2024 is a crucial year for achieving the goals and tasks of the 14th Five-Year Plan. At this year's National People's Congress and the National People's Congress, deputies and committee members carefully prepared motions and suggestions in light of the actual performance of their duties. Among them, raising the individual income tax threshold, protecting workers' right to offline rest, strengthening the protection of the rights and interests of workers in new business formats, and implementing the paid annual leave system have become hot topics.
Right to take a break offline
In response to the current calls and expectations of workers who are eager for more rest and vacation time, a number of representatives and members of the National People's Congress and the National People's Congress this year spoke out, calling for "protecting workers' right to offline rest" and suggesting that "the right to offline rest should be incorporated into the law to increase the cost of illegal overtime work for enterprises".
The "right to take a break offline" refers to the right of a worker to refuse to communicate or handle work matters through digital tools outside of working hours.
Lu Guoquan, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and director of the General Office of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, has prepared a "Proposal on Guaranteeing Workers' Right to Offline Rest". Lu Guoquan believes that "moments" make workers trapped in the work system, and their physical and mental health is affected. Therefore, in his proposal, he suggested that the top-level design should be strengthened and the right to offline rest should be introduced at the level of labor legislation. At the same time, the standard working hours were revised to clearly define online overtime and working hour compensation. Determine the boundaries of online and offline working hours, and make institutional arrangements for working time limits for positions that rely on the Internet to work with irregular working hours and high work intensity. Expand the current collective bargaining with a focus on wages to a comprehensive collective bargaining that includes labor standards such as working hours, and comprehensively consider factors such as the frequency and duration of online overtime, wage standards, and work content to determine overtime pay as appropriate. Instruct employers to include clauses in their labor contracts that define and compensate for the right to offline rest, and stipulate compensation standards for online overtime.
According to Zhang Xiao, deputy to the National People's Congress and secretary of the Party Committee and chairman of Guangdong Jiacheng Construction Group, because "overtime" often occurs during non-working hours and non-working locations, employers use WeChat groups to arrange work tasks and require them to engage in or reply to work-related matters, which is not only difficult for employers to supervise and manage in real time, but also difficult for workers to provide evidence to prove their overtime hours, resulting in overtime pay for some workers difficult to identify.
In February this year, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the All-China Federation of Trade Unions jointly issued the "Notice on Coordinating the Use of the "One Letter, Two Letters" System to Protect the Rights and Interests of Workers to prevent and resolve conflicts and disputes in the labor field, and promptly correct illegal employment behaviors, especially to promote social concerns such as wage arrears and illegal overtime arrangements, and effectively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of workers. "As a legal supervision measure to govern at the source and prevent first, the 'one letter, two letters' is of great significance for protecting the legitimate rights and interests of workers, preventing and resolving labor risks, promoting the construction of harmonious labor relations, and maintaining the overall harmony and stability of society. Deputy Zhang Xiao suggested that in terms of the connection and cooperation between procuratorial supervision and the "one letter and two letters", the procuratorial organs could promptly consult with the trade unions on the clues of illegal labor and employment that they have discovered or mastered, so as to promote the resolution of problems. With regard to the problem of "overtime at the fingertips", the procuratorial organs may, in accordance with the specific circumstances, initiate legal supervision procedures in accordance with the law, or submit procuratorial suggestions to relevant units and departments to promote administration according to law.
Individual income tax threshold
On March 3, a topic on "Dong Mingzhu proposed to raise the individual income tax threshold to 10,000" sparked heated discussions, and Dong Mingzhu, a representative of the National People's Congress and chairman of Gree Electric Appliances, said in an interview: "Regarding the increase in the individual income tax threshold for workers, I still have to mention it this year, we have been raising the threshold of 5,000 yuan for many years, and now it is indeed going to be raised." ”
Since 2003, Dong Mingzhu has been elected as a deputy to the National People's Congress for five consecutive terms. According to statistics, in the proposals submitted by her over the years, the proposal on the individual income tax threshold has been mentioned many times.
This year, she proposed that the individual income tax threshold could be raised from 5,000 yuan per month to 10,000 yuan per month, and a new level of 2 million yuan per year (corresponding to the tax rate of 50%-55%) would be added on the basis of the highest annual taxable income grading of 960,000 yuan per year, and at the same time further optimize and adjust the level and range of the excess progressive tax rate, so as to promote tax reduction to tilt towards middle and low incomes. At the same time, we will improve the tax supervision mechanism, increase the tax collection and management of non-wage income, innovate the tax supervision mechanism, rely on the accurate classification and supervision of tax big data, and severely crack down on tax evasion and other incidents that violate the principle of tax fairness, so as to promote social fairness, justice and common prosperity.
Not only Dong Mingzhu, but also Zhang Xuewu, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Yanjin Shop, brought the proposal of "Improving Residents' Income Expectations and Activating Consumption to Drive Economic Growth" this year. Among them, he suggested raising the individual income tax threshold to 8,000 yuan to increase the actual income of ordinary income groups and boost consumer confidence.
