider issues came up at a subdistrict meeting last month. They're the ones responsible. If he gives a nod, things are easier on our end."

She swept the materials back into her bag. At the door, Wu Yuhua spoke again behind her.

"I'm not trying to refuse you."

The thermos lid tightened.

"I'm afraid you'll lose."

[Thud. Communities recognize residents, unions recognize members. He can't reach either.]

Below the steps lay a patch of wet stain that hadn't dried, catching the light. Across the street, on the first floor of the building, hung a sign: Chengnan Subdistrict Workers' Service Center. Beneath it was a smaller line: Outdoor Workers' Station.

She pushed open the door. Inside was just one room: two water dispensers, a microwave, a folding table in the corner piled with forms, an old telephone beside it. Two papers were taped to the wall. One was the worker legal aid application process, the other was the Hardship Worker Assistance Program. All four corners of each were pressed down with tape.

Lao Hao was on the phone by the window. When he saw her, he raised a hand and motioned downward. She sat down by the folding table and waited.

"Letter of Recommendation." He rolled the phrase around in his mouth once and hung up. "Who's it for?"

"Me. For Ma Jianjun."

"What are you to him?"

"Not a close relative."

"Then it has to be a community recommendation, or one from a social organization like ours." He pushed a form across the desk. "The recommendations we issue only cover members."

"Can he join?"

"Last fall I went to that station once." Lao Hao unscrewed his cup and drank. "The deputy station manager told me they work with the platform as partners. They signed service agreements. The riders aren't their people. I said, then hand them over to us. He said those aren't his people."

" 'Not his people,' " she repeated.

"I'd like someone like that myself." Lao Hao took the form back. "The year before last, the Municipal Federation of Trade Unions put out a document about protecting the rights of workers in new forms of employment. We used it as the basis for trying to start a union for riders. After six months, we'd added exactly one name to the roster. A breakfast vendor."

He glanced at her.

"The stamp you want, the community can give you. The document says it's the community where the party lives, not where his household registration is. He lives in Hewan, so Hewan handles it."

"I just came from there. They said they'd never done one."

Lao Hao picked up the receiver and flipped the number book on the desk to the middle.

"Sister Wu? It's Lao Hao," he said. "Right, that one. This is for representing someone in a lawsuit. Issuing a recommendation puts the responsibility on the representative, not on us who stamp it. … Just follow your own rules. Don't make things hard for the girl."

He set down the receiver and fished two forms out of a drawer: an application form and a Pledge Letter template.

"Go back. Bring three things: these two forms filled out, the originals of his lease and residence registration, and the man himself. Once he's here, it's easier."

She dialed Ma Jianjun's number. He answered on the first ring.

"Where are you?"

"Back alley behind the station."

"Come to Hewan Community. Bring the lease and that Residence Registration Form. Originals."

"Now?"

"Now."

Back at the community office entrance, someone was sitting on the steps. His uniform jacket was draped over his knees. In his hand was a clear plastic bag stuffed with the contract and the registration form, their edges folded. His scooter was locked by the flower bed. The shaved patch of hair still hadn't grown back.

"How long have you been sitting here?"

"A while."

This time Wu Yuhua let him come inside and sit. She pushed the application form over and asked him directly.

"Have you thought it through?"

"I have."

"If you lose, you won't even get the half they already agreed to."

"That half would need me to sign a paper," Ma Jianjun said. "Signing it would be like saying, myself, that I didn't work those two hours that day."

"So just say you didn't work. What could happen?"

"That day I stood in the rain. The uniform had their logo printed on it. The scooter was theirs. The box was theirs too," he said. "If I'm the first to say I didn't work, then whose man am I?"

Wu Yuhua looked at him for a while, unscrewed her thermos, and took a sip.

"How'd you come to know her?"

"At the hospital," he said. "That day she'd just come out carrying a cardboard box, soaked through. She wrote my papers for me and never took a cent."

"Who's going to appear for you?"

Ma Jianjun pointed.

"She is. I don't read well, but I can understand what she writes."

Wu Yuhua took the ink pad and the stamp from the drawer. First she glanced at her Pledge Letter. She wrote it out word by word: I represent Ma Jianjun in his labor dispute case and will not charge any fees. When she finished, she signed her name.

