“收到公司在微信工作群发的减员通知后就被移出群了，这算单方面解除劳动关系吗？”据3月20日《工人日报》报道，日前，广东省汕头市中级人民法院公布一宗劳动争议案件，该市某公司在未与员工协商的情况下，直接在微信工作群发布通知称其“被减员”，随后将其移出群聊。法院判定，该行为构成违法解除劳动合同，公司须支付赔偿金。

This case is not an isolated case. In recent years, many workers have been subjected to "hidden dismissals" by employers. The so-called "hidden dismissal", also known as "disguised dismissal", refers to the fact that the employer forces the employee to leave the job through some means in order to avoid the legal liability for terminating the labor contract, rather than directly issuing a written notice of termination. For example, some employers unreasonably transfer and reduce wages for employees; Some close the employee's work system permissions and withdraw the work number, so that they cannot carry out their work normally; Some managers also use words or actions to imply that employees "leave the company voluntarily", or engage in isolation and exclusion behavior. As a result, many workers are forced by economic pressure, or know that their career development is hopeless, so they have to "understand the situation", "retreat in the face of difficulties", and "take the initiative" to apply for resignation.

At present, many workers face difficulties in protecting their rights and obtaining evidence for the bad behavior of "hidden dismissal": WeChat notifications may be withdrawn, office permissions may be closed, and history may disappear, and chat records are difficult to recover after being removed from the work group......

To crack the "hidden dismissal", it is especially necessary to strengthen rigid countermeasures to "support" workers. First, the relevant authorities should continue to improve and refine labor laws and regulations, and further clarify the boundaries of enterprises' right to self-management by publishing typical and representative judicial precedents, so as to continuously eliminate the "vacuum zone" for the protection of workers' rights and interests in the digital age. Second, innovate and upgrade technical means to help workers solve the "difficulty in protecting rights", for example, through technical traces, to ensure that operations such as removal from group chats and permission closure can be traceable; Establish an electronic evidence storage platform to automatically archive WeChat notifications and OA operation logs...... Third, strengthen the publicity of labor laws and regulations, and popularize the knowledge of rights protection to workers through various online and offline channels, so as to enhance their legal awareness.

In the short term, "hidden dismissal" may reduce labor costs, but in the long run, it will inevitably eat away at the foundation of the enterprise. Because, once such an incident occurs, everyone else will be at risk, and the corporate culture and team atmosphere will begin. In the final analysis, only by respecting every employee and operating in accordance with laws and regulations can enterprises win the trust and support of employees and stand out in the market competition. Chen Dandan