Zhang Xuewu mentioned that for low-income people, the marginal impact of personal income tax is small, and raising the minimum wage standard and increasing personal subsidies can better promote consumption. For middle-income groups, they can consider expanding the scope of "special additional deductions" for individual income tax and raising the standard of "special additional deductions", so as to use tax reductions to increase after-tax income and promote consumption.
According to this, Zhang Xuewu suggested that it is necessary to continue to improve and enhance employment and increase residents' wage income; We should liberalize the circulation and mortgage of peasants' residences and increase their property incomeStrengthen the supply of affordable housing in cities, increase residents' incomes through personal subsidies and tax cuts, etc.
Rights and interests of workers in the new industry
Relying on the Internet, new forms of workers, such as couriers, food delivery riders, and ride-hailing drivers, are creating new values and lifestyles. However, in fact, the working methods of workers in the new form of employment are diversified and flexible, so there is some uncertainty in the protection of rights and interests, and they are facing many new problems and challenges: it is difficult to implement work-related injury insurance and social security benefits;It is difficult to determine the legal relationship;The growth channel is not smooth, etc.
At present, there are still some areas that need to be improved urgently in terms of employment security for workers in new forms of employment. Gu Qing, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, vice chairman of the Jiangxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and chairman of the Jiangxi Provincial Committee of the Democratic League, suggested that platform enterprises should be further encouraged and urged to implement the main responsibility of employment, provide necessary commercial insurance support for employees, including accidental medical treatment, and promote mutual assistance and protection for difficulties. At the same time, we will strengthen the administrative and judicial protection of the rights and interests of workers in new forms of employment, support the rapid protection of rights, reduce the cost of litigation for workers, better protect the legitimate rights and interests of employees, and jointly promote the construction of harmonious labor relations.
Whether it is possible to explore the gradual implementation of work-related injury insurance and social security benefits, and increase the participation rate of workers in new forms of employment. As a grassroots worker, Yin Qilong, a deputy to the National People's Congress and a driver of the second branch of Chongqing Taxi Co., Ltd., suggested that enterprises and workers should be promoted to clarify the labor relationship, promote the legal employment of platforms, and at the same time, give more opportunities for workers in new forms of business to participate in vocational skills training and smooth the growth channel. In response to the infringement of the legitimate rights and interests of workers, procuratorial organs may use functions such as procuratorial public interest litigation to promote the healthy development of the industry at the source.
Procuratorates may work with courts, labor unions, human resources and social security departments and other departments to discuss and resolve pain points and difficult issues in the protection of the rights and interests of workers in new forms of business. Wang Yonglan, deputy to the National People's Congress and secretary of the general party branch of Dushu Village, Puwei Town, Miyi County, Sichuan Province, told reporters that he hoped that the procuratorate could announce some typical cases to the public, do a good job in popularizing the law, and let couriers, takeaway riders and other workers learn to use the law to protect their legitimate rights and interests.
Paid annual leave
At present, the implementation of China's working hours and paid annual leave system is not satisfactory, and the protection of young labor force is insufficient. In view of the fact that China's labor force has "no leave", "can't take it" and "dare not take it", this year, Huo Qigang, a deputy to the National People's Congress and a member of the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, plans to submit a proposal on implementing and improving the working hours and paid annual leave system, promoting the circulation of the national economy, and enhancing people's happiness. He suggested that the relevant policies of paid annual leave should be enforced, the provisions on the violation of legal liability by enterprises should be improved, and the constraints on the implementation of annual leave by enterprises should be strengthened. At the same time, he suggested that the provisions on the number of annual leave days in Article 3 of the current "Regulations on Paid Annual Leave for Employees" (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations") should be amended, and the number of paid annual leave days should be increased according to the length of service - if the employee has worked for 1 year but less than 10 years, 5 days per year for the first two years, and then add 1 day each year to increase to a maximum of 10 days.
Huo Qigang suggested that the relevant departments should issue detailed rules to prohibit enterprises from agreeing to cancel employees' annual leave unless there are special circumstances, and make clear provisions on the situation that enterprises cannot arrange annual leave for employees due to work needs. Relevant departments need to strengthen law enforcement inspections, and make the implementation of the paid annual leave system a key part of labor security supervision.
Lu Yuefu, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the head of the powder spraying process of Chongqing Haier washing machines, also prepared a proposal on the implementation of paid annual leave for industrial workers this year. He believes that from the current point of view, the implementation of China's paid annual leave system is improving, but it still lags behind the current level of economic development and does not match the growing needs of our people for a better life. "On the one hand, some enterprises have not implemented paid annual leave, on the other hand, some industrial workers do not know about paid annual leave, in their opinion, there is no guaranteed salary for annual leave, and they can only give up vacation for wages. Lu Yuefu said that to change this situation, it is necessary to take multiple measures to promote the implementation of paid annual leave.
To this end, Lu Yuefu suggested that relevant laws and regulations should be improved, a supervision mechanism should be established, and the publicity related to paid annual leave should be strengthened, so as to improve the awareness of industrial workers to protect their own rights and interests; Encourage the development of the holiday economy, and flexibly guide the implementation of the paid annual leave system; Cultivate more highly skilled talents.
*: Southern Labor Daily, Integrated from the Central Radio Network, China Youth Network, Procuratorate**, Economy**, China-Singapore Jingwei.