【Can I be offline outside of 8 hours? ②】Is it too casual to create a group? How to get paid for "invisible overtime"
Reading Tips
Some workers said that they don’t know when there were more and more work-related WeChat groups.
Every group is an online work scenario, all transmitting work pressure.
Experts suggest that employees should be given the right to request leave online, and employees who have been approved for leave should be allowed not to pay attention to, not reply to, and not deal with the information of the work group.
Head office group, branch group, department group, project progress group, customer feedback group... Zhao Linlin, who works as a store administrator in a chain supermarket in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, has 38 top work groups on WeChat.
After work, my cell phone often rings.
In March last year, overwhelmed by the workload, Zhao Linlin chose to leave her job and applied for overtime pay. After court mediation, the company paid her overtime pay of 8,400 yuan.
Zhao Linlin is not the only one whose life is overwhelmed by work groups.
After get off work and during holidays, replying to WeChat work group messages that pop up at any time has become a new work scenario.
In addition to traditional working methods, whether other work group check-in, real-time reporting, daily maintenance, task assignments, etc. that can be "linked" to work should be included in the identification of "work" has become a topic of public concern.
It is difficult to determine whether replying to messages in a WeChat group counts as overtime work
When she first joined the company in 2017, Zhao Linlin did not feel that the work group was a burden. Instead, she felt that it made work more convenient.
I don’t know since when, WeChat group building has become more and more casual.
A group is created for each task, and a group is created for each activity. Each group is an online work scenario, and all of them transmit work pressure.
“Only 16 groups have set up Do Not Disturb messages, and the rest of the company’s internal groups dare not set it up.” Zhao Linlin told reporters that she was notified by the group because she did not reply to messages in time when doing laundry, and her salary was deducted 200 yuan three times.
Various work groups, large and small, are platforms for issuing work instructions, arranging work, supervising work, summarizing work, giving feedback, and exchanging information.
In the group, the company requires employees not only to simply receive a reply, but also to comprehensively read and clarify the necessary information in the work group and respond.
Zhao Linlin said that she was still working in the work group at 12 o'clock in the middle of the night, and she also guided her son in homework while replying to messages in the group.
In April 2023, Zhao Linlin requested the company to pay one year of delayed overtime pay, overtime pay on rest days, and overtime pay on statutory holidays totaling 37,000 yuan.
The Labor Arbitration Commission did not support her request, and Zhao Linlin refused to accept the ruling and went to court.
The court held that taking into account that Zhao Linlin’s use of WeChat during non-working hours went beyond the scope of ordinary simple communication and involved substantial labor content, which obviously took up rest time, it should be deemed as overtime work.
Considering that Zhao Linlin was unable to provide proof of overtime hours, after mediation, the employer paid her overtime pay of 8,400 yuan.
However, there are also workers who do not receive overtime rights due to their work in the work group.
In November 2023, Chu Ze, a salesman from a trading company in Dalian, applied to the local labor arbitration tribunal for overtime pay, but was not supported.
The reason for the ruling given by the arbitral tribunal is that overtime refers to the employer arranging workers to continue to perform their jobs outside of legal working hours based on production and operation needs.
Chu Ze responded to customer information in the WeChat group outside of working hours. Although it was his job, it was not part of the work arranged by the employer.
At the same time, the application was not submitted in accordance with company regulations and approved by the supervisor.
The chat records and check-in records in the WeChat group provided by Chu Ze can only reflect the behavior of sending messages and communicating at a specific time, and cannot prove his continuous labor status.
It is difficult to calculate working hours using WeChat groups
Before the popularity of WeChat work groups, "you can escape when you go home and leave your office computer, and your rest time will be much quieter."
Zhao Linlin said.
Until her resignation, the company she worked for had not established rules and regulations for the establishment and management of work groups, nor had it clarified the authority to establish a group, nor set the approval process and conditions for group establishment.
The reporter randomly interviewed 10 employers, and some regulations stipulated the content of information released in the group, but there were no regulations on the establishment, use time and duration of the WeChat group.
Meng Yuping, a legal expert from the Liaoning Provincial Labor and Personnel Disputes Research Association, said that at present, my country's relevant laws do not provide for employment management methods such as WeChat groups.
"The application of digital and information-based office methods allows many tasks that were originally completed offline to be completed online, which objectively increases the degree of control that employers have over workers, making the method of control easier and more covert." Meng Yuping said that because responding to work matters through WeChat and other methods during breaks is not done in the workplace and the time limit is difficult to define, it is often difficult to identify it as work, giving rise to "invisible overtime."
A small number of WeChat group jobs are cyclical and fixed, such as online meetings and trainings. Workers can prove the fact and length of overtime through meeting notices, training notices, attendance records, sign-in status, etc.
Most of them are temporary and episodic, and it is difficult to reflect the characteristics of the employer's management of employment.
It is difficult to objectively quantify overtime hours using WeChat groups. You can also engage in other life activities while replying to messages.
Therefore, in judicial practice, judges will adjust the amount of overtime pay as appropriate.
Workers should be given the right to request leave online
In fact, no matter what form of overtime work is required, the essential condition is that workers provide a certain amount of substantive labor during non-working hours.
Wang Lei, director of the Institute of Sociology of the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that "invisible overtime" such as WeChat office is not impossible to solve.
First of all, companies should establish relevant rules and regulations to make it clear that no online connections are allowed outside working hours unless necessary, and no group gatherings are allowed unless necessary.
Negotiate with employees to set a fixed online time based on production characteristics, special work needs or scope of responsibilities.
Secondly, employees should be given the right to request leave online, and employees who have been approved for leave should be allowed not to pay attention to, not reply to, and not deal with the information of the work group.
"The standards for identifying jobs, workplaces, and working methods that are of public concern should keep pace with the times." Wang Lei said that judicial authorities, human resources and social security departments, etc. should strengthen research on the issue of overtime in WeChat groups and clarify the circumstances and standards for overtime in WeChat groups. , educate and guide employers to change their concepts, improve the protection mechanism for employees’ overtime rights and interests in WeChat groups, and support employees’ demands to safeguard their rights and interests overtime in WeChat groups.
Meng Yuping suggested that local courts and labor arbitration institutions at all levels should pay more attention and research, understand the rules and characteristics of using WeChat groups and other online overtime work, and use a rights protection case to form a standardized and unified identification mechanism to provide better protection for workers’ rights and interests. Total protection.
At the same time, more activities will be carried out to explain the law through cases to guide employers to correctly view overtime and improve rules and regulations.
Guide workers to have a more accurate understanding and recognition of overtime, and be good at expressing their rights protection demands through communication, negotiation, and filing of labor arbitration.
Liu Xu Workers Daily