The other day, a scandal broke out in China after the death of a Bilibili employee. He died, presumably as a result of overtime work during the weekend. Despite the fact that the company itself denies the existence of overwork, this incident once again forced us to talk about the problems of Chinese labor legislation.According to TechNode with reference to an internal Bilibili letter, the 25-year-old employee died last Friday.
Death occurred as a result of a brain hemorrhage.
The employee, known by the nickname Twilight Muxin (real name not disclosed), worked from home during the festive week in honor of the Chinese New Year. He became ill in the afternoon. Then the Bilibili employee was taken to the hospital, where doctors tried to save his life for several hours.
The death occurred at about eight o’clock in the evening local time.
Twilight Muxin was a team leader in the Bilibili Photo and Text Message Audit department. This division is responsible for moderation of the content that users upload to the site.
The first to report the death of a Bilibili employee was Chinese blogger Wang Luobei on the social network Weibo. According to him, Twilight Muxin worked five 12-hour shifts in a row during the New Year’s week.
However, the company itself denies that the death of an employee was caused by overwork. According to Bilibili, Twilight Muxin worked every day from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. “He didn’t work overtime on any day during the whole week before the incident. We have created a special task force, and are also working with the police and relatives to investigate this case,” the company said.
Despite Bilibili’s words, the death of her employee caused a new wave of criticism of Chinese labor law.
According to local laws, a person cannot work more than eight hours a day and 44 hours a week. In special cases, an employee can work up to three hours a day overtime, but no more than 36 hours a month.
However, these rules are often ignored by Chinese technology companies. The so-called “996” schedule is common in them. It assumes a 72-hour week: six days, from nine in the morning to nine in the evening. Officially, no company obliges employees to work 12 hours a day, but this practice has become a mandatory part of the corporate culture of many companies in recent years.
It is actively used by such giants as Alibaba, ByteDance, Xiaomi, JD and many others. Sometimes this leads to disastrous results. Last year, two employees of the Pinduoduo technology platform died as a result of overwork.
It is worth noting that some companies are gradually beginning to abandon such practices. In June, Lightspeed & Quantum studio, which developed PUBG Mobile, switched to a five-day period and banned employees from working after nine in the evening.