Recently, the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Special Action Plan for Boosting Consumption" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"), in which "safeguarding the rights to rest and vacation" was listed as the top priority of the "Action to Improve and Enhance the Consumption Environment". When introducing the relevant situation of the "Plan" at the press conference of the State Council Information Office, Li Chunlin, Deputy Director of the National Development and Reform Commission, stated that in response to the prominent issues such as the prevalence of "overtime culture", the "Plan" specifically proposes relevant measures to protect the rights and interests of rest and vacation. Implement the paid annual leave system by strengthening the supervision of implementation, and clarify that it is not allowed to illegally extend the working hours of workers. This news immediately sparked widespread social attention. Why has the pain point of 'overtime culture' always existed? Can the relevant policies be truly implemented after they are introduced? Can regulatory and enforcement efforts keep up? What systems need to be improved to implement workers' right to rest and vacation? For the rectification of the "overtime culture", experts call for accelerating the relevant legislative process, further improving legal protection, and enabling workers to better pick up legal weapons to protect themselves. The "overtime culture" is rampant in the workplace. "I wish I could work overtime every day, how can I have time and energy to consume? I just want to take a break at home during holidays." "My car has just been exchanged for a new one, but I often can't take weekends off, and even need to work overtime during holidays, so I don't have time to drive out." "I don't want to work overtime either, but my basic salary is so low. If I don't work overtime, there will be no overtime pay. How can I spend money without it?" Such comments from netizens have resonated with many "working people" in the comment sections of various websites. When overtime becomes the norm, consumers find it difficult to have the energy and time to participate in consumer activities. Experts have analyzed that there is still a lot of room for unleashing China's consumption potential, and one important aspect is that the right to rest and vacation for employees has not been effectively implemented. Over time, if the willingness to consume is insufficient, the potential for consumption will naturally not be effectively released. In November 2024, the Decision of the State Council on Amending the Measures for National Holidays and Commemorative Days' was announced, which increased the total number of statutory holidays by 2 days. On January 9th of this year, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Several Measures for Further Cultivating New Growth Points and Prosperous Culture and Tourism Consumption", proposing to unleash the consumption potential of employees, encourage units and employees to combine paid annual leave with traditional festivals and local characteristic activities, and arrange off peak vacations. This year's Government Work Report listed "vigorously boosting consumption, improving investment efficiency, and expanding domestic demand in all aspects" as the top priority of various key tasks, and clearly proposed the implementation of special actions to boost consumption. One of the starting points of these policy measures is to expand consumption, promote the development of the service industry, and meet the needs of the masses for rest and leisure. But in reality, when faced with strong employers, most workers know that overtime is not right, not good, and not happy. They often dare not speak out and can only choose to accept unreasonable overtime. Over time, the 'overtime culture' has become prevalent in the workplace. The governance of overtime should not be simply understood as an act of protecting the rights and interests of workers. To understand the wage system and working hours system on the basis of building a coordinated and consistent development cycle between production and consumption Lou Yu, a professor at the School of Civil and Commercial Law of China University of Political Science and Law and director of the Institute of Social Law, said. Regarding how to leverage the effectiveness of various policy measures, Lou Yu believes that on the one hand, in terms of guidance, it is necessary to adopt a multi pronged approach through interviews, supervision, and monitoring, and implement the labor benchmark system based on working hours and corresponding wage income. On the other hand, industry collective bargaining should be used as an auxiliary tool, with industry wage guidelines and industry working hours guidelines as the main implementation methods, so that workers' working hours correspond to their wage income, playing a fundamental role in the entire national economy, achieving coordinated development of production and consumption, overcoming the problem of insufficient consumption caused by excessive overtime and insufficient income, and promoting a healthy and virtuous cycle of the economy. Multiple reasons have led to the prevalence of the "overtime culture". Overtime is a sign of dedication, while not working or unwilling to work is a sign of lack of dedication. Do companies really need employees to work overtime? Does overtime really mean more efficient work? In fact, there are many deep-seated problems behind the phenomenon of overtime, which are the result of the combination of various factors Wang Tianyu, a researcher at the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, analyzed that the primary reason for the prevalence of "overtime culture" is the low basic salary, and workers can only rely on overtime to obtain additional