The end of the eight-hour-day in many companies in China should arouse our attention, says an article in Workers' Daily. An excerpt follows:

Pressure caused by peer competition and heavy workloads is driving more and more people to abandon their personal leisure time to spend every day doing overtime. The eight-hour working system, an internationally accepted practice, could even be phased out in some work places in China.

There are many social problems caused by overtime, stressed the article. And the main one is that it endangers people's health.

The number of people dying of "karoshi," the Japanese term for death due to overwork, was, at one time, surging in Japan and South Korea. Now many Chinese workers will likely fall victims to "karoshi" if the trend towards long-term overwork is not reversed.

Some people attribute employees' overtime to their own willingness to earn extra money or their workaholic tendencies. However, it is more the case that, especially in some private companies, they do not dare to deny their employers' demands to work extra hours.

Some government regulatory bodies are not performing their duties well enough to protect workers' rights. Sometimes they just turn a blind eye to the pressure companies put on their workers, an overt violation of the Labor Law.

The combined effects of employees' timidness and a lack of control from government departments have led to this abuse by employers.

The eight-hour day is proved to be more efficient and people-friendly. To promote it in a competition-driven society, we need tough action from government agencies.

(China Daily May 23, 2005)