In the spring of 2019, Naike, a young designer with 7 years of work experience, moved to a foreign company in a city in southwest China and signed a three-year labor contract.
At first, Naike felt that the new working environment had advanced office equipment and office processes, and he could get in touch with major customers who were “foreign”, and he could learn new things quickly.
However, it didn't take long for her to work overtime frequently and be verbally violent by her supervisor, which made her feel that she had encountered a "thousand-layer routine" that was difficult to crack.
After joining the company, Nicole soon discovered that the work pressure was beyond imagination: I was too busy in the office to greet my colleagues; in order to reply to the client’s information in a timely manner, I needed to bring my office computer on standby all day long. Work and life were indistinguishable. Insomnia; due to the time difference with clients, it is common to have video conferences at home.
What makes her even more unbearable is that the supervisor always accuses employees of poor ability, inefficiency, condescending attitude, dirty words, insults, and humbling sounds so loud that they can be heard on the entire floor.
Naike believes that the supervisor's management method is too old and extensive, which is a huge ironic contrast with the company's advanced and foreign software and hardware environment.
She said that the company has a standardized overtime system. When employees need to work overtime, they should report to the department head, fill in the system after approval, and then issue overtime pay based on the recorded overtime hours.
However, the "chicken thieves" of the company are that the supervisor instills that overtime is a manifestation of low work efficiency, and that overtime applications from employees are not approved, resulting in some employees having to work overtime without compensation.
"Our department has regular meetings every week and a ranking list every month. If the supervisor sees someone who has long working hours, few projects, low praise, and low rankings, they will ask the reason in detail at the regular meeting, suggesting that this person gives the team It’s a hindrance. But in fact, our work needs to communicate tedious details with foreign customers, and sometimes it is impossible to guarantee efficiency. Therefore, many employees can only fill 10 hours and 12 hours of working time into 8 hours, not only without overtime pay, but also in the team. An atmosphere of so-called'involution' has gradually formed, and everyone's work pressure is increasing."
Naike recalled that after working for nearly a year and a half, her team of more than a dozen people resigned and left half because of this high-pressure atmosphere. Insults and high-pressure forced them to leave, and some of them have been overwhelmed by the system of unpaid overtime work for one or two years."
In order to "fill in the hole", the company keeps recruiting new people, especially those who have just graduated from college, who report for and train almost every week.
Naike felt aggrieved and thought about resigning many times; but thinking that this is a big company that many young colleagues dream of joining, he persisted.
"Recalling when I was applying for an offer, the interviewer repeatedly asked me if I was willing to work overtime and how long I could continue to work overtime. In fact, this is what I will encounter later." She said with a wry smile.
Last summer, the personnel department asked Naike to sign a "performance improvement plan", which led her to finally make up her mind to resign.
"HR said that I rank relatively low in the team. In order to strengthen my training, I was required to complete 1.5 times the amount of tasks I had originally worked, including content that I had never touched before. This plan is not in my labor contract. , I asked what would happen if I didn’t sign, but HR didn’t respond positively, but repeatedly stressed that other employees had signed. Later, I recalled that the company’s routine was to force employees to voluntarily resign so that the company would not have to pay compensation."
The next day, Naike submitted a resignation statement to the personnel department via e-mail, requesting the company to terminate the labor contract and pay overtime, as well as financial compensation for her to resign due to unreasonable work arranged by the company.
In the next few days, while working overtime to complete the project at hand, Nike collected evidence of her overtime work in a way she could think of, including computer screen photos showing work content, taxi itinerary, and communication with the supervisor. Recording and so on.
She also found the company’s integrity department and asked to investigate the fact that the supervisor’s workplace bullying, but was denied the existence of workplace bullying on the grounds that “the supervisor was just impulsive”.
After the job was delivered, the personnel department talked to Naike and told her that she had to fill out the resignation application form according to the process to get the resignation certificate, but there was no content related to the arrears of salary in the form.
