The minimum wage is "diluted", there are workers but they don’t know, and they don’t defend their rights
Reporter Liu Xu
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Since the beginning of this year, many places have raised their minimum wage standards.
However, some companies have used extended working hours and eliminated benefits in disguise to dilute the minimum wage of workers.
Why does this apparently violate the relevant provisions of the labor law and minimum wage standards?
The reporter's investigation found that the low cost of corporate violations and the high cost of protecting workers' rights may be the key to the problem.
"Recruiting cleaning, a monthly salary of 1850 yuan. 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, one day off every week." On March 17, a Taekwondo gym in Hunnan District, Shenyang City issued a recruitment notice. The employer did not know the above recruitment content. Countries that have violated Article 48 of the Labor Law implement a minimum wage guarantee system.
There are not many cases where companies misuse regulations and exploit legal loopholes like this.
Back kitchen and miscellaneous, food and accommodation, monthly salary of 1,900 yuan (including 50 yuan meal supplement and 100 yuan dormitory supplement); recruitment of part-time supermarket workers (college students part-time), 16 yuan per hour...
According to the "Notice on Adjusting the Provincial Minimum Wage Standards" published by Liaoning Province in 2019, the local minimum wage standard is 1810 yuan, and the hourly minimum wage standard is 18.3 yuan.
However, a reporter from the "Workers Daily" found that some companies used the method of extending working hours to dilute the "minimum wage" of workers and circumvent the implementation of the minimum wage guarantee system.
It seems that it is not low on the surface, but it is actually lower than the "minimum"
"It's 40 yuan more than the announcement. Why do you say that we are breaking the law?" said Chen Xian, the person in charge of a taekwondo gym in Hunnan District, Shenyang.
"1810 yuan/month is the minimum wage for working no more than 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week. This post works 48 hours. Do you think the salary paid is legal?" Shanghai Duan He Duan (Shenyang) Law Firm The lawyer Meng Yuping questioned.
"It is equivalent to extending working hours and diluting the minimum wage of workers."
According to Article 11 of the "Minimum Wage Regulations of Liaoning Province", the wages paid by employers to workers who provide normal labor shall not be lower than the local minimum wage after excluding wages for extended working hours.
This seemingly not low on the surface, but actually lower than the "minimum" situation, there is also the cost of food and housing included in the minimum wage.
On August 8, 2020, Sun Chenxu, who graduated from technical secondary school, went to work in a hot pot restaurant in Yingkou.
It is agreed to do miscellaneous work in the back kitchen, including food and housing, and a monthly salary of 1,900 yuan.
On October 5, when he received his first month's salary, Sun Chenxu found that he was missing 150 yuan. The boss explained that 50 yuan of meal supplement and 100 yuan of accommodation supplement were deducted.
Sun Chenxu thought it was unreasonable, but he did not think it violated the labor law either.
Until today, Sun Chenxu learned that Article 12 of the Minimum Wage Regulation stipulates that when the worker provides normal labor, the wage that the employer should pay to the worker shall not be lower than the local minimum wage standard after excluding benefits.
If it is said that the above-mentioned employers belong to "secret warehouses", some even "blatantly" exploit loopholes in the law and fail to implement the minimum wage standard guarantee system.
Zhao Yixuan is a junior at a normal university in Liaoning.
In the summer vacation of 2019 and the winter vacation of 2020, a large supermarket chain near home will work-study, and the agreed hourly wage is 16 yuan.
In October 2019, the minimum wage standard in Liaoning was raised.
When she expected the hourly wage to increase, the director of personnel of the employer said, "The executive body is the laborer who can sign the labor contract, such as college students like her, and the laborer over the age of 60. It is not a labor relationship with the company. Meet the criteria."
Article 3 of the "Minimum Wage Regulations" clarifies that the employer shall pay the minimum labor remuneration when the employee engages in the work during the legal working hours or according to the time agreed in the contract according to the labor contract.
