After the illness, the salary is 1200 yuan: legal! But more to change
Mr. You, a senior executive of a company in Xiamen, worked for the company for 24 years. He was diagnosed with liver cancer three years ago and his monthly salary dropped from 25,000 to 1,200 yuan. The company replied that it “fully meets the legal requirements”.
The incident sparked a collective slogan of public opinion about the company: when working overtime, you should treat your unit as a home. If you get a serious illness, do you still have to treat your unit as a home? ! After that, another voice began to appear: I still want to get the full salary if I don’t go to work for a long time?
After the media's follow-up reports, people were surprised to find that corporate executives can only get a salary of 1,200 yuan after they get sick - that is, 20% off on the basis of the local minimum wage, which is in line with the law!
The Regulations on the Payment of Salaries of Enterprises in Xiamen City stipulates that employers shall pay sick pay wages according to the medical period and length of service of the workers, but not less than 80% of the minimum wage. In 1995, the former Ministry of Labor’s "Opinions on the Implementation of Certain Issues" was also stipulated.
In other words, encountering a cliff-type pay cut after a serious illness is a problem that all workers may face. Therefore, it should be reflected that the shortcomings of China's social security system should not be directed at individual units.
From the perspective of the enterprise, it is for the purpose of profit. It is not a charity. If the worker is sick, he must always be raised by the enterprise. This will inevitably become a heavy business burden and even drag the enterprise down. Therefore, the disease protection of workers should be fairly distributed among laborers, employers and social security departments, and rationalize the mechanism.
China's current sick leave guarantee mechanism is precisely the product of incomplete reform. Sick leave wages are not linked to my original salary, length of service, and social security contributions. They are only related to the local minimum wage. This regulation was introduced in 1995 when the state-owned enterprise reform was in a tough period. At that time, it was to “reduce the burden of the enterprise”, but the social security did not have an effective bottom. As a result, Mr. You entered the gold collar of more than 20,000 yuan from the previous month and suddenly fell below the minimum wage line. The contradiction that circumvented more than 20 years ago is still to be faced.
From the experience of developed countries, it is necessary to coordinate the efforts of all parties. In Sweden, 14 days before the employee’s illness, the employer pays 80% of the original salary and then reports it to the social insurance agency, which provides “disease subsidies”. Germany stipulates that workers are entitled to full sick pay wages paid by employers for no more than six weeks; the social security department then grants a subsidy equivalent to 80% of the original wage, up to a year and a half.
It should also be emphasized that Germany will exempt workers from medical insurance during the illness period. In China, the social security of employees during the treatment period has to be paid according to the original standard, which leads to the current salary of Mr. You is 1,200 yuan per month. Put down the problem of paying social security for 3,000 yuan.
The employees who have got the disease are not the garbage that should be abandoned. But the solution is not to return to the “enterprise-run society” in the era of planned economy, but to consolidate social security under the conditions of market economy. The monthly salary of 1,200 yuan after the worker is seriously ill is full of coldness, but it is "legal", so it is necessary to make changes. "Sickness has medical care" and "weak support" should be implemented in the specific security system. .