[How to comply with the company's "household regulations"? ①] Using "household rules" to discipline employees, can the company be willful?
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State-owned state law, family has family rules.
Enterprises need to have their own rules and regulations, but they should be established on a reasonable and legal basis.
Because it is related to the vital interests of every worker, the labor dispute cases caused by the company’s “household regulations” have always attracted attention: “It is difficult to ask for leave, and is expelled at every turn”, “Refused to participate in company gatherings, expelled”, and even fined for 2 times in the toilet. "...In some enterprises, illegal "family rules" are infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of workers, and they are also bringing adverse effects to the enterprises themselves.
So, where is the legal bottom line of the corporate "household regulations"?
Article 4 of my country’s "Labor Contract Law" stipulates that "employers shall establish and improve labor rules and regulations in accordance with the law to ensure that employees enjoy labor rights and perform labor obligations." This also means that the formulation of "household regulations" is the legal responsibility of the enterprise .
At the same time, formulating legal and effective corporate "household regulations" is an important way and basis for companies to achieve standardized management and employment autonomy.
Therefore, a good "house rule" must not only strictly abide by the law, but also proceed from the actual situation of the company, and be reasonable and maneuverable.
In judicial practice, companies are often found to be invalid by the court because the "family rules" formulated by them are unreasonable and illegal, and they cannot restrict employees accordingly.
From now on, this edition will launch the "Enterprise "House Rules", how to comply with the regulations?
"A series of reports.
Through case studies, analyze the reasons that gave birth to the weird "house rules" and how to formulate the "house rules" of enterprises to be both legal and reasonable, as well as operability.
How should the rights and interests of workers be protected during the formulation of the "household regulations" of enterprises?
It is hoped that through this group of reports, it will provide legal support for the construction of harmonious labor relations.
Recently, a labor dispute involving "employees sue the company after being expelled from work in shorts" has aroused heated discussion.
According to the referee document network, Ding wears shorts to go to work. The store manager Wen X asked Ding to wear work clothes. Ding refused on the grounds that the weather was hot and the air conditioner was not turned on. The store manager fined Ding 50 yuan and punished him.
However, Ding still wore shorts to work and was dismissed on the grounds of disobeying management.
Ding thought that he was expelled without wearing work clothes and the punishment was too heavy, and he took the company to court.
The court held that the company had the right to terminate the labor contract because Ding had violated the rules and regulations, but the company did not submit evidence to prove the legitimacy of its rules and regulations, so it supported Ding’s claim.
This case has caused a lot of controversy: some people support employers and believe that employees should abide by company regulations; some support employees' actions to safeguard their personal legal rights; and some netizens believe that "the company's reasons for punishing employees are becoming more and more weird."
Why is the company's "family rules" always hotly discussed, but the strange "family rules" have been repeatedly banned?
The reporter's investigation found that although some employees felt that the "house rules" were excessive, they could not judge whether they were illegal. Some small and micro business owners also said that there are "difficulties" in managing employees.
So, how to determine the company's "household rules" and how to avoid "dropping pits"?
To this end, the reporter interviewed some lawyers, judges and other legal workers.
These "house rules" may be illegal
Qian Li, who works in finance for a private enterprise, told reporters: "The company stipulates that when you are late for work at 9 am, you are 10 minutes late and deduct half an hour of annual leave, and so on. After the annual leave is deducted, if there is a record of being late, it will be based on the length of lateness. Fine." Qian Li felt that the rules for deducting annual leave for being late were too strict.
Hu Wei, a lawyer at the Beijing Gaowen Law Firm, said that employees’ paid annual leave is the right to rest clearly granted to employees in the “Labor Law”, “Labor Contract Law”, “Regulations on Paid Annual Leave for Employees” and other laws and regulations.
For employees who are late, the company’s practice of deducting the length of annual leave does not have legal effect.
But after all, it is a violation of labor discipline for employees to be late. The reporter found that the phenomenon of employees being late for work and leaving early is also a headache for employers.
“The company stipulates that some employees have to be a few minutes late for work at 9 o’clock. When they sit down at their desks, have breakfast and then chat for a while. This behavior not only causes their work efficiency to be low, but also affects other colleagues and brings them to the company. Bad influence." The boss of a private enterprise complained to reporters, "The rules and regulations are mainly to regulate the behavior of some unconscious employees. If there is no stipulation for fines, some employees think that the rules and regulations are ineffective and fail to achieve the management effect." .