Meng Yuping believes that the relevant laws and regulations are not perfect, and the minimum wage system is a legal form to guarantee the minimum wage income that workers should obtain after fulfilling the necessary labor obligations to maintain labor reproduction.
Whether college students and special workers over 60 years old should implement it is debatable.
"The cost of safeguarding rights is high and not cost-effective"
Why are some employers unwilling to implement the minimum wage guarantee system?
Luo Jiehong, a personnel officer of a small security company in Shenyang, calculated such an account with reporters. Starting from November 2019, the minimum wage in Shenyang has been adjusted from 1,620 yuan to 1,810 yuan.
This means a salary increase of 190 yuan per person.
In January 2020, the company had 78 security guards, and the increase in expenditure was nearly 178,000 yuan a year.
The corresponding social security payment and deposit ratio has also increased, a total increase of more than 200,000 yuan.
However, Article 13 of the "Minimum Wage Regulations" stipulates that if the employer pays less than the minimum wage, the labor security administrative department shall order it to reissue the wages owed to workers within a time limit, and may order it to pay 1 to 1 of the wages owed. 5 times to pay workers’ compensation.
"Security rarely complains. Even if the complaint makes up the difference, the compensation will be paid only if the payment is overdue, and the maximum is only 5 times." Luo Jiehong said.
"The cost of protecting rights is too high and it's not worthwhile. When I find a next home, I won't work for this kind of company." After learning of the infringement, Sun Chenxu was not active in protecting rights.
Although he can file a complaint or apply for arbitration at the labor inspection team, there are also local agencies that can provide him with legal aid.
"Even if you hire a lawyer without spending money, you will have to pay for transportation, photocopying, and litigation fees. After the case is filed and the court is in session, the salary will be deducted and the attendance bonus will be gone. According to my algorithm, three months will be added up. Send 450 yuan."
From March 9th to March 17th, the reporter sorted out the recruitment notices with wages lower than the "minimum wage standard" and randomly distributed them to 13 cleaners, security guards, sanitation workers, and other low-paying industry workers, none of them Find the problem and raise the question.
Chen Xiaohui is a grassroots trade union worker in Shenyang City, who has been voluntarily popularizing law for 15 years.
When she spread the law to cleaners, security guards, and sanitation workers, she found that these minimum wage workers were often "coaxed" by employers because they did not understand or did not understand the terms of the laws and policies.
Companies are concealed, and workers do not know the laws and regulations, resulting in very few workers discovering and defending their rights.
If workers do not take the initiative to defend their rights, it is difficult for the regulatory authorities to find out.
Policies need to be refined, and workers should also take the initiative to defend their rights
As a public policy of "all the bottom", the minimum wage standard is mainly to provide basic living security for full-time and full-time labor-intensive and labor-intensive jobs.
In fact, Shenyang's human resources and social security departments, judicial departments, labor unions and other departments actively promote the law to employees every year, provide legal aid to employees whose labor compensation rights have been violated, and open up a green channel for employees to defend their rights.
Local media also actively report on the adjustment of the minimum wage policy every year.
However, in the process of implementing the minimum wage guarantee system, workers themselves are also required to actively defend their rights.
Meng Yuping said that the government has worked hard to protect the legitimate rights and interests of workers by providing judicial assistance and forcing enterprises to implement a minimum wage guarantee system. If workers do not stand up to defend their rights, it will encourage some enterprises to "take loopholes" and lose money. It is always the laborer’s own interests.
Chen Xiaohui called on companies to establish a mechanism for regular increases in the minimum wage standard to give full play to the role of the tripartite negotiation mechanism for labor relations.
When the minimum wage standard is adjusted, it is necessary to go through tripartite consultations, fully listen to the opinions of the trade union and the employees, pass calculations and demonstrations, and put forward adjustment opinions and implementation plans in a timely manner.
(Some interviewees are pseudonyms)