“Guard the frontier for Duo Duo!” Just as we are about to welcome 2021, a sudden death of an employee occurred in the famous Chinese e-commerce company Jindo. The 22-year-old female employee, who was stationed in Xinjiang’s “Duoduo grocery” department, died suddenly at 1:30 a.m. on the eve of New Year’s Eve last Dec. 29. The female employee had been working overtime for a while before she died, and her signature file on the internet read “guarding the border for Duo Duo”; but the border was not ready to be guarded when her life was lost.
But after the incident, Pindo did not rush to extinguish the fire, but said “this is a time to fight with your life”, cold-blooded remarks sparked the anger of netizens: sweatshop also, so justified!
But the fact is, it’s not the first time that employees have died suddenly in China, and Jindo is not the only case. Behind this case is the long-standing culture of overtime, 996 and 007, especially when “overtime” is equated with “diligence”, “success” and “loyalty”, so that employees have nowhere to escape.
This may be due to the sudden death of overworked workers Gotham case, no official appearance, but see the official account in Zhihu discussion string in response to netizens “you look at the bottom of the people, which one is not life for money, I have not thought it is the problem of capital, but the problem of this society, this is a time to fight with life, you can choose the days of comfort, but you have to choose the consequences of comfort, people are able to control their own efforts, we all can.” Although the answer was deleted after 1 minute in seconds, Poundland even pointed out afterwards that the official response was untrue, only to finally be hit in the face by Zhihu said: the response is the official account of Poundland is correct. This is all enough to show the cold-blooded posture of the enterprise.
On the 9th, a development engineer of Poundland jumped to his death. Then the anonymous employee who had posted on the social platform “Pulse” on the 7th “witnessed a colleague being taken to an ambulance” and labeled “the second Poundlander has fallen”, posted a video on the 10th saying he was fired by the company for posting the article. A series of incidents, all pointing to Pindo’s company system and culture, may be the key to making employees’ lives miserable.
Pindo deleted its replies in seconds after leaving a message under the string in Zhihu. Pindo also pointed out afterwards that the official response was untrue, but in the end, Zhihu beat him to the punch: the response was the official Pindo account. Photo/screenshot on the Internet
▌Locked on the low and middle income groups, the rapid rise of the Poundland strategy
What does Pindo spell? Perhaps the “super cheap group purchase” can be seen at a glance. Huang Zheng, the founder of Poundudo, launched the company in September 2015, with the idea of “group buying and scavenging” to attract users from second- and third-tier cities who are not particularly wealthy but are sure they love to grab bargains. Poundudo relies on the advantage of ultra-low price group buying, making full use of the characteristics of social networking sites to play, and heavy mechanism settings, “group buying, price comparison, low price information, etc.” can make users who do not lack time to recruit people and friends, one pull a user, so that users grow in a straight line.
In 2018, Poundudo users reached 200 million, the website turnover (GMV) exceeded 100 billion RMB, and the daily order volume was second only to Taobao, ranking second in the whole Chinese network. Within less than three years of its founding, Poundworld went public on the NASDAQ in the U.S. With its phenomenal economic growth, The New York Times believes the Poundworld phenomenon, “illustrates the magnitude of the influence of China’s underserved consumers.”
Relying on these previously overlooked shopping communities, Huang Zheng, founder and largest shareholder of Poundland, became the fastest growing of the world’s top 100 entrepreneurs as announced by Hurun Research Institute last year, becoming the world’s number one with 250 billion yuan, equivalent to 1.05 trillion Taiwan dollars. He is also currently ranked 13th on the list of China’s richest people.
Huang Zheng, founder and largest shareholder of Pindo, is currently ranked 13th on the list of China’s richest people. photo/China News Agency
The company’s image has been hit hard by negative reviews of fake products before its Nasdaq listing in 2018, although the problem of cottage and defective products has long flooded major e-commerce platforms and none of them can escape. face up to.
Before and after the ▌ epidemic: tens of billions of subsidies and Duo Duo buy food
Readers who are fond of e-commerce shopping should not be unfamiliar with the moniker “10 billion subsidies”. In 2019, understanding that the main group of people can not be completely placed in the low and middle groups and low-priced products, to turn around the corporate image, pull in more high-end shopping groups, to ensure the quality of brand names (of course, the best genuine goods) and low prices, you must spill money to pull people.
The first-tier brand name genuine goods, the company goods directly reveal the market lowest price guarantee, which set off a wave is the iPhone can also have the lowest price guarantee of genuine goods. After pulling high-end users into the threshold, through a series of pulling people to register and then reduce the price, other platforms low price explosion bonus, shopping full amount and then send the discount mechanism, and again triggered the e-commerce platform war, Taobao, Suning have joined the battle.
