WION Web Team
Beijing, China Published: Aug 27, 2021
China 996 work culture Photograph:( Reuters )
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
China's Supreme Court has ordered companies to let employees 'rest and vacation', adding that companies who go against the order will face strict measures
In a surprising move against leading technology firms, China’s Supreme Court has declared 9 am to 9 pm working hours as an illegal practice.
Majority of the Chinese technology companies unofficially ask their employees to work 9 am to 9 pm for six days a week. However, China’s Supreme Court and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security have now declared this practise as illegal in their newly published guidelines.
"Recently, extreme overtime work in some industries has received widespread attention," the Supreme People's Court wrote in its statement, which it issued with the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.
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Supreme Court has ordered companies to let employees 'rest and vacation', adding that companies who go against the order will face strict measures.
The practise, commonly known as '996' in China has increasingly become popular but has also attracted criticism from several other parts of the world. Authorities criticised big tech firms for making long working hours a code of honour.
In the past, several top level executives have labelled the 996 work culture as an idle work environment. Jack Ma, the celebrated entrepreneur had also once labelled the 996 culture as a 'blessing' and had asked his employees to always be prepared to pull extra weight in form of long working hours.
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"To be able to work 996 is a huge bliss," Ma once said, as quoted by western media. "If you want to join Alibaba, you need to be prepared to work 12 hours a day. Otherwise, why even bother joining?"
The Supreme Court used several examples of several Chinese companies promoting the '996' work culture. The officials also narrated an example of an unnamed tech firm that made its employees sign an agreement to give up their overtime pay but asked employees to work overtime on a daily basis.
China says a media worker collapsed
in the break room and died as a result
of the country's brutal '996' work culture -
and now the state is promising to
clamp down on unpaid overtime
China has produced a document highlighting the dangers of some companies' "996" work culture.
996 refers to people working 9 a.m. until 9 p.m., six days a week.
The practice has come under fire from workers, some companies, and now the state.
A Chinese state report says a media worker collapsed in a company break room and later died from heart complications.
The person's unnamed employer was forced to pay the worker's family 400,000 yuan (about $61,700), according to a paper published by the Chinese state ministries on Thursday.
It's one of 10 examples of court disputes mentioned in the paper, which highlights the effect of the "996" work culture - working 9 a.m. until 9 p.m., six days a week - that pervades many of the country's top firms, Bloomberg reported.
The document, which was published by the Supreme People's Court and Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, defined what constitutes overtime and provided examples of when employers failed to follow the rules.
The 996 culture has been promoted by the country's increasingly dominant tech founders, including Alibaba's Jack Ma, but has seeped into other sectors. Ma once described the practise as a "blessing" for younger workers.
It has recently drawn criticism from the Chinese public, and some companies, for its effect on workers and wider productivity.
By law, Chinese workers have to be paid extra when they work more than eight hours a day, but firms have been avoiding paying them by exploiting loopholes, the document said, as reported by Bloomberg.
One company mandated that workers qualified for overtime pay only after 9 p.m., while another insisted that any request needed sign-off by a manager, the document said.
The document is part of a wider effort by the state to develop clearer guidelines on overtime and clamp down on firms that don't pay workers what they are legally entitled to. More generally, President Xi Jinping is trying to realign the relationship between Chinese corporations and the state by placing increasing restrictions on private enterprises.
Workers have also been calling for change.
Exhausted and disenfranchised with endless work hours, many Gen Zers and millennials are taking to social media to promote the idea of "tang ping," which translates to lying flat.
The spiritual movement encourages people to take more time to unwind and be happy with their current life, rather than chasing money or long work hours.
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