The desk gave a small jolt when the stamp came down. When it lifted, the line of small red text inside the circle sat over her name, smudged a little at the lower right.

"The matters entrusted column," the window clerk reminded from the side. "It has to be filled in."

"What should I write?"

"Labor dispute arbitration."

She took the pen and wrote it out stroke by stroke. Ma Jianjun leaned in close.

"What's it say?"

"Getting your wages back," she said. "But they only recognize that exact phrase."

The clerk tore off the receipt and stopped halfway through handing it over.

"Sis," she said. "The day before yesterday, someone came by and asked whether we'd ever issued any proof for riders."

"Who?"

"He didn't say. Just said he was from the platform. Wore a button-down."

Wu Yuhua closed the ink pad. "That's all," she said.

They reached Chengnan Station No. 1 around two in the afternoon. The Explanatory Statement had to be submitted that day. Ma Jianjun said he could go alone; she said she'd go with him.

It was a storefront off the main road, the roller shutter half raised. The red-and-white hiring flyer was still up, its curled corners bleached even whiter by the sun. At eye level on the glass door was a new printed sheet, all four corners sealed down with clear tape, a bubble pressed across its middle. Lao Song stood in front of it reading, his scooter still running, one foot on the ground.

"It was already posted in the group chat last night," he said, turning back. "I thought somebody made it up."

She moved closer to read.

Notice to Relevant Persons. This firm, entrusted by Hurricane Express (Jiangzhou) Network Technology Co., Ltd., hereby gives notice regarding certain individuals who have recently, in the name of recovering wages, spread false information online, organized gatherings, and obstructed normal operations at the station. This firm has already preserved evidence of the relevant accounts, statements made in group chats, and online posts, and will take all legal measures, including litigation. In serious cases, the matter will be reported to the authorities.

The final paragraph read: account actions were taken by the platform in the exercise of its rights under its agreements and had nothing to do with this firm.

The last two lines carried the signatures:

Jiangzhou Hengzheng Law Firm — Lu Jibai, Lü Hang

Dated yesterday.

She had seen the first name twice before. Once on the wall by the elevator at Hengzheng, in a row of partners, photos with titles printed beneath. He was among the first few in that row, the youngest. Once on the nameplate of the office at the east end of the hall, gilded. That day she had walked beneath it carrying a carton of A4 paper and had seen nothing. No one at the firm called him by his full name. Everyone said "Lawyer Lu."

The second name, she knew.

Four days earlier, in the afternoon, he was the one who had shoved that stack of Attendance Sheets across the meeting-room table and said the tardiness, the absences, and the shift schedules for several riders that day all had to go. By eight thirty the next morning, the final version of that stack had been produced and filed with the Arbitration Commission, signed with his name. It was thinner than the pile from the afternoon before.

She could see which side's case file the missing pages had ended up in.

[Thud. You didn't touch those pages. The one who did has his name signed on this notice.]

Ma Jianjun came out the door, empty-handed.

"Turned it in."

"Did they give you a receipt?"

"No. The person inside took it and just set it on the desk." He tilted his head toward the paper on the glass door. "What's it say?"

"It says anyone who runs his mouth online, anyone who gathers people in front of the station, will be sued."

"Sue who?"

"The ones doing the talking."

Lao Song stubbed out his cigarette. "What's a thing like that cost?"

Seven or eight steps into the back alley, it was the same spicy-soup shop, two long benches out front. She took out two copies of a Power of Attorney, a pen, and a small ink pad—two-fifty, bought at the stationery shop the day before.

"Sign this. It authorizes me to appear for you."

"Where do I sign?"

"At the bottom."

He spread the paper on the bench, bent low, and wrote his name stroke by stroke. When he finished, he looked up.

"Who's the other side this time?"

"Hengzheng's lawyers."

"Are they good?"

"Undefeated," she said.

"Not once?"

"Not once."

Ma Jianjun pulled the ink pad close, dabbed his thumb into it, and pressed it down at the end of the page. The red print came out round, smudged a little at the edge.

She folded that copy in half and tucked it into the side pocket of her bag, right next to the IOU.