A Beijing, China court ordered an employer to pay their employee for sending work-related communications beyond regular business hours.
The Beijing News reports that on Tuesday, Jan 23, during his work report to the 16th Beijing Municipal People’s Congress, President Kou Fang of the Beijing High People’s Court brought up the recent case.
According to Kou, during his address, Beijing courts had resolved over 41,526 labour dispute cases, including this one, with an emphasis on protecting workers’ rights and interests in 2023.
Li, the worker, sued her previous employer for unpaid overtime for time spent chatting on WeChat outside of work hours.
As per the International Organization of Employers, the employer regarded these correspondences as communications to fulfil the demands of clients within the scope of her employment, rather than as overtime work.
But in her one year at the firm, Li claimed to have put in over 500 hours of overtime since she was frequently required to communicate with co-workers and clients after hours, on the weekends, and on public holidays.
Li provided the court with all of her WeChat records as evidence to support her allegation.
After finding in the employee’s favour, the Beijing court mandated that the company provide her 30,000 yuan (RM20,000).
The text exchanges were “fixed and periodic,“ as opposed to “temporary and occasional,“ which qualifies as “overtime work deserving of payment,“ according to the court, which supported its decision.
The employer was deemed to have established an unauthorised “flexible working hour system” by the local labour department, a finding that was confirmed by the court.
China Press reported that the court officially recognized text messaging as “substantial labour regardless of the physical workplace” in order to preserve workers’ rights to “offline rest,“ making this case the first in the nation to utilise the phrase “invisible overtime” in its court records.
