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Image source,CNS
Pinduoduo Founder Huang Zheng
The fast-growing Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo is facing an unprecedented public opinion crisis after an employee died suddenly while working overtime on the way home.
The 22-year-old employee’s death occurred on December 29 of last year. He reportedly suddenly fainted and fell to the ground on the way home after leaving work at over 1 a.m., and was subsequently confirmed to have passed away.
The incident once again caused netizens to criticize the “996” work system (nine to nine, six days a week) that is common in Chinese tech companies. In 2019, tens of thousands of programmers rarely launched an online protest around labor rights, but this did not greatly change this extremely fatigued work pattern.
On Monday (January 4), the e-commerce giant’s official account posted a post on Quora’s question and answer website “Zhihu” to try to downplay the matter, and replied, “Look at the people below. , which is not for money … It is a desperate time of life ”, but this response intensified the anger of the people.
Sudden death of an employee
“My dear friend, the Xinjiang Maicai girl from Pinduoduo died suddenly when she was leaving work at 1:30 in the morning,” wrote one user on China’s workplace social media software on Sunday (Jan 3). “Does anyone really dare to come out and say a word? What kind of ghost company is this?”
The “grocery shopping” mentioned in the post is a new business launched by Pinduoduo last year, which is focused on offering cheap online vegetables and express delivery services in second- and third-tier cities.
Less than a day after this revealing post was released, the question-and-answer website Zhihu appeared on netizens asking “how to deal with the sudden death of a Pinduoduo employee after working overtime.” Netizens found that the official Pinduoduo account responded to this matter, but the content makes them unhappy.
Image source,Zhihu
This reply from the official account was deleted half an hour after posting, but the screenshot was quickly forwarded on social media.
“Look at the people below. What is not an exchange of life for money? I never thought it was a capital problem, but a society problem,” replied the account. “This is an era of hard work. You can choose the days of ease, but you have to choose the consequences of ease.”
Although this reply from the official account was removed half an hour after it was posted, the screenshot was quickly forwarded on social media and the number of clicks on related topics on Weibo reached hundreds of millions. Many netizens blamed Pinduoduo’s excessive overtime system and “cold-blooded” responses. Some people also asked to uninstall the company’s app.
“Exploitation Workshop, you are so right and confident!” Criticized a Weibo netizen.
“Who has paid attention to the health of the lower layer? We will not have enough money to buy medicine in the future,” wrote another netizen.
Pinduoduo’s official Weibo issued a statement on Monday night, confirming the news of the employee’s death, but did know that the response on the website came from the company and referred to it as a “rumor.”
Image source,fake images
The culture of overtime is very common in Chinese Internet companies. The picture shows a new company in Zhongguancun, Beijing.
Pinduoduo also blamed the response of its official Zhihu account on an employee of a collaborating supplier surnamed Li, stating that it was the employee who forgot to log out of the official account started and mistakenly “posted with his personal mobile phone.” The company emphasized that the response “does not represent any official attitude from Pinduoduo.”
According to Chinese media reports, the Changning District, Shanghai Occupational Safety Supervision Department, where Pinduoduo is registered, said on Tuesday (January 5) that it had launched an investigation into the company’s employment.
Dispute “996”
The specific cause of this girl’s death has yet to be confirmed. According to a report by Sixth Tone, the official Shanghai media, the lawyer claimed that under Chinese law, if a person has a medical emergency during work and dies within 48 hours, this situation can be considered as a “death from work “. .
However, the incident caused many people to refocus on the “996” work system that was widely discussed two years ago.
Compared to Chinese e-commerce giants like Alibaba and JD.com with a history of nearly 20 years, Pinduoduo is a rising star. This e-commerce venture, which only started in 2015, relied on low prices and discounts to gain widespread support among small-town users and low- and middle-income individuals within five years.
In 2020, the share price of Pinduoduo, which is traded on NASDAQ, rose nearly 370%, bringing the company’s year-end market value to $ 217.8 billion, outpacing JD.com, becoming China’s second-largest e-commerce platform and ranking fourth among Chinese Internet companies. .
But like other Chinese internet companies, Pinduoduo is also known for its cruel culture of overtime. Two people who had worked for the company but who requested anonymity told the BBC that the company was going to work at 11am and that they often had to work more than 12 hours, 6 days a week.
Chinese media “People” once reported that Pinduoduo also implements very strict management of its employees. Starting in 2020, the employee’s lunch break from 12 to 2 noon was reduced to one hour. The company’s bathroom wall also posted a slogan “Don’t take your cell phone into the bathroom” to urge employees to return to work as soon as possible.
In return, employee salaries are often higher than those of their peers like Alibaba or Tencent, and much higher than average salary levels in other industries in China.
Image source,CNS
In 2018, Pinduoduo rang the bell in Shanghai and New York at the same time, and was officially listed on the Nasdaq.
China’s “Labor Law” stipulates that China implements a working hour system in which workers work no more than 8 hours a day and an average work week no more than 44 hours. In the “996” work system, people can work 72 hours, which obviously far exceeds the 44 hours per week stipulated in the Chinese Labor Law.
Although there seem to be rules to be followed, Lou Yu, director of the Institute of Social Law at the University of Political Science and Law of China, once analyzed BBC Chinese. In fact, many companies have their own “excuses”, such as “workers did not complete their tasks”, or “voluntary overtime” and so on.
In the discussion about the “996” labor system that garnered public attention two years ago, Alibaba founder Jack Ma Yunzeng publicly defended it, calling it “Fubao.” Its competitors, including Jingdong CEO Liu Qiangdong and Xiaomi founder Lei Jun, also expressed support for the culture of overtime.
A survey conducted by recruiting platform Zhilian Recruiting in 2019 showed that among more than 10,000 respondents, more than 80% said they often work overtime and 70% said overtime is unpaid. Additionally, products and technology are the two industries where overtime is the most serious.
