An online survey probing the actual working hours of Chinese office workers on October 14 became a hot topic on GitHub, a Microsoft-owned platform that allows developers to share code and
Employees at a technology startup in Beijing, China take a break between hours.
Github is the place that initiated the `996.ICU` campaign in 2019, a campaign to protest the `work culture` from `9am to 9pm, 6 days a week`, in Chinese workplaces.
`Campaign initiated by Chinese programmers to address widespread and unregulated overtime at many companies, including technology companies` is the description of the latest campaign available
The database summarizes information from a survey, including workers’ jobs, start and end times, lunch and dinner times, number of days worked per week, and other
The majority of employees of 10 major technology companies such as Tencent, Alibaba, Huawei, ByteDance and Baidu said they start their day at 10:00 a.m. and end at 9:00 p.m., with a break for lunch and dinner of about three hours.
In addition to the database, the project also created at least 10 chat groups on QQ, a popular messaging application in China.
Zheng, 25, an employee of ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, said he usually arrives at the office before 10:30 and leaves at 9:00 p.m., working 5 days a week, sometimes working overtime until 10:00 p.m.
`For me, 996 not only causes physical fatigue but also mental fatigue. We are always in a hurry to keep up with schedule, even going to the bathroom has to be quick,` Zheng said.
Su, a Huawei employee who also participated in the campaign, said he had to work from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. for three days, and work until 6 p.m. on the remaining two days.
Huawei declined to comment, and ByteDance did not respond to a request for comment.
The overtime debate started in March 2019 on Github when a programmer created a campaign accusing e-commerce companies Youzan and JD of pressuring employees to work overtime.
In August, China’s Supreme Court released a document clarifying legal standards on working hours and overtime pay.
However, both Zheng and Su are pessimistic about the future.
`The campaign is just a demand made by low-level employees. I don’t think any management level will join us,` Zheng said.
`It all depends on whether the government actually tries to enforce the law,` Su said.
Hannah