On June 17^th, a young man Zhe Li died after he worked overtime up to twelve hours in An Hui Province. He predicted that he would die of exhaustion before. Since early this year, death-by-overwork reports have been on the rise in China. On May 15^th, a young employee of a well-known Information Computer company in Fu Zhou died of myocarditis; on May 13^th, a 24 year-old employee worked in the advertisement company died of sudden death when he still worked in the company, and he had been worked overtime for one month, left the company after 11 pm every day.

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These cases bring the term Karōshi back to the company again. The disease happens among the blue collars in the recent years. Besides, the trend shows that it happen among in the white collars more frequent than before. The emerging phenomenon challenges not only the society but also the labor protective policy.

 "To some extent, the overtime of some companies has been a heavy weight on the employee's shoulders", says Wei Li, "The legislative branch should include the Karōshi in the occupation disease category and provide legal support to the labors"

 In 2010, Dan Yang (make-up name) graduated from the marketing major of a university of Chong Qing city, and was hired by a company in Beijing. From her point of view, overtime work is quite common during the past three years. "I lived with two other friends yet rarely meet. Everyone is busy for making their lives, and spend most of time either for working overtime in the company or travelling for business." Dan Yang also mentioned, "Sometimes I work for the entire night, then I sleep a few hours and go back to work afternoon." "I suffer various kinds of diseases, such as cold, insomnia, dyspepsodynia, neurasthenia, etc. People who like me have little time for rest, and we live without weekend and holidays. You would rather stay there and work overtime than quitting the job. We have to do as we are asked, without objections. "

It is discovered by the journalist that people who work overtime mostly are for the sales representatives, website designers, and administrators. The situation is going to worsen while the competition is getting more tensions, leaving a great amount employment of graduates. The young persons have to take whatever they can get from the company to maintain their job. It is impossible to complete the job within a normal 8-hour working period. The employer would like to ask the current employees to work overtime rather than hire more people, which would definitely increase the budget for their HR departments.

Why is Difficult to Protect The People Who Died of Karōshi?

The phase Karōshi came from Japan around twenty century. The data of WHO shows the prevalence rate of Karōshi of different countries around the world. That makes it difficult to protect the labor from Karōshi is that there are no clear definition of Karōshi in neither medical field nor legal area. Jing Yu, the director of Social Science Institution of Politics and Law in Guangzhou, points out that Karōshi is a lay saying of a condition that people's bodies are affected by harmful factors accumulated in a long period. Without a scientific clinical trial tracking, it is difficult to say that what result in the Karōshi; furthermore, the symptom varies from persons.

With the respect to the legislative branch, the Karōshi is not included in any categories of the occupation disease. Article 15 of the Labour Act, may be applied as occupation disease, but it is not satisfied for the Karōshi which happens after 48 hours or outside the work place.

In The Future

According to the scientists and specialists, it is important to clarify the medical definition of Karōshi, which leads the progress of the legislative movement. "The Labour Act should be amended to include additional articles especially for the Karōshi, and treat it as a kind of occupation disease. In practical, we can track back six months before and after the accident. Other elements should be count such as whether they overtime more than 80 hours every month, whether they are forced to work overtime, etc. It is the approach that the law can protect their rights to take enough rest, and improve the labor right situation gradually. "

In Japan and other developed countries, legal methods and relief policy are combined together to handle the Karōshi situation. It is required that the employer should provide adequate health insurance, including the psychological support. In Japan, the legislative branch amended the laws to know how the exhaustion is accumulated before they die. They used to investigate one-week activities before the Karōshi, now they expand the time from one week to six months. They can also apply occupation disease insurance once the over fatigue is scientifically confirmed. The insurance will cover their medical fee and other associated activities. Their family will get the compensation from the government.