The disappointed and irritated Chinese working population over forced overtime issue are raising their voices on social media and criticising Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, according to the Indo-Pacific Centre for Strategic Communications (IPCSC).
As per the IPCSC report, the workers had criticised their leaders on SM platforms for forcing them to work overtime without any payment.
Here it is worth mentioning that many Chinese companies are accused of violating labour laws. The companies regularly defrauded the workers’ wages and fired them if they tried to organise a union, forced them to work in double shifts, and prohibited the benefits that were promised to them. Female Chinese workers are sexually harassed by their bosses. This has become an everyday problem for Chinese workers. Several fraudulent training programs and many scams are rampant in China, which are aimed at cheating poor and innocent people or kidnapping women and forcing them into prostitution, reported IPCSC. Migrant workers are often hired at train stations and the bus by recruiters who promise them good wages, which often don’t materialise.
Here it is worth mentioning that China has clear regulations on overtime, vacation and rest; they are hardly implemented on paper and on the ground. The “Labor Law of the People’s Republic of China” implemented in 1995 clearly specifies that the daily working hours of labourers shall not exceed more than 8 hours, and the average weekly working hours shall not exceed more than 44 hours, and emphasises that “workers shall have the right of vacation and rest.”
In terms of overtime work, the law clearly says that generally, it will not exceed 1 hour per day; if it is necessary to be extended the working hours due to special reasons, the extended working hours shall not be more than 3 hours per day under the condition of ensuring the health and security of the workers, but it will not exceed 36 hours per month, IPCSC reported.
Furthermore, the law says that if the employer arranges overtime work, it must pay overtime pay to the labourer in accordance with the relevant state regulations. Though on paper, Chinese labour laws might look good to employees, in reality, mostly state-owned enterprises are found to be violating labour laws, according to the report.
Notably, China is facing an economic crisis and also a shortage of workforce simultaneously.
According to the World Economic Forum, China’s 1.4 billion population is declining, and the country is facing an ageing population problem. It is because the country limited couples to one child from 1980 to 2015.
China’s National Health Commission expects people aged 60 and over to rise from 280 million to more than 400 million by 2035, and due to thus, the country is facing a working labour problem.
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