The Discussions On Legal Regulation Of Karoshi

Recent years, according to the reports of many domestic media, the karoshi casesare numerous, covering staff members from enterprise units to public institutions topolitburo. The phenomenon of karoshi, of which the intellectuals are the main force,is extremely serious in many cities in our country, especially the economicallydeveloped coastal cities. However, karoshi is so far still a blank region of thelegislation in my country. Relative laws and rules of my country have not set a clearboundary for the concept of karoshi, or a complete legal system to control thisphenomenon, the study of karoshi only confines to academic theory. When a largenumber of karoshi cases resort to the court to get a just judgment, the court is facedwith an embarrassing situation of judging without evidence, making the defense oflabor rights unknown. Therefore, the writer from the aspect of system construction ofkaroshi, combining the national situation and the current situation of legislativeintervention of foreign countries wrote this article. Coming up with some suggestionswithin one`s ability for the unblocking of resolution channel of industrial disputes,making the decent labor of the laborer come true.This article consists of four passages, the first part describes the current situationand cause of karoshi phenomenon in our country. By listing the reportorial andrepresentative karoshi cases, pointing out the seriousness and university of the currentsituation of karoshi, and by combining these typical cases we conclude the followingfour causes: social culture surfaces such as “work overtime culture” of hidden rulein the workplace for promotion and “wolf culture’ and so on; the recruiting officeswhich infringing on the right of holiday and rest of laborers and labor safety andhygiene; laborers who regard their jobs as life value and whole life; the lack of socialinsurance.The second part makes deep analysis for karoshi from the aspect of theory,demonstrating its concept, legal nature, construction elements and duty types. Amongthese the legal nature is the key point, so far, there are four schools of thoughts about the nature of karoshi in the law circle, namely,“employment disease theory”,“industrial injury theory”,“right invasion theory” and “contract competitive theory”.“Employment disease theory” thinks that karoshi is similar to the characteristics of“employment disease”, that is, long hidden period, difficult to discover and slowattack, while our country has enough experience in the recognition of employmentdisease, classifying karoshi as employment disease can timely and adequately protectrelative rights of the laborers as well as their relatives;“industrial injury” thinks thatwe should enlarge situations in case of labor hurt insurance which should beconsidered as industrial injury, including karoshi;“right invasion” thinks that karoshiinfringe on the right of rest and holiday of laborers, the right of work environment,causing factual damage, totally complying with right invasion category; while“contract compete” thinks that karoshi has the nature of labor hurt as well as rightinvasion.The third section describes the intervention of the legislative in other countriesand regions of “karoshi” a term which is originated from Japan. In response of“China’s death from overworked is by developing various measures to prevent it.There should be some kind of social assistance system by calling110to talk tohealth specialist, a general telephone discussion for personal matters and affairs toprevent “death from overworked.” The industrial injury area of Germany takes theform of enlargement, which makes it possible to consider it according to differentsituation, thus, the extention of industrial injury can be extended to partial karoshiphenomena, making fully protect the legal rights of the laborer come true. In ourcountry, Taiwan area approves for accepting rule of mainly applicable employmentdisease for karoshi and auditing rule of specifically applicable employment disease.The fourth section is about a recommendation from the author of “China’s deathfrom overworked.” To improve Karoshi, we need to maintain the standards and itscertification procedure process. Next is to protect the coverage of rights of worker’sholiday and rest. Lastly the labor inspection and law enforcement agency needs to bestrengthened in order to provide judicial relief.