overtime pay to increase overall labor income. Another reason is that the demographic dividend in earlier years led employers to adopt extensive labor organization management and operation methods for a long time, and transferred some management costs to workers. Due to the lack of refined workflow and reasonable operation methods, there is no clear standard for how long it takes workers to complete a task, nor is there a scientific evaluation method. Even the workload that should be completed by two people is allocated to one worker, which inevitably leads to overtime results. For employers, the cost of overtime pay is lower than hiring more people, gradually forming a so-called 'overtime culture'. The 'overtime culture' should not be promoted. Even if some workers want to be promoted and get a raise through hard work, they should achieve it through orderly competition within standard working hours, rather than relying on overtime to earn recognition for their hard work Wang Tianyu said. In Wang Tianyu's view, the key to curbing the "overtime culture" and boosting consumption is to increase the income of workers. Increasing income is not about increasing working hours Wang Tianyu emphasized that on the one hand, employers cannot force workers to work overtime under the guise of increasing income. On the other hand, employers need to improve their management level, scientifically manage positions during working hours, refine the calculation of labor quotas for positions, and diversify employment costs through various forms of employment. The call for accelerating the legislation of labor standards is gradually increasing. Some industry insiders believe that the prevalence of "overtime culture" is closely related to the low cost of illegal activities and the high cost of safeguarding rights. There are clear regulations in China's relevant laws regarding overtime, rest and vacation. Article 36 of the Labor Law stipulates that the state implements a working hour system where the daily working hours of workers do not exceed eight hours and the average weekly working hours do not exceed 44 hours. Article 38 stipulates that employers shall ensure that employees have at least one day off per week. Article 41 stipulates that due to production and operation needs, the employer may extend working hours after consultation with the trade union and workers, generally not exceeding one hour per day; If it is necessary to extend working hours due to special reasons, the extension of working hours shall not exceed three hours per day, but not exceed thirty-six hours per month, while ensuring the physical health of the workers. According to the Labor Law, if a company engages in excessive or forced overtime violations, employees can apply for mediation to the labor dispute mediation committee of their unit; If mediation fails, one can apply for arbitration to the labor dispute arbitration committee. Either party may also directly apply for arbitration to the labor dispute arbitration committee. Those who are dissatisfied with the arbitration award may file a lawsuit with the people's court. In addition, workers can also report and complain to the labor supervision brigade, requesting to investigate and punish illegal activities and safeguard their own rights and interests. But in practice, compared to employers, workers are usually the relatively disadvantaged party. The process of safeguarding rights is complex, time-consuming, and laborious. Even if one loses their job, they cannot receive compensation... In the face of reality, many workers dare not speak out in anger. Obviously, how to further improve the legal protection system and enable workers to better pick up legal weapons to protect themselves is also an urgent issue that needs to be addressed. Among them, there is a growing call for the establishment of a labor standards law. It is reported that relevant departments are currently conducting in-depth research on this issue. Previously, several deputies to the National People's Congress put forward a proposal on the formulation of the Labor Standards Law. The proposal believes that basic labor standards are the bottom line for safeguarding workers' rights and interests, the foundation for achieving decent work for workers, building harmonious labor relations, and promoting social civilization and progress. It is suggested to study and formulate a Labor Standards Law based on the integration of current laws, regulations, and policies related to working hours, rest and vacation, wages, etc. At present, China has only made principled provisions on relevant basic labor standards in the labor law. The specific systems of basic labor standards are mainly formulated through administrative regulations and departmental rules, which have problems such as scattered regulations, missing content, large regional differences, and low legal status. It is difficult to adapt to the current economic situation, especially the development needs of new forms of labor employment. The Labor Standards Law has the characteristics of bottom line, legality, and compulsion. Compared with the Labor Contract Law, which takes contract freedom and labor capital autonomy as the basic legislative orientation, the Labor Standards Law can play a role in safeguarding the basic human rights of workers, providing guidance for the performance of labor contracts, supplementing and replacing content not stipulated in labor contracts Lou Yu suggests accelerating the legislative process of the Labor Standards Law, clarifying working hours, rest and vacation, wage payment, protection of special groups, occupational safety and health, and other contents. By forcing employers to fulfill relevant legal obligations, it provides strong legal guarantees for workers in terms of working conditions and labor benefits. (New Society)