The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security
("MOHRSS") and the Supreme People's
Court jointly released the Second Batch of Typical Labor
Dispute Cases and openly commented on ten typical cases
about overtime disputes. The judicial rules that are further
clarified in these cases mainly include that (1) employees can
legally refuse overtime work arranged beyond the maximum working
hours allowed by law; (2) employees' advanced waiver of
overtime pay in writing is invalid; (3) the facts of employees'
overtime cannot be denied by provisions in employer's internal
policy or employees' failure of fulfilling approval procedures
in accordance with employer's internal policy; (4) the employer
and employees shall bear respective burden of proof in the process
of resolving overtime disputes; and (5) overtime pay is labor
remuneration in nature and, from a statute of limitation
perspective, the limitation period for overtime claims shall be one
year commencing from the
