Work from early morning until late, six days a week: Against such a corporate culture, more and more resistance, especially in the high-tech sector stimulates in China.
The office spaces of Dimension in Shanghai have the charm of a Gamer-youth-room. In addition to the computer keyboards open coke cans around. A doll in a Manga style, sitting on the edge of the table, to the commercial cat CC, spoken Sissy, one of the programmers dropped his keyboard. The animal purring softly under the gentle keystrokes. The casual atmosphere is program. As the founder of a Dimension to grip the harsh working habits of the Tech-industry, where 80-hour weeks are the rule rather than the exception. “This factory working time model does not work”, is Suji Yan (the article’s picture, to the right), the founder of Dimension.
In China, these working conditions are in the Tech industry, under the symbol “996” 9 o’clock in the morning: to 9 o’clock in the evening, 6 days a week. The Chinese labor law prohibits actually excessive Overtime. However, in the industry the is set. “Programmers today are considered a kind of Elite. People think that programmers deserve good and no one can see how the conditions really are,” says Katt Gu (picture, left), who works as a consultant for Dimension.
Together, they have uploaded a Text on the programming platform Github, the humane working hours for a programmer requires. 996.icu is a text block, the programmer can install in your license agreement actually is. Thus, companies that use a specific Software Code commit themselves to the local labour laws. Otherwise you will lose the license.
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“Huge blessing” for China
The working conditions in China’s Tech industry are really quit over licensing terms, not to believe both. “It is clear to us that this license has no real Power, but we can achieve attention for the issue,” says Gu. Well, you have. The topic will be discussed in the Chinese Internet eager, especially since Jack Ma in the debate has turned on. The founder of Internet giant Alibaba is revered by many Chinese as a Business Guru. In a speech to employees that was published on the company’s Account, he called the 996 working hours a “huge blessing” for China’s Tech employees. “If You don’t more give than the Other, how do You want to be successful?” he asked in the round. He later rowed back half and wrote in a Weibo Post, companies should not enforce such hours of work. But he also wrote, who wants to have success, will accept these conditions on a voluntary basis. “With the choice of profession it is, as with the choice of a partner,” he wrote. “If real love is in the game, you will not notice how time flies.”
Katt Gu has this overtime romance a sober answer. If a company is dependent on the fact that the employees always work Overtime, then the show especially that the productivity is low, she believes. “Then you should think about its Management”.
“What is left?” Katt Gu (left) and Suji Yan from the Chinese Tech-company Dimension in Shanghai
No change in point of view
So far, however, there is still little evidence that such changes actually takes place. The Internet industry is a flagship industry in China. The pressure of competition among the companies, but also in the international competition is high. Zhao Yiqing works for Puhua Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in Startups. They observed that the “996” was in almost all companies, the rule – especially in small start-UPS will often worked even more. “These Startups need to invest a lot of time and effort before you can be successful. If you don’t keep up with it, they quickly lose their competitiveness.”
China’s labor offices, which should ensure that labour laws are adhered to, a below. As political activists, Gu and Yan do not want to be yet understood. Disputes about labour law in China is a sensitive matter, which can quickly draw a tough response from the state. As in the past year a number of students with striking factory workers, the linearized in southern China, solid, state hard. Many of the students who had met in a Marxist study group, were arrested, some of them are not popped up again today.
Gu and Yan have made on Github it clear that your license is to read the text not as a political Manifesto. Of reporters, you can’t promise that this back in the vicinity of the work activists. “At the very beginning, a Journalist asked me whether I was on the left,” says Katt Gu. “I asked back, what is left? By policy, I have no idea.” China’s Internet censors seem to be with this attitude, satisfied. Let the debate run.