How To Deal With "Overworked Death" Voluntarily?

In March 24, 2015, Zhang Bin, a 36 year old IT man in Shenzhen, was found dead in a hotel toilet on the company's rented room. He sent the last working email at 1 o'clock that morning. Zhang Bin's wife, Yan, believes that Zhang Bin's sudden death is related to long overtime work. "He has exhausted himself for this project."

Zhang Bin's death exploded people's concern about karoshi.

With the increasingly fierce competition in the society, the problem of over exertion of office workers is becoming more and more serious. According to data released by Chinese Medical Doctor Association jointly, the IT industry has the lowest age of "overworked death", with an average age of only 37.9 years old. In Beijing and Shanghai, 60% of white-collar workers worked hard, and 76% of white-collar workers were sub healthy. These groups are undoubtedly the potential danger of "overworked death". Another statistic shows that the huge working pressure has led to the number of "overworked deaths" in China, which has reached 600 thousand people each year. This figure has surpassed Japan, and China has become the first big country of "overworked death".

At present, the work-related injury insurance in China carries out the principle of dangerous liability. When we identify the work-related injury, we need to have three basic elements -- working hours, workplaces (location) and work factors (or work reasons). We usually call it "three elements of work injury" or "three principles of work".

In addition, taking into account some special interests and special circumstances, China has set up a system of "injury deemed to be work-related" in labor laws and regulations. Article fifteenth of the regulations on industrial injury insurance stipulates that the death of a sudden illness or death within 48 hours during working hours and jobs is regarded as a work-related injury. However, the mere use of this clause is far from being able to solve all the cases of "overworked death". For the "overworked death" conforming to the "three principles", the families of the deceased will undoubtedly enjoy the corresponding work-related injury treatment, but for the families of the majority of "dead overworked" families, they will encounter considerable difficulties and sometimes even insurmountable obstacles when they confirm that they are in line with the "three principles". For example, "karoshi" usually occurs in the home of workers. It is hard to say that it is time to work, and the family members of the deceased are usually hard to prove to be in the process of work or work. In addition, karoshi is usually caused by overworked myocardial infarction or other types of sudden death.

In reality, in order to circumvent the mandatory provisions of the law, enterprises are forced to work overtime voluntarily without stipulations of overtime, through the establishment of a system similar to performance appraisal and other systems. In this case, Zhang Bin's enterprises do not exclude the form of combining performance appraisal with job evaluation mechanism and labor remuneration.

Because of the "overworked death" caused by "voluntary overtime", it is subjectively analyzed, because overtime is not the requirement and arrangement of the enterprise, but is the voluntary behavior of employees. There is no fault in the mandatory provisions of the current law. From an objective point of view, "overwork death" is the transformation of fatigue into a certain disease, and the main factors of "fatigue" and "morbidity" are often difficult to distinguish. Therefore, under the condition of "voluntary overtime", the "karoshi" will appear. responsibility The situation is unclear, which leads workers and employers to insist on each other's responsibilities.

Family members should still strive for the first time. labour The person's "overworked death" is identified as work-related injury, because once it is identified as a work-related injury, the family members can enjoy the corresponding industrial injury insurance benefits through the industrial injury insurance fund, such as funeral subsidy, one-off worker subsidy, and family pension. If the employer fails to pay work-related injury insurance for the workers, the above industrial injury insurance benefits are not paid by the industrial injury insurance fund, but the employer's liability to pay.

If the worker's "overworked death" can not be identified as work-related injury, I think the family members can be based. General principles of civil law The relevant provisions of tort law and other relevant provisions apply to employers for corresponding rights.

For example, the 132nd provision of the general provisions of the national law stipulates that "if the parties concerned are not guilty of causing damage, they may share the civil liability according to the actual situation". In addition, the second provision of the tort liability law stipulates that "infringement of civil rights and interests shall be subject to tort liability in accordance with this law." The civil rights and interests mentioned in this Law include the right to life and the right to health. "

At the same time, the eleventh interpretation of the Supreme People's court's interpretation of several issues concerning the application of laws in cases of compensation for personal injury also stipulates: "if an employee suffers personal injury in engaging in employment activities, the employer shall be liable for compensation". Family members may claim corresponding rights in accordance with the above provisions.

Because the death of overwork is largely due to the implicit violation of the workers' right to rest, resulting in the violation of the right to life and health of workers. Of course, the family members need to work too heavy tasks and workload beyond the corresponding quota, and the overtime work of the workers is too long, which has greatly exceeded the average working time of the society and so on.