A blacklist of 20 companies which made their employees work illegal amounts of overtime was released by the Shanghai municipal labour supervision office recently. An investigation revealed a total of 447 companies were involved in forcing overtime on workers and more than 100 were fined.The blacklist outlined the most serious offenders.

Lu Tingfei, who works in the labour supervision office, said: "Employees cannot work longer than three hours in addition to standard working hours,and no more than 36 hours per month.One day for rest should be guaranteed for employees.

"But some employees work more than 14 hours per day and take no holiday during the whole month."

The offending companies, mainly labour-intensive ones located in suburban areas, include private, Stateowned,and joint venture enterprises. Most of them are private firms.

According to Lu,the most serious cases were found in Minhang, Songjiang and Jiading districts.

Many of the companies in the areas take on orders irrespective of whether their workforce is big enough. Some pay by the number of the products produced by the employee, which forces them to work longer.

"More than 10 0 companies were fined and punishments for some are still under discussion. For the companies whose situations are not so serious, we just correct them on the laws," Lu told China Daily.

The punishments included warnings and fines, according to the total number of employees who worked illegal overtime.

Fines were determined by the size of the company - the largest penalty was 720,000 yuan (US$90,000). Total fines amounted to more than 2 million yuan. "For some companies, fining is effective," said Lu.

Companies which did not make overtime payments to workers are being forced to hand over the money.

"In order to protect the rights of employees, the checks go throughout the whole year. In July and August, working overtime in hot weather has a worse impact on the workers than other months.As the two months are a peak for overtime working, much importance is laid on supervision during these two months,"Lu said.

Telephone complaints to the labour supervision office in July and August totalled 1,552, 50 per cent higher compared to the same period last year.

"Though the number of complaints inceased, the whole situation is becoming better," said Lu.