Recently, many websites have appeared about the story of a female worker, named Q, who is living and working in Ho Chi Minh City, which is currently receiving a lot of attentions from the public and reported by many Press Agencies, media because enterprises to intentionally let employees “sit idle – get paid”

It is known that Ms. Q has signed an indefinite-term labor contract with Company A since 2014, and Ms. Q has been assigned as a model developer, up to now, Ms. Q’s salary is more than 40 million VND per month.

Her working still had performed as usual until 2021, at this time, she has bought and used 1 product at a store of her Company, according to Ms. Q, the quality of this product is not good and the job Unsatisfied product warranty led to Ms. Q and the Company A’s store had some “unhappy” things.

Although, after that the case was resolved smoothly, but according to Ms. Q, her case was reported to the company by the store with the allegation that Ms. Q harassed the store.

After that incident, according to Ms. Q, the company set up a meeting to clarify the case, as a result, the store representative confirmed that her requirements for the store were correct, but as an employee of the company, this behaviors of Ms. Q is unacceptable. Moreover, from November 2021, the Company asked her to stop all her work, did not assign her work, but still required her to come to sit idle  in the Company.

According to Ms. Q, during this time, Ms. Q was suggested by the company to “quit job” repeatedly.

Although the above incident is still being verified and clarified, there is no conclusion to confirm that Decathlon Company is trying to isolate and force Ms. Q to quit her job, but now a day, it is clear that similar incidents are happening a lot  in current labor relations.

In today’s article, TNTP would like to give you a quick analysis and assessment of “Is it right or wrong for the company to let employees “sit idle – get paid”?

1.Is the employer violating the law?

We need to clarify that the employer still pays the employee but intentionally does not assign work to the employee. It is clear here that the employee is still working according to labor contract agreement with the employer but has “no work” to do and in fact the employer still pays the employee a full salary for the working position the employee has been assigned.

Therefore, in this case, it is difficult to prove that the employee is not assigned to the work or workplace or not provided with the working conditions as agreed in the employment contract as prescribed in Point a Clause 1 of this Article. 2 Article 35 of the Labor Code 2019 on the right to unilaterally terminate labor contracts of employees.

2.Consequences that workers may be to face

If from a humorous perspective, it is clear that the workers here are “Gravy train”, but in fact, all of us understand that “No pain, no gain” and not a worker feels happily, comfortably receiving the company’s monthly salary when falling into this situation. So what can workers do?

  • The employee resigns actively: in this case, applying for leave and receiving some benefits will definitely be the choice of many people. In some cases, employees voluntarily quit their jobs because they were too dissatisfied with the company, thus losing many of their legitimate rights when the employer unilaterally terminated the labor contract because the employee voluntarily quit without a legitimate reason for 05 consecutive working days or more as specified in Point e, Clause 1, Article 36 of the Labor Code on the right to unilaterally terminate the labor contract of the employer.
  • Employees still continue to come to the company: the two parties will definitely not be satisfied, in this case the employee will have to bear a lot of pressure,  to be isolated by the company and  to be discriminated the colleagues.

There are many cases like M.s Q’s mentioned above happening, although it is not known who is right and who is wrong, it is clear that this is also a loose point in the labor law of our country that needs to be improved and supplemented. Nessesscary to have more detailed and specific legal sanctions for these cases not only ensures the interests of each party when entering into labor relations, but also contributes to building a more honest and developing working environment.

Above is an article by TNTP about whether the enterprise intentionally let employees “sit idle – get paid” violate the law? Hope this article is useful for enterprises and readers.

Best regards.