AN ENTERPRISE IN ZHUHAI, South China's Guangdong province, was fined 190,500 yuan ($29,365) by the local labor department because it required 1,905 workers to work too many extra hours. Legal Daily comments:

According to reports, however, the company had already discussed with the labor union as well as its employees about the extra working hours. And the company paid the laborers for the extra work.

That's why some netizens say the company is already a very good one, as it behaved better than those requiring their staff to work extra hours without their consent, and better than those refusing to pay their staff for working extra hours.

Yet these netizens miss a key point. According to the Labor Law, the upper limit for extra working hours is 36 hours per week, except under certain circumstances, and an enterprise must ensure its employees have at least one day of rest each week.

In this instance, the company arranged for its employees to work 100 extra hours on average, with some working 147 extra hours. That has broken the labor law and the company deserves legal penalty even though it has paid the laborers and obtained their "consent".

The case should draw our attention to three things. First, the employer has advantages over the employees in negotiations, and sometimes when the former raises requests to the latter, the latter might not dare to openly say no. In this case, the company might obtain the workers' "consent" against their true volition.

Second, even if a worker is willing to work extra hours, the law is the law and the upper limit it sets must not be broken. Labor rights belong to each worker, and there should be no exception.

Third, local labor departments must perform their duty better by inspecting the companies, instead of waiting for workers to complain. Some problems might be hidden, and it is the job of labor departments as supervisors to uncover them.