At the beginning of the new year, the heart of the "worker" was deeply stabbed by a **. **The protagonist is the head of human resources of a company in Beijing, and in the face of employees' doubts about her illegal termination of the contract, she replied with a slightly disdainful tone: "Can you control my illegality?"You don't understand people. I will terminate [the employment contract] in violation of the law now. ”
When the man in question asked to wait for labor arbitration, the woman said: "You go now, now pack my things and leave!".I am now revoking all of your privileges and not allowing you to enter my company again. You can wait, let's take the time to fight the lawsuit. I told you, labor arbitration, the first instance and the second instance ......I'll wait for you slowly!You try, you can't find a job for two and a half years!”
* It was quickly pushed to the hot search on the Internet. On January 8, Beijing Neox Technology came forward to "claim" the dispute. The company issued a statement that there was a dispute between the company's human resources employee Jing and former employee Sun due to the termination of labor relations on the Internet, in which the human resources employee was emotional and made inappropriate remarks, for which he sincerely apologized, and has been ordered to suspend his work for reflection and serious treatment.
Regarding this "illegal termination", the company explained that employee Sun joined the company in June 2023 and signed a 3-year labor contract and a confidentiality and non-compete agreement, with a probationary period of 6 months. Due to Sun's incompetence, the company decided not to pass the probationary period. On December 1, after consensus, the two parties signed an agreement on the termination of labor relations, and the company has paid the wages and severance compensation in full for November. However, Sun's latest response said that the company drafted a letter of apology in his tone, asking him to sign an apology and admit his lack of ability before giving him compensation. He has so far not been able to obtain a certificate of resignation.
Behind the boiling ** is the universality of similar encounters. On June 8, 2022, this newspaper said that some workers have encountered the situation of "not using it after the trial", although the law stipulates that if an employee is dismissed during the probationary period, the employer needs to prove that the employee does not meet the employment conditions, and if it cannot be proved, it will constitute illegal termination. But how to prove it, and how to prove it, is controversial. In reality, many employers do not inform them in advance of the specific, intuitive and quantifiable conditions for regularization. When the probationary period was about to expire, he claimed to terminate the labor contract on this ground to exempt him from the liability for compensation.
At this point, the company's personnel department often reveals the meaning of "for your good", "helps" the worker to calculate the time and energy cost required to go through the labor arbitration procedure, and painstakingly persuades him to take the initiative to resign, or even as Jing Mou, claiming that "even if you go to labor arbitration, the relevant departments will not accept it, and if you initiate a legal action, the processing period will be measured in 'years'".
The reason why Jing's ** was sent to the hot search and triggered the collective anger of the "workers" is because from her words, people can feel that she is not "emotional" as stated in the company's statement, but a kind of "evil" that gritted her teeth and bullied the weak, which pierced the hearts of all workers who were on the disadvantaged side of the labor relationship.
This "evil" is reflected in the fact that she is very clear about the consequences of illegally terminating the labor contract and the corresponding costs, and the two parties cannot reach a negotiation, even if they enter the labor arbitration and other dispute resolution procedures, for the company, the cost paid is nothing more than the fulfillment of the legal obligation - to give the employee the compensation he deserves. On the other hand, she is more aware of the cost of protecting workers' rights. For ordinary people, rights protection is a long process that most likely involves material costs, and the time, energy and various expenses spent during labor arbitration and even litigation have discouraged many workers to a certain extent. Even if they win the lawsuit, the workers will only get back the rights that should have belonged to them.
From various levels, Jing's self-admitting that "I am breaking the law" is not only a provocation to the law, but also a contempt for the rights of ordinary employees. What's more, she also intimidated the employee from a dominant position, such as threatening him to lose his job for two and a half years. In a wider range of cases, such threats and intimidation may include the provision of malicious proof of resignation, malicious background statements. These practices are not only harmful to the individual rights and interests of workers, but also infringe on social fairness and justice to a certain extent.
In fact, the focus of the labor field is not limited to "try it out", and remarks like "I am breaking the law" are not only from Jing. In 2021, after an employee of a large Internet company was reported to have "died of overwork" on the way off work, the company's social ** account posted: "Look at the people at the bottom, which one is not exchanging life for money, I have never thought it is a problem of capital, but a problem of this society, this is an era of desperate life, you can choose a comfortable day, but you have to choose the consequences of comfort, people can control their efforts, we can." That night, the Internet company explained that the content was posted by an employee of the marketing partner ** business with a personal mobile phone, and the remarks did not represent an official attitude, and expressed strong opposition to the remarks.
In recent years, in some companies, layoffs have even had a "good name" - optimization and "graduation", some employers have given legal and compliant economic compensation, and some have tried to use some "off-the-plate moves" to reduce the cost of firing employees, such as malicious job transfers, forcing employees to work in other places to force employees to voluntarily leave their jobs. After notifying employees of their resignation, some units immediately shut down employees' network permissions, evicted them from the office area, did not keep evidence such as clock-in records for employees, and even made a farce of lifting employees out of the company.
These events remind us of the need for stronger legal protection for workers' rights and interests. Wang Tianyu, deputy director of the Social Law Research Office of the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, once said in an interview that the labor law is a "toothless tiger" and lacks strong means of enforcement. Article 90 of the Labor Law only stipulates that if an employer violates the provisions of this Law by extending the working hours of an employee, the labor administrative department shall give a warning, order it to make corrections, and may impose a fine. He pointed out that the fine here is not "should", but "may", which is an optional enforcement measure.
Some scholars have pointed out in their studies that although labor security supervision and law enforcement are gradually improving, there are still problems such as insufficient law enforcement strength and insufficient law enforcement efforts in labor administration and labor security supervision departments at the grassroots level. Based on the basic goal of local economic development, the relevant departments in some places will deal with local employers more leniently, and there is insufficient motivation to carry out administrative treatment or administrative punishment of illegal acts in accordance with the law.
However, the labor and social security supervision department is often in a state of "passive supervision" when the employer infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of employees, and only intervenes after receiving complaints and reports from the parties. However, employees are obviously in a vulnerable position, and in order to keep their hard-won "jobs", they do not dare to defend their rights easily unless they encounter serious situations such as unpaid wages and illegal dismissal.
The lack of law enforcement has also led some employers to accept the corresponding penalties for violating the law, although they are reluctant to allow the labor and social security inspection department to inspect the materials and investigate and collect evidence, because the cost of illegal punishment is lower. Labour inspectors do not have the power to take coercive measures and enforce them, and it is difficult for them to truly perform their functions as inspectors of labour security. For example, when investigating and dealing with cases of wage arrears, in order to cover up evidence and evade responsibility, the offender often uses methods such as destroying the register, transferring property, and escaping, and the labor inspector is helpless against this act, and has no right to seal up the workplace, freeze the property of the illegal unit, or restrict the personal freedom of the person responsible.
From these backgrounds, we can see that Jing's voice of "I am illegal" is not just a personal "emotional excitement", but a real feedback on the cost of violating the law. To eliminate this voice, it is urgent for the labor law to "grow teeth" at the enforcement level, increase the cost of illegal activities for employers, and make the cost of illegal acts even heavier. At the same time, it is also necessary to simplify the process of rights protection accordingly to ensure that law-abiding workers can protect their rights and interests at a lower cost.
*: China Youth Daily.