What is the right to take a break offline ?

Each session of the two sessions embodies the attention of the whole country, and those proposals that are closely related to migrant workers will trigger great discussions. This year, Lu Guoquan, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and director of the General Office of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, submitted a "Proposal on Guaranteeing the Right of Workers to Rest Offline", which aroused strong attention and heated discussions among netizens.

On February 28, Lu Guoquan said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from CCTV that digital information technology in the Internet era has made labor break through the boundaries of time and space, providing flexible working methods, but also blurring the "boundary" between work and life. Some employers require workers to join the work group, and they can still arrange work through WeChat and other means during off-duty hours, and workers "rest without resting" and "people are in Cao Ying's heart in Han", and the right to rest and privacy are not guaranteed. Therefore, he suggested that the right to offline rest should be introduced at the legislative level of the labor law to increase the cost of overtime violations in enterprises.

Paragraph 1 of Article 3 of the Labor Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that workers enjoy the right to rest and vacation, which is generally interpreted as the "right to rest" enjoyed by employees, so what is the meaning of "offline rest right"?

Lu Guoquan explained that the right to offline rest refers to the right of workers to refuse to communicate or handle work matters through digital tools outside of statutory or agreed working hours. In 2016, France introduced the right to go offline in the labor code, that is, "the right to disconnect from the work network and thus not accept the instructions of the employer and provide the job".

The Supreme People's Procuratorate *** pointed out:

Every day, when I wake up, there are dozens of work group messages, and it is not uncommon for "workers" to be trapped by the "group". Zhang Hairong, a deputy to the National People's Congress and a bus driver of Jiujiang Public Transport Group Company in Jiangxi Province, told reporters that many people have experienced being assigned work in the WeChat group after work, and have been criticized and fined for failing to reply to information in a timely manner, not punching in and liking **. "* overtime" is becoming more and more normalized, and this kind of "* * overtime" is often unpaid overtime.

In May 2023, the court concluded a labor dispute case and held that long-term work by an employee outside of working hours or outside the workplace through WeChat is considered overtime, and the employer should pay overtime pay. At the two sessions of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress this year, the work report of the Beijing Municipal High Court mentioned a case, in response to the phenomenon of "overtime" in the Internet era, the court also clearly recognized the use of WeChat to pay substantive labor after work as overtime.

In 2021, the Supreme People's Procuratorate directly filed a case against the "996" infringement of workers' rights and interests, and established a "996" task force. After combing through relevant laws and regulations, analyzing judgment documents, visiting administrative organs, relevant organizations, and enterprises, and obtaining materials such as labor inspection and law enforcement and labor dispute arbitration, the task force formed a detailed analysis and judgment report. Under the guidance of the task force, the task force took the initiative to conduct in-depth communication and exchanges with administrative organs and organizations such as human resources and social security departments and trade unions, and reached an agreement on the transfer of case leads, communication, coordination, and cooperation.