HONG KONG (AP) – E-commerce workers who kept China fed during the coronavirus pandemic, making their bosses billionaires even richer, are so unhappy with their salaries and treatment that one has just set fire to protest .
China’s Internet industries have long been known and demanding. With millions of families locked up at home, demand has grown and employees have delivered tons of vegetables, rice, meat, diapers and other supplies, often aboard scooters that have exposed them to the freezing cold of winter.
For white-collar workers in the technology industry, wages are better than in some industries, but employees are often expected to work 12 hours a day or more.
The human cost drew public attention after the deaths of two employees on the Pinduoduo e-commerce platform, known for selling fresh products at low prices. Their deaths led to suggestions that they were overworked. In a high-level indication of concern, the official Xinhua news agency called for shorter working hours, describing long overtime hours to the detriment of employee health as an “illegal” operation.
Renewed concerns about dire working conditions for delivery drivers also came to the fore when a video circulated on Chinese social media showing what was said to be a driver for Ele.me, part of the giant Alibaba Group e-commerce, which set itself on fire to protest unpaid. salaries.
The controversy is a blow to the image of Internet industries that are transforming China’s economy and creating new jobs. They have made some of the founders among the richest entrepreneurs in the world. During the height of the pandemic, the fortunes of the largest, including Alibaba founder Jack Ma and Pinduoduo founder Colin Huang, swelled as consumer spending online rose.
In a video broadcast widely on Chinese social media, Liu Jin, a 45-year-old delivery driver, poured gasoline and caught fire in front of an Eleme gas station in the eastern city of Taizhou, shouting that he wanted the money. . Others snatched the flames and rushed him to a hospital, where he is being treated for third-degree burns on his body.
The details of Liu’s complaint could not be verified, and Eleme did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Separately, a 43-year-old delivery driver crashed at work and died last week while delivering food for Eleme.
The company said in a statement that it will provide 600,000 yuan ($ 92,700) to the driver’s family and increased its insurance coverage for drivers at that level. His statement said that Eleme “has not done enough in terms of accidental death insurance and needs to do more”.
The issue was highlighted again after an employee in Pinduoduo, nicknamed Tan, committed suicide after taking leave from the company to return to his hometown, less than two weeks after a 22-year-old employee years, nicknamed Zhang of Urumqi, collapsed while going home from work with colleagues, and later died.
Pinduoduo, China’s third-largest e-commerce firm, issued statements saying it was providing assistance and support to the families of the two deceased employees. The Shanghai authorities are also reviewing the company’s work schedule, contracts and other conditions.
The deaths caused a stir on social networks, with many people suspecting that they were the result of overwork. Chinese social media users have criticized the country’s technology sector, not only criticizing Pinduoduo for a long-term culture, but pointing out that this was an industry-wide problem, with similar corporate cultures seen in most major Chinese technology companies.
They also revived a national debate on the so-called “996” work culture in the technology sector, in which employees often work between 9:00 and 21:00 six days a week. Companies sometimes pay huge bonuses to employees, enticing them to work more overtime.
“We must strive to succeed in the pursuit of dreams, but the rights and legitimate interests of workers cannot be ignored or even violated,” the state-run Xinhua News Agency said in a post on Weibo microblogging.
The issue has also drawn attention to the working conditions of delivery drivers, who are under great pressure to receive orders to customers quickly and sometimes earn less than 10 yuan ($ 1.55) per delivery. If you do not meet the deadlines, the fines may range from 1 yuan ($ 0.15) to 500 yuan ($ 77.30) if a customer files a complaint.
As part of the concert economy, such delivery workers often do not receive benefits for full-time employees, such as social or medical insurance.
Because there are many people willing to work in these conditions, it is difficult for employees to negotiate better wages and conditions.
In August last year, the Federation of All-China Trade Unions (ACFTU) – the only union legally allowed to exist in communist-led China – said 6.5 million delivery workers had joined since 2018. However, the group for workers ‘rights China Labor Bulletin, which tracks China’s labor relations, says little has been done to improve workers’ ability to receive better treatment from companies. The Union provides only skills training, legal aid and some medical benefits.
“Unions need to become more efficient, otherwise labor laws cannot be enforced,” said Li Qiang, founder of China Labor Watch, another labor rights organization.
Under Chinese labor law, workers should work no more than eight hours a day, or more than 44 hours a week on average. The total amount of overtime should not exceed 36 hours in a month and should only be done “after consulting the union and the workers”.
However, even if there are labor laws, they are rarely enforced, as employees become staked in a culture of overwork as they strive to receive bonuses or, in the case of delivery managers, to earn a living.
Delivery workers are part of a corporate culture in which even white-collar employees in the technology sector work excessively long hours, Li noted.
“Employees who do not work overtime cannot survive in technology or in white-collar jobs. Everyone works overtime. If they don’t work overtime, they will be terminated, “Li said.
Putting workers at an even greater disadvantage, compensation clauses are sometimes written in the contracts of workers in certain industries, absolving a company of responsibility for death at work and other such events, said Li from China Labor Watch. Although such clauses may violate Chinese labor law, China’s legal system is opaque and laws can be difficult to enforce.
“In Western countries, if an employee dies due to overtime, the legal and economic costs will be higher and, in general, will be more restricted as the country’s laws intervene,” Li said. “But in China, there is no bottom line when it comes to working overtime, and companies are generally not responsible in the event of death.”
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Associated Press researcher Chen Si of Shanghai contributed to this report.