A colleague has resigned, please take over his work on the basis of doing your job well. With the company's personnel adjustment and colleague resignation, the workload of employees continues to increase, and they feel overwhelmed. Do employees have the right to refuse overloaded work tasks? How to balance the "employment autonomy" of employers and the "reasonable refusal right" of workers? Let's take a look at this case together. Basic case: Mr. Gao has been working in a certain company for more than two years as an order clerk in the North China region, mainly responsible for offline retail and order entry for some major customers. One day, due to personnel adjustments in the company, a colleague in charge of another business was assigned to Gao. This means that the number of salespeople she needs to connect with has increased significantly from 18 to 52, resulting in a noticeable increase in workload. Not long after, my colleague Liu, who was responsible for entering orders on e-commerce platforms, resigned. Subsequently, the company supervisor sent an email notifying Gao to take over all of Liu's e-commerce order work. Although Gao replied "received" the next day, she believed that her current job was completely saturated and she "couldn't make time" to handle e-commerce orders that required more sales personnel to be connected. According to the DingTalk clock in records and screen recordings submitted by Gao, as well as the audio and written materials with the personnel of a certain company, Gao was found to be working overtime. When Gao informed the personnel that his workload was already saturated and could not be increased, the personnel of the company stated that they would "arrange overtime appropriately". Gao agreed to work overtime appropriately, but if he completely took over Liu's business, it would result in a large amount of overtime, so he did not agree to take over Liu's business. Both parties agree in the Labor Contract that if the employee refuses to accept normal work handover, work arrangements, business trips, training, transfers, etc., the company may immediately terminate the labor contract without paying economic compensation. After unsuccessful communication, a certain company issued two consecutive "written warnings" on the grounds that Gao's "refusal to accept normal work handover and work arrangements" constituted a serious violation of discipline. Faced with Gao's continuous refusal, the company ultimately issued a "Notice of Dismissal" and dismissed him without paying any economic compensation. Gao sued and demanded that a company pay compensation for illegal termination of labor relations. After the trial, the Third Intermediate People's Court of Beijing held that firstly, Gao already had daily work arranged by a certain company, and there was no incompetence or dereliction of duty, so there was no room to apply the most serious and final disciplinary and breach of contract measure of disciplinary dismissal. Although both parties agreed in the labor contract that "refusing normal work handover" can terminate the labor relationship between the two parties and no compensation can be paid, according to the confirmed facts, Gao refused to be arranged by a certain company to take over the work of the departing employee Liu due to his already saturated workload, which is difficult to determine as "refusing normal work handover". Secondly, Gao had previously taken over the work of an employee and refused to take over the new work arrangement. His refusal was not against the normal operation and management order of the enterprise. Based on the circumstances of this case, the termination of the labor relationship with Gao by a certain company on the grounds of "refusing normal work handover" lacks legality and rationality. The court ultimately determined that a certain company constituted an illegal termination and ordered the company to pay more than 120000 yuan in compensation for the illegal termination of labor relations to Mr. Gao. According to the court, unilaterally terminating a labor contract without compensation is the most serious disciplinary measure against workers. If an employer exercises the unilateral termination right on the grounds of a worker's serious violation of discipline, it shall comply with the principle of proportionality. The behavior of the worker has a certain degree of seriousness, reaching a level sufficient to terminate the labor contract. In this case, the employee has taken over the work of a colleague, and the workload has increased with overtime records proving that their job has become saturated. In this situation, the employer requires the employee to take over all the work of another colleague again, which is equivalent to having one person take on three jobs, significantly increasing the workload of the employee. The refusal of workers is based on real work pressure, not malicious resistance to management. Based on the nature of the employer's business, the employee's violation of discipline, the potential damage and impact it may cause to the employer, the rules of other employers in the same industry, the general evaluation standards and acceptability of society, etc., it can be concluded that the employee's refusal behavior is not sufficient to cause serious interference in the labor relationship between the two parties, and there is a need for immediate termination. In this situation, the employer's termination of the labor contract on the grounds of the employee's refusal to arrange and serious violation of discipline is considered an illegal termination. The court stated that this case clearly states that employees have the right to say "no" based on their true job saturation status in the face of the "sudden increase in workload" caused by personnel adjustments and colleague resignations in the company. Employers shall not simply dismiss workers who exercise their legitimate rights on the grounds of "refusing work arrangements". (New Society)