A 37-year-old man surnamed Li wanted to ask his company for a week's leave to take care of his father, who is suffering from severe terminal cancer. Li's request for leave was not approved. He still took leave to look after his dying father, and the company terminated the labor contract on the grounds of absenteeism. Li applied for labor arbitration, and the labor arbitration commission ruled that the company paid compensation to Li for illegally dissolving the labor contract. The company refused to accept the arbitration result and initiated a lawsuit to the court. Finally, the people's court of Dongcheng District of Beijing decided that the company is illegally dissolved and should pay Li 113,520 yuan for illegally dissolving the labor contract.
Li joined the company on February 26, 2021 and signed a Labor Contract with the company. On January 21, 2022, due to his father's serious illness in the late stage of cancer, Li took a leave of absence from his immediate leader Zhang through WeChat and informed him of the reasons for the leave,Zhang verbally agreed, and Li also took a leave of absence from Liu, who is the head of human resources, through WeChat. In that night, Li sent an application for leave to three leaders including Hu, stating that "I need to return home urgently because my father is seriously ill, and I hereby apply for leave". The leave time is from January 24 to January 30, 2022.
On January 24, 2022, Hu, the leader of the company, replied to Li: Li had left his post without approval, and he had to submit the proof of his father's serious illness hospitalization for the superior's approval on the same day. If he fails to submit on time or fails to meet the requirements, which leads to the leader's disapproval, he will be treated as absenteeism according to the company's rules and regulations. On the same day, Li submitted his father's medical record photos, ward photos and his own nursing video to Hu through WeChat.
On January 28, Li's father died of illness. On the afternoon of the same day, Li received the Notice of Termination of Labor Contract sent by the company. The company believed that Li's absence from work without permission had seriously violated the company's rules and regulations and decided to terminate the labor contract with Li from January 29, 2022.
On February 28, 2022, Li applied to the Labor and Personnel Dispute Arbitration Commission of Dongcheng District, Beijing for arbitration. After that, the Arbitration Commission ruled that the company paid Li 113,520 yuan in compensation for the illegal termination of the labor contract.
The company refused to recognize the arbitration result and filed a lawsuit with the Dongcheng District People's Court.
The Dongcheng District People's Court held through trial that in this case, the employer determined that absenteeism was due to the fact that Li's application for personal leave was not approved. For the reason of taking time off, Li applied for personal leave from the company because his father was seriously ill and needed to be accompanied. This reason is not only to deal with sudden family affairs, but also to be filial to the son. Filial piety is a traditional virtue of the Chinese nation. Only when the parents are sick and the children serve and deal with the aftermath after their parents die can they be said to have fulfilled their responsibilities to their parents.Therefore, it is in line with the traditional ethics and good customs of the Chinese nation to ask for leave in order to assume the responsibility as a child. The company should also treat it with the tolerance and empathy of ordinary good people. For the leave procedure, in the emergency of Li's father's critical illness, Li has verbally applied for leave from the immediate leadership and company personnel in advance, and also passed the relevant information about his father's illness to the company during the care of his sick father. Knowing that his father was seriously ill, the company still asked Li to go to work on the grounds that the leave materials were incomplete and had not been approved. Obviously, it did not pay attention to the humanistic care of labor relations, failed to fulfill the employer's obligation to take care of workers, and there was mechanical management in the implementation of the management system, which did not reflect the people-oriented development concept, did not meet the requirements of friendliness in the socialist core values, and ran counter to the traditional filial piety culture of the Chinese nation, which was neither reasonable nor reasonable. In the end, the court found that Li was not absent from work, and the company's unilateral termination of the labor contract lacked justifiable reasons, which was an illegal termination and should pay compensation for Li's illegal termination of the labor contract.
During the performance of the labor contract, the laborer has the obligation to consciously maintain the labor order of the employer and abide by the rules and regulations of the employer; The boundary and the way of exercising the right of employment management should also be good-natured, tolerant and reasonable. In this case, Li's father died unfortunately, and the company decided that Li was absent from work on the grounds that he had not been approved according to the management system, and issued a notice to him to terminate the labor contract. The workers lost their family ties and lost their jobs at the same time. Although the company also expressed condolences to Li afterwards, it was still not enough to make up for the mental damage caused by mechanical management.
Law is the bottom line of morality, and morality is a higher law. All behaviors required and encouraged by law are also behaviors cultivated and advocated by morality. On the other hand, behaviors prohibited and sanctioned by law are also behaviors prohibited and condemned by morality. Employers should abide by public order and good customs when formulating rules and regulations and exercising labor management rights, and always remember that rules and regulations are not cold terms. If managers show more humanistic care, they will also make the rigid system more warm.
The current labor law not only restricts the employer's right to dismiss, but also gives the employer the right to manage the employment. How to balance the relationship between the two is a difficult point in the application of the law. It requires judges to comprehensively consider the facts of the case, legal norms, public order and good customs and industry norms, deeply understand the jurisprudence and reason, and combine social life experience to make judgments that conform to socialist core values and have good legal and social effects, so as to promote the construction of harmonious labor relations.
The referee in this case has exemplary significance. First, fully explain the legal norms and the jurisprudence they contain, and reveal the conflict of rights behind the law and how to properly exercise rights; Second, the relationship between law and morality is clearly explained, and the socialist core values and the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation are organically integrated into the referee; Third, it links the legal application of the Civil Code and the Labor Law, and clearly answers that the settlement of labor disputes should follow the principles of honesty and credit, public order and good customs.
With the implementation of labor laws and regulations, the human resource management of employers pays more and more attention to "procedural legality" and "formal rule of law", lacking humanistic care with temperature. As stated in the judgment, the boundary and the way of exercising the right of employment management should be kind, tolerant and reasonable. When formulating rules and regulations and exercising the right of employment management, employers should abide by public order and good customs, increase humanistic care, and avoid excessive statutes and insufficient warmth.
Source: the Supreme People's Court Information Bureau, Dongcheng District People's Court, the Supreme People's Court WeChat official account.