Zhao Hongmei, a professor at the School of Civil, Commercial and Economic Law of China University of Political Science and Law, believes that the employment pattern of labor relations is based on the company's exclusive employee working time (the employee needs to do his best to complete the tasks assigned by the company). Too long time to go to the toilet (look at the mobile phone in the toilet for 30 minutes) or too frequent (a dozen times a day) will shorten the time it takes to pay the company's actual labor and harm the interests of the company.
Therefore, companies can use the "power of punishment" to legally and effectively manage their employees.
However, the content of the rules and regulations of the employer should be reasonable, and the punishment should be moderate and strict.
In this regard, Hu Wei also stated that "fines" are one of the types of administrative punishments and can only be imposed by the corresponding administrative agency. The company is not an administrative agency and has no right to impose fines on employees.
However, companies can deduct a corresponding proportion of performance wages in the rules and regulations to restrain workers' violations of labor discipline.
Enterprises need to use management rights reasonably and appropriately
It is understood that due to the subordination characteristics of labor relations, employers adopt rules and regulations to provide for the use of warnings, salary cuts, job transfers, and dismissal measures to achieve management of workers. This is the right of employers granted by the law.
But how should these be used correctly?
Can overly harsh disciplinary measures be considered legal and effective?
Recently, the Second Intermediate People's Court of Beijing tried a case in which the deduction of performance bonus was obviously unreasonable.
Zhou is a medical representative of a pharmaceutical company.
On September 1, 2019, the company delivered a severe warning notice to Zhou, which stated: "After verification, you refused to obey the reasonable instructions of the management, including the resource management manager, on the morning of August 26. In view of this According to the company’s "Employee Handbook" and "Disciplinary Punishment Policy", we will give you a'serious warning' for disciplinary punishment, and at the same time, will deduct the sales bonus issued in the third quarter." At the end of the month, the company deducted a certain Zhou The quarterly sales bonus is 23268.75 yuan.
Zhou applied for labor arbitration and asked the company to pay his quarterly bonus several yuan.
Arbitration award: All arbitration claims of Zhou were rejected.
Zhou did not agree with the above ruling and sued the court.
In the court, the two parties debated whether the company's punishment of Zhou was justified and reasonable.
Zhou believes that "the deducted quarterly sales bonus is much higher than the monthly labor remuneration", which is unreasonable.
The company believes that the nature of the bonus is to reward employees' behavior. Zhou should be held responsible if he does not obey the reasonable instructions of his superiors, and the company's autonomous management rights should be respected.
In the end, the court ruled that the company has independent management rights and employees have the right to receive labor compensation.
The company’s disciplinary measures were obviously too heavy for deducting a quarterly sales bonus for “not following reasonable orders from superiors” at a time.
It is judged that the company may deduct 1,500 yuan of sales bonus for a certain quarter of Zhou at its discretion.
Enterprises cannot be "capital willful"
The judge who heard the case, Dou Jiangtao, stated that the company's deduction of a quarterly bonus for workers violated the "principle of punishment" and should be adjusted.
Zhao Hongmei believes that when employers formulate rules and regulations, they should respect the personality of their employees and ensure their decent work.
Individual companies have the suspicion of "capital willfulness", thinking that if the company spends money to hire employees, the company has the final say. Even if the rules and regulations are harsh, employees are informed and accepted before they are hired, and they must abide by them after they are hired.
Such misconceptions gave birth to the wonderful "house rules".
In fact, it is not uncommon for employees to be punished for violating the company’s “household rules” every year.
According to reports, multiple employees of a company in Dongguan, Guangdong were fined 20 yuan each for using the toilet twice; employees of a company in Guizhou were fined or even fired for refusing to attend a colleague’s birthday party due to epidemic prevention and control...
Li Juan, an associate professor at the School of Civil, Commercial and Economic Law, China University of Political Science and Law, believes that the employer’s rules and regulations are the internal labor management rules of the unit. It should regulate the activities related to the labor behavior of the laborer, and cannot restrict the personal life behavior of the laborer, such as , Participating in a colleague’s birthday party should belong to the worker’s personal life behavior.
Unless the laborer's personal life behavior seriously affects his labor behavior, it is possible to be regulated by the rules and regulations.
In addition, the majority of workers should also fully exercise the rights granted by the law, actively participate in the formulation of rules and regulations as much as possible, and fully understand the contents of the rules and regulations.
For some specific behavioral regulations, such as the length of work, workers should make an agreement with the employer when entering the job.
Zhou Qian