Piece rate system, hourly wage system, online time and delivery quality are bound...
How can workers in the new employment form not be "trapped" in working hours?
Experts suggest that the corresponding working hour norm system and labor quota standards should be designed for the employment of new formats
Our reporter Chen Huatangshu
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According to the salary design rules of platform companies, whether it is the piece rate system for couriers and takeaways, the hourly salary system for online anchors, or the online time of online car-hailing drivers and the quality of dispatch orders, income levels are highly dependent on working hours, resulting in Workers in the new form of employment have to work overtime.
Experts interviewed suggested that we should explore the establishment of working hour norms for workers in new employment forms to prevent overwork and protect workers' health and occupational safety.
In the just past "Double Eleven", workers in new employment forms such as couriers, truck drivers, and network anchors have once again entered a super-long "standby" state, and their related labor rights and interests have also attracted much attention.
According to the salary design rules of platform companies, whether it is the piece rate system for couriers and takeaways, the hourly salary system for online anchors, or the online time of online car-hailing drivers and the quality of dispatch orders, income levels are highly dependent on working hours, resulting in Workers in the new form of employment have to work overtime.
When the existing working hour system and labor quota standards are impacted by new forms of employment, how should the rights and interests of practitioners be protected?
The reporter of "Workers Daily" interviewed relevant experts.
Long "standby", little rest
"If you don't reply, you are broadcasting live." Luo Yang (pseudonym), the anchor of Guangzhou Shipping, remarked on his WeChat name.
After officially entering the industry in 2020, Luo Yang, who was a professional broadcasting host, began to run between different e-commerce platforms and merchants.
"This live broadcast is over, and the next live broadcast has to be rushed immediately, either during the live broadcast or on the way to the live broadcast." The live broadcast schedule he sent to reporters shows that there are 2 to 3 live broadcasts almost every day.
Usually, after dinner and before going to bed are the time when the most viewers live. Therefore, 12:00 p.m. is Luoyang's normal off-duty time, and sometimes the broadcast will not be broadcast until 2:00 a.m.
To catch up with shopping festivals such as "Double Eleven", there will be 3 consecutive broadcasts every day, each live broadcast for 3 to 4 hours.
During the live broadcast, you should always keep your emotions full. After get off work, Luo Yang felt that his whole body was "emptied", and he didn't want to say a word.
Like Luo Yang, Chen Guang (pseudonym), a car-hailing driver in Hefei, is also physically and mentally exhausted after picking up the car every day.
From leaving the car at 6 in the morning until closing at eight or nine in the evening, he spent almost all his day in the car.
For more than half a year, he rarely rests.
The "2021 China First-tier Cities Travel Platform Research Report" previously released by the School of Social Sciences of Tsinghua University shows that most of the online car-hailing drivers are operating at high load, with an average daily working time of 11.05 hours, of which 49.21% of the online car-hailing drivers 27.38% of drivers work 12 to 16 hours a day, and 74.76% of drivers travel 7 days a week.
Although each platform has mandatory measures to prevent drivers from fatigued driving, however, for most drivers, the 20 minutes of mandatory rest every 4 hours cannot really rest, they can only run empty on the road, and some drivers even change platforms to continue to pick up. one.
Income is flexible and time dependent
Luo Yang has not signed a contract with a live broadcast agency, and his work is relatively independent and flexible. At the same time, it also means that he has no basic salary and earns an hourly salary, ranging from 100 to 200 yuan per hour.
Even if the turnover is high, the anchor rarely gets extra commission, and can only increase the income by extending the time.
The reporter found that although different new industries have different employment modes, most of the practitioners' income is based on piecework.
The reporter consulted a delivery site located in Shushan District, Hefei City on the grounds of applying for a takeaway rider. The person in charge said that the basic unit price is 5 yuan per order, after 3 months of employment, 28 days of monthly attendance and enough 1,000 orders, you can get The highest unit price of 6.8 yuan/order.
The top performer on this site, Xiao Liu, earns nearly 10,000 yuan a month. Correspondingly, he is online for more than ten hours a day. In one month, he ran nearly 1,800 orders.
For workers in the new form of employment, more often, they "can't stop if they want to".
The aforementioned "Report" pointed out that some drivers said: "If you don't leave the car, you will be dropped, and if you drop it, it will affect the order, so you need to run every day." 10 hours, the higher the active value, the more orders sent, the better, "feeling 'trapped' by the online time".
"If you don't run too much, you may not even be able to earn the rental fee." Chen Guang's daily rental fee is 125 yuan, and the percentage of each order varies from 18% to 30%. There is not much left after getting it.
"The unit price is too low, and a single price order can only earn a starting fee." To this end, he has registered multiple platforms, and he will run whichever price is right.
For Luo Yang, once he stops, it may mean being left behind by the industry.
"A colleague took a 10-day break, and when he came back, he found that the brand he previously cooperated with had found a new anchor." Luo Yang felt that the live broadcast industry was becoming more and more "rolled up", new people were constantly pouring in, and hourly wages were "shrinking".
Targeted exploration of working hours
Xiao Zhu, executive dean and professor of the Law School of China Institute of Labor Relations, said that the employment forms of new formats are flexible and diverse, and some employees have signed labor contracts with platforms or related parties to establish labor relations, but most of them are "incomplete compliance with the establishment of labor relations" and In the case of "individuals relying on the platform to independently carry out business activities, engage in freelance work, etc.", these two types of employment methods have not yet established clear working hours protection rules, and they are in a state of anomie as a whole.
Hu Min, a lawyer from Anhui Haohua Law Firm, pointed out that in July 2021, in the "Guiding Opinions on Safeguarding Labor Security Rights and Interests of New Employment Forms" jointly issued by eight departments including the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, it was the first time to propose a range between the two the "incomplete labor relationship".
He suggested that relevant legislation should clarify the rights and obligations and relevant labor standards in "incomplete labor relations".
A number of interviewed experts said that, different from the traditional "enterprise + employee" model, laborers independently take orders through the platform to undertake work tasks and get paid. The institutional logic of quotas has had a strong impact, and it is necessary to design an adaptive working hour regulation system for the digital age and new formats of employment.
Wang Tianyu, deputy director of the Social Law Office of the Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that considering the characteristics of practitioners' multi-platform employment, task-measured labor benchmarks based on economic subordination should be explored. On the premise, large-scale platforms can limit labor opportunities and prevent overwork through task continuity and total amount control.
When practitioners reach the task measurement benchmark, the platform should stop dispatching orders, otherwise they will bear legal responsibility for violating mandatory regulations.
How to establish targeted working hour norms according to the characteristics of different industries and occupations in the new format?
"Fundamentally speaking, it is still necessary to increase the remuneration income of workers per unit time to meet the expected target of workers' basic work income and reduce the over-reliance of income levels on working hours. Working hours regulation for a single form of work in a single workplace such as network anchors , the right to rest should be protected from the perspective of workers' health and occupational safety, and mandatory norms should be established for their maximum working hours." Xiao Zhu said.
(Workers Daily)