The sudden death of a young employee of e-commerce giant Pinduoduo who stayed late into the morning has sparked heated debate.
A young female employee of Chinese e-commerce company Pinduoduo collapsed on her way home after working into the wee hours of the morning. The deceased had posted online comments criticizing China’s current “capitalist Cultural Revolution.” The sudden death of “pinduoduo” employees in the news, also quickly attracted the attention of nearly 300 million Internet users in sina weibo.
Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo confirmed on Monday that a female employee died on her way home after working into the wee hours on Tuesday. The incident prompted a barrage of criticism from Chinese Internet users of Pinduoduo and the company’s expectations for endless work. “After seeing the news that Pinduoduo suddenly died working until 1:30 am, employee 996 has become an iron law in all industries, only the right to choose how to die is left,” wrote netizen “Laughing Face Coyote”.
It was viewed 260 million times on sina weibo at noon on Tuesday. Guangzhou businessman ai-zhong wang on Tuesday (5) the radio interview, said past also happened in enterprise employees for a long time to death: “Chinese workers work long hours, work pressure is big, the labor intensity is high, it is not only a technology company employees, these factories are facing the problem for decades. Of course, because they are at the bottom of the social ladder, they may not be able to speak out about the problems they face and draw attention to them.”
The “996” mode has been bombarded again by netizens
The 996 mode refers to employees working six days a week, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Ai-zhong wang said that although companies require employees to work long hours of behavior is immoral, but the key lies in the lack of government regulation of these companies: “the key is the government’s regulation, is in accordance with the relevant provisions of the labor law or social security guarantee to require companies to exercise the supervision responsibility, the government is the most important factor.”
In addition, a screenshot of ping-duo’s official account’s response to the incident was circulated online on the q&A site Zhihu. In the screenshot, the official account says, “Look at the people at the bottom of the ladder, who didn’t trade their lives for money.” The comments caused a stir, with many netizens slamming Pinduoduo’s response as “cold-blooded”. In a statement in the afternoon, Pinduoduo dismissed the screenshots as “rumors,” arguing that the content was not posted by the company, and that the company strongly objected to the views in the screenshots.
Pinduoduo denied that the comments referred to the dead employees as “exchanging life for money.” (Network screenshot)
Pinduoduo employees take only one day off in half a month
Chinese workers are allowed to work no more than 167 hours per month, and if they work more than that, they are required to pay overtime to their employees. “Labor Law” article 38 regulation, unit of choose and employ persons ought to assure laborer to rest at least one day every week. Pinduoduo’s chairman, Huang Zheng, said in October that the company would start a “hardcore struggle” for its employees. During the same period, the company was reported to have implemented 300 hours of work a month, with “one day off in half a month”.
Li Dawei, a lawyer from Gansu province, told THE BBC that companies were breaking the law by requiring employees to work excessively long hours: “It used to be a week-long day off, a day off on Sunday, but now it’s a weekend off. “Sudden death caused by working more than 10 hours a day is clearly illegal, and there must be deep reasons why this kind of violation is so common in China.”
The 22-year-old woman, who works in a vegetable business in Xinjiang province, was planning to marry her boyfriend before she died, Caixin reported. In an October 2020 post on WeChat, the employee was reported to have expressed a vague dissatisfaction with the company: “during the capitalist cultural revolution, we were really full of leeks.”
CAI Jie, a current affairs commentator, told THE BBC that the Chinese government has long lacked legal protection for workers: “So these enterprises, especially the so-called science and technology enterprises that have sprung up in recent years, have adopted large overtime work or work mode, which eventually leads to the physical damage of workers who work overtime every day. Because there is no labor organization, labor protection is laissez-faire.”
Pinduoduo released an official statement on Monday afternoon saying that its colleagues had accompanied the deceased’s family and complied with the wishes of the deceased’s parents, and that the body of the deceased was cremated on Sunday.
Shanghai’s labor department investigates and investigates a lot
According to mainland media reports, the Shanghai Changning District Labor and Social Security supervision team said that the labor and social security supervision department has investigated the company’s labor situation and will check the company’s employment contract and working time after receiving the online public opinion.
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