Lijia Zhang

Pinduoduo death and China’s ‘996’ overwork culture show how vulnerable tech workers have become

The government should step in to protect workers, end the 996 regime endemic in tech giants, and stop capitalism in its coldest form from being practised in socialist China

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Pinduoduo employees at their desks at the company’s Shanghai headquarters in 2018. Photo: Reuters

Lijia Zhang

Published: 8:30am, 17 Jan 2021Updated: 8:41am, 17 Jan 2021

The Chinese pride themselves on being hardworking, but the “996” culture of working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week, is simply inhuman. Sadly, such a practice is all too common in many Chinese technology companies.

The latest victim of this regime is a 22-year-old woman surnamed Zhang, who worked at the Xinjiang branch of Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo. At around 1.30am on December 29, she collapsed on a frozen street while walking home from the office with her colleagues. She died in hospital.

Her death sparked widespread expressions of sympathy on social media. What triggered the heated discussions on overwork culture was her company’s insensitive comment. Earlier this month, when the question of whether Pinduoduo should be held responsible for her death was raised on Zhihu, China’s equivalent of Quora, Pinduoduo’s official account gave a cold response, suggesting that the decision to work long hours was up to the individual.

The truth is that for workers of tech companies such as Pinduoduo, there are few options if one does not want to jeopardise one’s job, even if overtime is supposed to be voluntary.

The death of such a young employee hurts me. Throughout the 1980s, I was also an employee. Luckily, I worked in a state-owned factory where the workload was never intense and overtime was always paid for. In those days, workers were hailed as the “masters of the nation”. Why have these “masters” become slaves to work?

03:22

Stressed out Chinese man suffers emotional meltdown in public

What happened was the invasion of market economy and cold-hearted capitalism. Reforms led China’s labour system to depart from the socialist ethos of the past. The iron rice bowl has been replaced – with contract labour and salaries connected to performance.