Publications
Labor issues under COVID-19
How to pay salary at each stage from the original Spring Festival holiday to the time when a Company resumes the operation?
In order to reduce the pressure of COVID-19 on the cash flow of enterprises, the government has adopted measures to reduce, exempt, delay the payment and subsidize social insurance and public housing fund, in order to stabilize the workforce. As to the staff salary cost, the government encourages enterprises to discuss with employees through democratic procedure, arrange in priority the paid annual leave, corporate welfare leave and etc, and adopt various methods like adjusting the payment, job rotation and off-work rotation, shortening of work hours, remote office and etc to stabilize jobs. The enterprise shall keep written evidence of negotiation with staff.
Due to the impact of COVID-19, an enterprise will see that they shall treat salary differently for different stages: the original Spring Festival of 2020 was extended, extended Spring Festival and Delaying back to work period.
Remarks:
The calculation rules for overtime salary from 24th Jan. to 9th Feb is only applicable to employees under the Standard Working Hour System. As to employees under the Comprehensive Working Hour System, the Company shall determine whether there is overtime in view of the entire cycle. If there is overtime, the Company shall pay the overtime salary (i.e. 150%). As to employees under the Flexible Working Hour System, the Company doesn’t need to pay the overtime salary (except for statutory holidays).
If the employee is quarantined and/or in the medical observation period, how to pay the salary？
As to COVID-19 patients, suspected patients or close contacts who can’t work in the quarantine and/or medical observation period, they are regarded as working during the quarantine and/or medical observation period, and the Company shall pay normal salary to employees.
As to employees who still receive therapy and can’t come back to work after the quarantine and/or medical observation period, how to pay the salary?
The employee enters into the “Medical Period” if he/she still receives therapy and can’t come back to work after the quarantine and/or medical observation period. Medical period is a legal concept. To put it into simple terms, Medical Period is a legal protection period in which a Company can’t dissolve the labor contract of an employee because of illness. An employee has a medical period from 3 to 24 months. During an employee’s medical period, the Company shall pay the sick leave salary. If the labor contract or collective contract doesn’t specify the sick leave salary or the agreed sick leave salary is lower than 80% of the local minimum salary, a Company shall pay 80% of the local minimum salary as the employee’s sick leave salary (Dalian’s minimum salary is RMB 1810/month).
If an employee can’t return to work because the government adopts control measures, how to pay the salary?
After the “Delaying Back to Work Period” ends and an employee still can’t return to work because the government adopts emergent measures like locking down the Affected Area, and can’t work remotely or in other ways, the Company can make a choice from below:
(1)Follow the rules of paying salary during the shutdown period; i.e. paying the salary in accordance with the labor contract if the employee can’t return to work within one salary-paying cycle; paying the living allowance if the employee can’t return to work beyond one salary-paying cycle;
(2)The Company could negotiate with the employee and sign the “Holding the Position Agreement” or “Labor Contract Suspension Agreement” to agree on the salary, payment of social insurance, calculation of working years during the Holding the Position or Suspension period.
If a Company requests an employee (from severely affected area, employees at non-urgent positions, high-risk employees) to postpone the return trip in response to local government’s call, and if the employee can’t work in other ways, the Company and employee could negotiate and the Company could follow the government’s rules about salary for employees who can’t return to work because that the government adopts emergent measures.
If an employee self-quarantines for 14 days as requested by the government, how to pay the salary?
If an employee self-quarantines for 14 days (which belongs to the scenario that the government adopts the quarantine measures or other emergent measures, resulting in that employees can’t work normally), the Company shall pay the normal salary. If the self-quarantine period of an employee overlaps with the “Delaying Back to Work” period, the overlapped period isn’t calculated separately, and the Company shall pay the salary in accordance with rules for “Delaying Back to Work” period.
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