In addition, due to the epidemic and improve the fresh market demand in the e-commerce platform, also by the attention of Poundland, and actively develop “more than buy vegetables” selling business. 2020 summer online more than buy vegetables, as long as the money at 12:00 a.m. order, the next day can be in the nearest fixed point pick up.
The “more to buy vegetables” in the summer of 2020 online, as long as the order at 12:00 a.m. money, the next day you can pick up at the nearest fixed point, the main “today’s order, tomorrow pick-up”. Photo / China Youth Daily
Pindo is actively developing its “buy more vegetables” business, as a result of the epidemic and the demand for fresh produce in the e-commerce platform. Photo／Pingduoduo official website
Huang Zheng, chairman of Pindo, talked about the vegetable business at the company’s fifth anniversary, which also showed the importance he attaches to Duo Duo’s vegetable business: “Buying vegetables is a good business, a hard business, a long-term business, and a litmus test for our Pindo people.”” Buying food is a bitter business, when others sleep you are picking goods, delivery, so that consumers can get fresh dishes before they have to cook.”
▌ company scattered coins, employees desperately, selling vegetables to sell the hard work of dead employees
The e-commerce platform and then more strange and clever, the cost to pay or impossible to disappear out of thin air; do their best to please customers, the cost is finally back to the business itself. From November last year, the third quarter earnings report announced by Poundland showed that revenue of 14.21 billion yuan, an increase of 89% over the same period, the first time to achieve quarterly profits, from the figures show the success of the 10 billion subsidy strategy. But also reveals the fact that, before, most of the costs invested in Poundland lost money or only managed to be flat.
Huang Zheng has repeatedly stressed that the core value of Poundland is “the right thing to do”. He believes that “the basis of Poundland’s survival is to create value for users, whether radical or conservative, will always focus on the intrinsic value of ‘this point’.”
As an employee, abiding by the principal is a reflection of work-time loyalty. The fired ex-employee’s microblogging account Wang Taixu said that every Poundland employee knows that the company has a set of “hidden working hours”. Some departments in the Shanghai headquarters have a hidden 300 hours of work per month. Some departments can make up for it through vacation, some departments will privately say that the working hours are related to performance, people dare not disobey. The most sweaty department, the grocery department, has 380 hidden working hours. All the legal holidays will be asked to return to work early. Like China’s National Day even 8 days long holiday, Poundland employees only have 5 days.
Perhaps the figure of at least 300 hours of responsible working hours per month seems abstract, but perhaps we can see the pain by example. In terms of the current legal standard working hours in China, it is similar to the current two-day week in Taiwan. If you work 5 days a week, about 21 days a month, you need to work about 14.3 hours a day, that is, if you go to work at 9 am, the end of the day is already past 12 midnight. Of course no one can fuck like this every day, if you want to get a daily respite, you can only use the weekend to change, which is equal to the time of serving in Poundland, either at work, or on the way to work.
Huang Zheng has repeatedly stressed that the core value of Poundland is “the right thing to do”. He believes that “the basis of Poundland’s survival is to create value for users, whether radical or conservative, will always focus on the intrinsic value of ‘this point’.” The picture shows the office of Poundland’s headquarters in Shanghai. Photo / Associated Press
Photo／Pingduoduo official website
And what is the situation in the grocery department, where Wang Taixu expressed his blood and sweat? Because of the vast size of China, Poundland in the last year expedition to the frontier, Xinjiang as one of its regions, is one of only 10 people in the department. One of the most difficult difficulties in the food buying department is because Poundland asks to the ingredient suppliers to lower prices than the market, to keep the lowest prices in the market, the first will usher in many suppliers of tart and boycott. Take the first day of Xinjiang Urumqi opening group last December, it was boycotted by many supermarkets pick-up point, and asked the brand to control, the reason is that Poundland’s price is lower than the supermarkets own purchase price, which also let the big manufacturers such as Coca-Cola, Mengniu, Yihai Kerry and other brands, promised not to supply for Poundland.
In addition, due to the time-sensitive nature of fresh food, the department staff also need to deal with the front-end packaging and delivery process, Wang Taixu also said in the film, buy food department many times also need to follow the food truck action in the early morning, go through all the processes to get off work, of course, off work means that there is not much time to go back to work.
Thus, it seems that earning company and saving employees is perhaps the hard work and hard truth of successful enterprises.
Earn company, save employees, perhaps is the hard work of successful enterprises, hard truth. The picture shows a Chinese employee taking advantage of his lunch break to rest with his eyes closed. Photo／Reuters
▌ A working people’s state with capitalist characteristics?