"At that time, I filled out the form without thinking too much, and the office computer was immediately taken back. Only now I know that this document proves that I voluntarily resigned in the law, so I can't get a penny of compensation."
Naike said that in her life, she "is not easy to cause trouble, but she is not afraid of trouble."
In order to fight for overtime and compensation, she hired a lawyer and submitted an arbitration application to the local labor dispute arbitration committee.
But then her application was rejected.
"The main reason is that the evidence of my overtime work is insufficient, which is related to the company's mechanism and the nature of the work. For example, I have no record of overtime approval; I usually have flexible commuting hours at the company, and the taxi itinerary can only prove the taxi time, not overtime; The work emails are all in English, and if they are translated as required, the cost is high, and the gain is not worth the loss."
Naike feels that his experience of failing in defending rights can be regarded as "paying tuition" and hopes to provide young employees with "negative teaching materials".
"Looking back now, I can actually refuse to sign a performance improvement plan, and then stay at the company for 8 hours a day; I should send a group of visible circle of friends certification for overtime work, and record meetings and communication with the supervisor; work emails should be sent in Chinese as much as possible." But she also sighed: "Usually work is busy enough, who can remember to do these things?"
In fact, Naike’s confusion is very common in the workplace.
Shanghai CPPCC member, labor law expert, and lawyer Lu Jingbo told China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily that disputes involving overtime pay are a very large type of current labor disputes, with a very high probability of occurrence, and are usually accompanied by other labor disputes. .
The reason is that it is very common for companies to work overtime, and there are not many cases where overtime pay or other overtime treatments (such as transfers) are paid in accordance with the law.
Lu Jingbo said that in the controversy over overtime pay, employees have a relatively high rate of losing a lawsuit. The main reason is the lack of evidence.
"A lawsuit is nothing more than facts as the basis and the law as the criterion. The legal rules on overtime pay are not complicated, but the key lies in legal facts. Workers who claim to pay overtime pay should bear the burden of proof for the facts of overtime work. Legal facts do not mean objectiveness. In fact, if you do work overtime but there is no evidence, there will be no overtime pay."
Lu Jingbo’s advice to workers is that they must raise their awareness of evidence, enhance their skills in collecting and retaining evidence, and prepare in advance. “Going to court without evidence is equivalent to going to the battlefield without weapons and being bullied by others.”
Taking Naike’s experience as an example, Lu Jingbo said that if working hours are flexible and there is no attendance record, employees can pay attention to keeping other various work records.
"For example, meeting notices, event arrangements, emails, recordings of conversations, records of communicating with colleagues and superiors on WeChat, records of overtime work in WeChat Moments, etc., can all be used as legal basis." In addition, witness testimony from former colleagues and current colleagues It is also a commonly used form of evidence in labor disputes.
During the Shanghai Two Sessions held in January this year, Lu Jingbo submitted the "Suggestion on Effectively Regulating Overtime Work".
He believes that the current labor law lacks specific standards for the determination of working hours. In adjudications, labor intensity and work content are often judged. However, legal regulations on working hours are rigid and it is difficult to take into account the actual needs of different employers.
He suggested that my country can absorb the experience of some developed countries. When determining overtime hours, it should not pay too much attention to the intensity of work, but should judge from the degree of employer's control, and compulsory training for work outside of standard working hours, and the degree of control should reach a certain level. The level of duty hours must be recognized as overtime, and enterprises must not resort to overtime under the pretext of training and duty.
For the standby time that is difficult to identify as overtime, an upper limit should also be set to prevent harm to the health of workers.
In addition, the working-hour approval system should be improved. A combination of "commitment + approval" can be adopted to neglect approval and focus on supervision after the event.
During the implementation, once it is found that the company's promise is false, or the violation of employees in the name of applying for special working hours, severe penalties and untrustworthy punishments will be imposed.
(At the request of the interviewee, Nye is a pseudonym)
China Youth Daily · China Youth Daily reporter Wei Qimeng Source: China Youth Daily