Employees refuse to take over the work of departing colleagues and are dismissed by the company on the grounds of "refusing to accept normal work arrangements." The court rules: the company failed to prove the reasonableness and necessity, and is ordered to pay more than 120k yuan in compensation.

“My own workload was already too busy to manage. Sometimes I even had to work overtime to get things done. However, the company forcibly required me to take over the work of a colleague who had resigned. After I refused, I was dismissed.” Recently, the Beijing Third Intermediate People’s Court issued a final judgment in a labor dispute case involving “certain food company” Beijing Branch and employee Li Qing. The court rejected the company’s appeal, upheld the first-instance judgment, and ordered the company to pay Li Qing unlawful termination of the labor contract compensation of more than 120k yuan.

On March 22, 2023, the company supervisor Song notified Li Qing through the company’s internal email, formally requiring her to take over the e-commerce order business of the resigned employee Liu as of that day. The next day, Li Qing replied “Received.” However, she immediately communicated with the supervisor, citing that her own work was too busy and she could not balance both tasks, and requested that the company arrange other personnel to temporarily take over that portion of the work. After that, the two sides had multiple communications regarding work arrangements. Li Qing clearly stated that her workload was already at capacity. In March 2023, after she took over catering orders from another resigned employee, the number of salespeople she coordinated with increased from 18 to 52, leading to a substantial increase in work pressure. If she were to take over e-commerce orders as well, she would inevitably need to work a large amount of overtime, which would exceed a reasonable workload and also could not ensure work quality. But the company insisted that the arrangement was reasonable and lawful. Other personnel in the order group had already taken over the work of the resigned colleague, and Li Qing’s refusal constituted noncompliance with management, thereby violating the labor contract agreement. On June 21, 2023, the company, on the grounds that after receiving “a written warning, she once again violated company rules and refused normal work arrangements,” formally sent her a dismissal notice and unilaterally terminated the labor contract with her, without paying any economic compensation. On July 2023, Li Qing applied for labor arbitration, requesting that the company be ordered to pay compensation for unlawful termination of the labor contract of 129.3k yuan in accordance with law. The arbitration award confirmed that Li Qing and the company had a labor relationship between September 1, 2020, and June 21, 2023, but dismissed Li Qing’s other arbitration requests. Li Qing then filed a lawsuit with the Chaoyang District People’s Court of Beijing.

After hearing the case, the first-instance court held that Li Qing indeed had refused the company’s work arrangement, but that act was not sufficient to constitute a statutory reason for the company to unilaterally terminate the labor contract. Based on general work experience and logic, after Liu resigned, all of the e-commerce order work for which Liu was responsible would be handed over to Li Qing, which would inevitably increase Li Qing’s workload. Combined with the communication audio recordings submitted by Li Qing and the overtime attendance rosters submitted by the company, it could be confirmed that before Li Qing took over Liu’s work, overtime already existed. Since the company failed to submit sufficient and effective evidence to prove that Li Qing’s workload was not saturated, and also failed to prove the reasonableness and necessity of having Li Qing take over that portion of the work, the first-instance court ruled that the company must pay Li Qing compensation for unlawful termination of the labor contract of more than 120k yuan; it dismissed Li Qing’s other litigation requests. The company was dissatisfied and appealed. After trial, the Beijing Third Intermediate People’s Court, in accordance with law, issued a final judgment: it rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment.

【Source: Southeast Morning Post】