Jack Ma, chairman of the board of directors of Alibaba, said on Weibo in 2019 that “996 is a great blessing”, sparking an outcry and making the number jingle a painful mark for e-commerce platform staff. But after the 996 topic burned hot, more dumbfounding 007 also came into being, people lamented the tragic life of reading good books and going to a good university in China, and then ending up in a large e-commerce company as a human free wash.
“996” means 9:00 a.m. to work, 9:00 p.m. to get off work, a week to work 6 days of working hours; and 007 is, 0:00 to 0:00 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to work, which is simply impossible, illegal and heavy whore entrepreneurs will employees working hours as a business indicators of absurdity.
Although Jack Ma stressed that the world is not only entrepreneurs will 996 or 007, but the pursuit of success artists, scientists or athletes, basically more than 996, and the time is not the focus, the focus is to choose the cause they love in order to achieve success, “for overtime wages and 996 people is very difficult to last”. Liu Qiangdong, the chief executive of Jingdong, one of the e-commerce giants, said, “Jingdong will never force employees to 995 or 996, but every Jingdong person must have the spirit of hustle.”
Jack Ma served as a witness for a group wedding of Alibaba employees in 2019. He proposed at the time to work 996 but live 669, pointing out that “six days and six times to last.” This statement has caused controversy, outsiders believe that the original words to describe the staff overtime, but Ma Yun to say the yellow cavity way to carry over. Photo/Getty Image
This statement seems to be not wrong, even after the death of 2 people in Poundland, many online opinions are still the same as the official second deleted response. Some netizens believe that to live a comfortable and comfortable life of work, but also where there are more, but the salary is not as beautiful as these companies, if too bitter don’t go. However, the pursuit of maximum profit, does not have the responsibility to ensure the basic health and quality of life of employees in the high revenue company profitability?
As in 2014, Alibaba, a pregnant employee died of uterine hemorrhage, the family attributed it to overwork, and friends also told the media that although the employee had detected ectopic pregnancy, but because they did not want to affect the assessment in April when the year-end awards, did not take time off for further examination and treatment. And isn’t it the company that sets up these heavy assessments and performance reviews?
In 2019, Github, the world’s largest code hosting service platform, launched a campaign against 996 with the domain name “996ICU”, which means that employees (usually engineers) who work 996 high hours end up in ICU (intensive care unit). The content has many shady revelations of corporate sweat and overwork, which also includes company blacklists, like Jingdong, Alibaba, Byte Jumping (parent company of Jitterbug) are on the list. However after the Poundland human life incident, some pessimistic netizens also left ironic comments under the discussion string, “Today you boycott 996 online, and the next day you are at work doing the job of shielding anti-996.” Without the supervision of the labor department and the effective implementation of the law, the overworked hot Internet phenomenon will never “last more than three days”.
Professor Yang Heqing, president of the China Moderate Labor Association, said helplessly, “Overworking with limits is the destiny of Chinese people nowadays.” This is a sad statement. Death is limited, but excess is the destiny. Perhaps those who can’t die and can’t leave can only little by little the blood to the company’s bottom engineers, is their saddest fate.
Every year, the double 11 is the highlight of China’s e-commerce, with a large number of packages waiting to be sent across the country. Photo / Reuters
Delivery workers are busy sorting packages for the Double 11 to get them to buyers quickly. Photo/Reuters
Although the Poundland incident triggered an investigation by Shanghai’s labor department, it is still difficult to convince the public that the widespread and high-pressure overwork phenomenon can be eradicated on a large scale. This once-desirable new China, and the Chinese Communist Party that founded it, used to vow the final victory for the toiling people, but a limited open society and a delay in transparency and rule of law have made China late to start paying attention to the problem of overwork. China’s overwork studies were almost a blank slate before 2000, and the excessive myth of economic growth and its aftermath since the reform and opening up has doomed these overwork cases to perhaps never-ending proliferation.
Radio Free Asia reports that in the case of Jindo, for example, before employees sign labor contracts with the company, a large team of lawyers draw up a contract to “circumvent labor laws”, which becomes the first layer of sheepskin that employees are stripped of when they join the company. After joining the company, the labor unions in Chinese companies are almost “unable to play a role in fighting for the legal rights of employees” because “the unions in Jindo are controlled by supervisors, and labor-management relations are unbalanced in this situation.
In addition, the report also pointed out that union representatives in China are almost always appointed by the government and the management, lacking representation, and that the government’s union members are perhaps more diligent in maintaining stability than in labor rights, “the shortcomings of China’s one-party dictatorship system, not just Jindo, but the entire system in China, especially in terms of labor protection.
The chain of events, from the sudden death of an employee to his dismissal, point directly to the company system and culture of Poundland, which may be the key to making the employees’ lives thin. The picture shows two engineers working in Beijing making a bed and sleeping on the floor in the office after working overtime in the early morning. Photo / Reuters
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