Overwork Overwork Is Not Easy To Identify Work-Related Injuries.

In the Internet, IT and other industries, there has been a "996 phenomenon" in the past two years. Many employees have to face the trouble of overtime work for a long time.

The white paper on Chinese urban white-collar workers published jointly by the Chinese Medical Doctor Association and the Chinese Hospital Association in 2010 showed that 76% of the white-collar workers were in sub-health state, while those in white-collar workers in Beijing, Shanghai and other first tier cities were nearly 60%.

From 1998, HUAWEI's Hu Xinyu, 2011 PWC master's degree Pan Jie, to 2015 Shenzhen IT male Zhang Bin, to this year's Tianya community deputy editor Jin Bo......

In recent years, the case of "overworked death" has entered the public view every once in a while.

In recent two years, two news about "karoshi" has aroused widespread concern in public opinion.

One is in March 2015, a 36 year old IT male Zhang Bin in Shenzhen was found dead in a hotel toilet. At one o'clock in the morning, he sent the last work email.

It is reported that in order to catch up with the project, he often works overtime until five or six in the morning and then goes to work.

The other is in June of this year, Jin Bo, a 34 year old deputy director of Tianya community, died suddenly at the Hu Jia Lou station on line 6 of Beijing Metro.

It is understood that Jin Bo worked very hard during his lifetime and worked overtime for a long time.

Because of the identity of Jin Bo's media people, this matter has attracted the attention of many media, and has also aroused public discussion on the phenomenon of "overworked death".

Wang Kan, a lecturer in the Department of labor relations at China Institute of Industrial Relations, says that there are two phenomena of "overwork death". It is worth noting: first, "overwork death" not only threatens the ordinary workers working on the production line, but also presents the trend of spreading to the high tech field and the white-collar class. Two, the "overworked death" shows a younger tendency.

At the end of 2010, at the Symposium on "karoshi" held by the Asian health research center of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, the experts released the results of the study. The results of 92 case studies showed that the average age of "overworked death" among workers in the case was 44 years old, while the average age of "overworked" population in science, education, IT, public security and journalism industries was below 44 years old, and the IT class age was the lowest, 37.9 years old.

"Excessive overtime and sick work are not decent work.

Young people's "overworked death" sounded a heavy alarm for the society, and also made the existing labor security system grim.

Li Wei, director of Social Development Research Institute, Institute of sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said.

Shen Binti, lawyer of Beijing Zhong Wen law firm, told reporters that although the laws of China have relatively perfect regulations on overtime, in reality, employers often pursue their benefits only from the point of view of work, while ignoring the health of workers, and the violation of workers' right to rest is common.

In September 10th, it was a day for workers to rest. Liu Lin, a programmer who worked in a IT company in Beijing, was working overtime to write code.

In the eyes of outsiders, Liu Lin has a high income, but he also has his own dilemma: "overtime is a common practice for us, especially when we catch up on projects."

Liu Lin's experience is not unique.

At present, in the Internet, IT and other industries, many companies adopt the "996 working system", that is, the working hours are from 9 o'clock per day to 9 at night, and the working days are from Monday to Saturday.

Wang Kan told reporters that in practice, there are two main situations in which employees work overtime: one is active, such as the employees themselves to earn more money to raise their family or to be promoted, and take the initiative to work overtime.

The other is passive, which can be divided into two situations: first, some enterprises regard employees as overtime to perform their duties, encourage employees to work overtime, and eventually lead to employees' "no one else walks, how can I leave" and "how dare I go?"; two, some enterprises do not explicitly require employees to work overtime, but because the workload allocated to employees can not be completed within 8 hours, employees have to work overtime to keep their jobs.

Qi Shanhong, a professor at Nankai University, argues that the reason why employees work overtime is deeper because China's social security system is not perfect enough.

He said, "young people have a lack of sense of stability in the areas of pension, medical care, housing and children's education. Most of them hope to take advantage of the youth to realize their future benefits, and the cost is a lot of overdrawn physical and mental health."

The "2014 China labor market development report" released by Beijing Normal University in November 2014 pointed out that excessive labor caused occupational diseases and overworked deaths.

"To some extent, some units have been working overtime without restraint, which has become an unbearable burden for their employees."

Li Wei said.

Although "overwork" has become the normal work of many white-collar workers, some experts say that there is no clear definition of "overworked death" either in medicine or in related laws.

This leads to the fact that the dead are hard to get the due compensation after the death of karoshi, and it is hard for employers and relevant departments to become the introspection and actors of "overworked death".

Wang Dan, a lawyer from Kyoto law firm in Beijing, told reporters that there is no concept of "overworked death" in China's current laws and regulations.

What is most relevant to this is the rule of "industrial injury" in China's "industrial injury insurance Ordinance", that is, "the death of a sudden illness at work time and at work or death within 48 hours after rescue is regarded as a work-related injury".

"This law can be applied to the condition of" overworked death "in workers' working hours and jobs, but it does not apply to" overworked death "occurring outside work hours or jobs.

Moreover, the "48 hours' limit of industrial injury itself has repeatedly raised questions."

Wang Dan lawyer said.

As early as the 2005 national two sessions, NPC deputy and Professor Huang Xiyue of Chongqing University proposed legislation to prevent "overworked death".

At present, the legal position of "overwork death" in China's legal profession and academia is highly controversial.

There are opinions that we should define "overworked death" as a kind of occupational injury and define and deal with it separately.

But there are also views that "overworked death" is the death of overworked workers. Many mental workers are not exposed to occupational toxic and harmful factors in the course of their work. The two can not be equated. Therefore, "overworked death" should not be included in the category of occupational diseases.

It is suggested that the medical identification standard of "overwork death" should be promoted as soon as possible. Only when the concept of "overworked death" is clearly defined in medicine, can it be further rigidly standardized in law.

"Overwork" causes workers to die early, which is regrettable. Then how can we reduce or even avoid the occurrence of "overwork"? Shen Jianfeng, an associate professor of China Institute of Industrial Relations, thinks that dealing with the problem of overwork death should be carried out in two aspects: pre - prevention and post - relief.

"Post relief" is to put "overworked death" into the category of work injury as soon as possible.

The occurrence of "karoshi" is mostly due to the avoidance of statutory working hours prescribed by the law and the violation of workers' right to rest in disguised form.

Therefore, control workers' working hours and ensure their working time.

The right to rest is the only way to prevent and reduce the phenomenon of karoshi.

Shen Jianfeng said.

Shen Jianfeng suggested: "the departments concerned need to refine the method for determining overtime work and the time limit for overtime work, and make clear the legal responsibilities of employees who work overtime to be improper."

In the United States and Europe, precautionary measures are generally adopted, including the flexible working system formulated by American companies for the relief of employees. Laws and regulations such as health and safety work formulated by the European Union and member states require companies to provide health protection and psychological support to employees.

Japan has implemented an ex post relief system, including explicitly stipulating in the legislation that if fatigue is excessive and fatigue leads to suicide, it is considered to be a labor disaster (referred to as "labor disaster", which is equivalent to industrial injury in China). It can be applied for the application of labor insurance, so that it can enjoy convalescence compensation, damage compensation, survivor compensation and so on.

In recent years, the Japanese government has begun to modify the standard of identification of death from overwork. Instead of investigating the work situation within a week before death, the Japanese government began to investigate the situation within 6 months, so as to master the "fatigue accumulation degree" and consider other main reasons besides working hours, such as the frequent travel time and working environment, and also stipulate the obligation of enterprises to ensure workers' safety.