Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, August 20 - Problem: some deductions, some ten years the same standard - you get high subsidies yet?
Xinhua News Agency "Xinhua Viewpoint" reporters Song Jia, Zheng Shengzhu, Deng Qianqian
Recently, Fujian, Jiangsu and other places have successively launched special inspection actions related to the distribution of high temperature allowances in 2020, urging some employers to reissue high temperature allowances for their employees. "Xinhua Viewpoint" reporters have investigated in many places and found that there are still some employers' high temperature allowances that have not been paid in place, and some workers said they have "shrinked" significantly compared with last year.
High temperature allowances are discounted, and special inspections are carried out in many places to protect workers' rights
According to the management measures for heatstroke prevention and cooling measures issued in 2012, employers who arrange workers to engage in outdoor work in hot weather above 35 degrees Celsius and who cannot take effective measures to reduce the temperature of the workplace to below 33 degrees Celsius shall issue high temperature allowances and include them in wages The total amount, and the heatstroke prevention and cooling beverages cannot be used to cover the high temperature allowance.
The All-China Federation of Trade Unions previously issued the "Notice on Doing a Good Job in Heatstroke Prevention and Cooling for Employees in 2020", requiring that, as the current national epidemic prevention and control has achieved major results and the order of production and life is accelerated, the trend of restoration of production and life is continuously consolidated. Work focus and response measures, and provide high temperature allowances in accordance with regulations.
Recently, the Fujian Provincial Labor Security Supervision Bureau discovered that the two employers in Fuzhou City, Fuzhou Dongfei Environmental Service Co., Ltd. and Fuzhou Yucheng Cleaning Service Co., Ltd., who are responsible for street cleaning, did not pay according to the current standard of Fujian Province high temperature allowance, and there were deductions. . At present, relevant enterprises have been ordered to rectify and make up the parts that are below the standard.
According to the preliminary statistics of Fujian Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security, 1,936 households were inspected by various localities (including construction projects in progress). Fuzhou urged 20 households to reissue the June high temperature allowance, and ordered 4 households to adjust the rest time of their employees. Putian issued 4 rectification instructions for the payment of high-temperature allowances in accordance with the law, and paid more than 40,000 yuan high-temperature allowances to migrant workers and sanitation workers in construction enterprises.
According to Jiangsu's regulations, the high temperature allowance is 300 yuan per person per month, which is issued from June to September. Mr. Zheng, an employee of a garden company in Jiangsu, was assigned to supervise the construction on the community project site as soon as he entered the job in early June. “The personnel manager said that he can only get a high temperature allowance of 100 yuan per month, and it is not easy to get it right after joining the job.”
A certain city in Jiangsu recently discovered during a special inspection of high-temperature labor protection that although employers were ordered and five applications to provide high-temperature allowances without discount, some enterprises still have common problems such as insufficient payment of heatstroke prevention beverages and non-payment on a monthly basis. Concentrated in labor-intensive small and medium factories, accommodation and catering industries.
During the interview, some workers reported that they could receive high-temperature allowances in previous years, but this year they either did not move or gotten "shrinked" significantly. Xiao Li, a takeaway rider on a certain platform, told reporters that last year there was still a high temperature allowance available, and so far this year there is nothing. Another rider, Xiao Zhu, said that the high temperature allowance is not fixed, "you have to run a certain number of orders to get it." Some riders on other platforms said that they have never heard of allowances.
Some standards remain unchanged for more than a decade, and some are too complicated
The reporter found that since the issuance of the Measures for the Management of Heatstroke Prevention and Cooling Measures in 2012, all localities have formulated standards for high-temperature allowances, and the issuance is guaranteed by policies. However, some regional standards have not changed for many years, and some local standards are too complicated, and some are issued according to actual temperature, which affects specific implementation operations.
According to regulations, the high temperature allowance standard is formulated by the provincial human resources and social security administrative departments in conjunction with relevant departments, and adjusted in time according to the social and economic development.
In some places, the high temperature allowance has not been raised for many years, which has become a more prominent problem reported by workers. For example, Hunan Province stipulated in 2005 that the high temperature allowance standard is a minimum of 150 yuan per person per month. This standard has not been adjusted for more than ten years. The high temperature allowance standards in Henan, Guangdong and other places have not been adjusted in the past ten years.
In addition, complex distribution standards in some places allow companies to take advantage of opportunities. For example, Hainan, Gansu and other places calculate the distribution on a daily basis according to the number of days when the temperature exceeds 35 degrees Celsius. Jiangxi allows enterprises to choose monthly or daily distribution according to actual needs, and stipulates that the standard for part-time employment shall not be less than 3 yuan per person per hour.
Hebei distributes it on an hourly basis. Workers working outdoors are 2 yuan per hour per person, and indoor workers who do not have heatstroke prevention cooling equipment or have heatstroke prevention cooling equipment but cannot achieve the effect of reducing the temperature in the workplace are 1.5 yuan per hour.
Experts believe that the determination of high temperature weather is often based on information released by the meteorological department, but the released temperature is different from the body temperature. In addition, it is difficult to require real-time monitoring of temperature in each workplace. Some companies take advantage of the loopholes to discount high temperature allowances.
Urgently need to improve policies to protect the rights and interests of workers
During the interview, the reporter found that even if they knew that the employer had not paid the high-temperature subsidy in place, some workers “dare not say anything” and “recover a chicken and kill a cow.” Many workers are unwilling to pay for this. Money goes to defend rights.
A security guard in a Beijing community said that the company can only get as much as the company sends. “Don’t dare to ask for it. It’s good to have a salary. It’s not worth losing your job for this.”
Leng Xue, a lawyer from the Legal Aid Center in Gulou District, Nanjing, told reporters that workers generally do not claim that high-temperature allowances should be paid in place unless they are in arrears of wages and other labor disputes. “Because the amount is not large, some workers are unwilling to pay for this. Money goes to protect rights and affects work."
The Suzhou Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security stated that some employers do not know much about the high temperature allowance and pay insufficient attention to it. The publicity of the human resources department needs to be strengthened. At the same time, due to the complexity of labor and employment, whether workers such as couriers and takeaways under the new business are eligible for high-temperature allowances needs to be clarified by higher-level departments to issue relevant laws and policies to provide a basis for law enforcement by grassroots human resources and social departments.
"It is not enough for employers to consciously pay them." Chen Wenlong, a lawyer from Fujian Tianheng United Law Firm, said that at present, many workers do not know whether they receive the prescribed high temperature allowance. It is recommended to impose administrative penalties on the units that seldom issue or omit the issue to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of workers.