(Translated by DeepL and I revised something)“996” seems to be tied to China and I saw a person who spoke weird chinese and said he was chinese at Lemmygrad today said “all Chinese people work 12 hours”, so I thought I would let everyone at Lemmygrad know what I saw in China. Everything I am about to say is only my experience, but I thought it would be informative. The rush hour in my city is between 7.30am and 9am, and between 5.30pm and 7pm, which is also the most crowded time for buses and subways. At 9pm, on the other hand, there are hardly any traffic jams and the buses and subways are almost empty. I think this is proof enough that most people don’t work until 9pm. Of course, it is undeniable that many people in China also work twelve hours a day. So who works 12 hours? “996” was first brought to light in internet companies. Voluntary overtime is legal, but it is illegal if employees are forced to work overtime. And overtime needs to be paid. One area in Beijing once banned overtime by coercion, forcing work to stop at 6pm every night. But this measure was opposed by a large number of employees because they wanted overtime pay. Some people want to work overtime, then some people are against it, and in this case some reluctant employees may start to work overtime of their own accord for fear of not being able to compete with those who are willing to work overtime. This is a tricky issue that perhaps needs to be addressed by better laws. In addition, many workers at the lower end of China’s manufacturing sector also work large numbers of twelve-hour days. China produces a lot of industrial goods for the world to use, and it is constantly being exploited by the developed world on the world market. This manifests itself in the fact that workers in a developed country can buy the products of more labour in a less developed country for less labour. Now focusing on the currency, such factories have very low profits and find it difficult to pay their workers very well. These factories usually offer free accommodation and food, but the wages are not very high. You can choose to work eight or twelve hours. Salesmen for various products, such as insurance salesmen. As far as I know insurance salesmen work very free hours and they usually have to work weekends and 9pm. This is not because they work twelve hours a day, but because it is when people are off work that insurance salesmen can sell their products. Construction site workers usually finish work at 6pm and are usually paid over four hundred yuan a day in my city (they are usually paid on a daily basis), which is higher in China. When I commute on the bus every morning, the passengers in the carriage are mainly construction site workers, so I know better. In short, forced overtime is illegal. Allowing voluntary overtime may “kidnap” some employees, but this needs to be improved by better laws rather than simply banning overtime. A company should not dismiss an employee for refusing to work overtime, but should pay compensation if the company has no legitimate reason to dismiss the employee.
Original text
hidden or nsfw stuff 996工作制似乎是与中国绑定的，我今天在Lemmygrad看到一位自称中国人的讲着奇怪中文的人说“中国人都要工作12小时”，于是我想我需要让Lemmygrad的各位知道我的所见。我接下来所说的一切都只是我的经历，但我想这也将有一定参考价值。
我所在的城市交通高峰期在早上七点半到九点，晚上五点半到七点，也是公交车和地铁最拥挤的时段。而在晚上九点，几乎不会有交通堵塞，公交车和地铁也几乎没人坐。我想这足以证明大多数人并不会工作到晚上九点。当然，中国也有很多人每天工作十二小时，这是不可否认的。 那么谁工作12小时呢？“996”最初是在互联网企业被曝光的。自愿的加班是合法的，但如果强迫员工加班是违法的。并且需要支付加班费。北京的一个地区曾经通过强制手段禁止加班，每天晚上六点强制停止工作。但这一措施遭到了大量员工的反对，因为他们需要加班费。有人希望加班，那么就有人反对加班，在这种情况下有些不愿意加班的员工可能会因为担心竞争不过愿意加班的员工而开始主动加班。这是一个棘手的问题，或许需要更好的法律还解决。 除此之外，中国的许多低端制造业的工人也存在大量的每天工作十二小时的现象。中国生产了大量工业品以供给全世界使用，而中国无时无刻不在被发达国家依靠世界市场剥削。表现为一个发达国家的工人只需要付出较少的劳动就可以购买一个欠发达国家较多劳动的产品。现在将目光聚焦到货币上，这类工厂的利润很低，难以给工人很高的薪水。这类工厂通常是提供免费食宿的，但工资并不高。你可以选择工作八小时或者十二小时。 各种产品的销售员，例如保险销售员。据我所知保险销售员的工作时间很自由，他们通常必须在周末和晚上九点工作。这不是因为他们每天工作十二小时，而是因为在人们下班的时候保险销售员才能推销产品。 建筑工地的工人们通常在晚上六点下班，并且在我所在的城市，每天的工资通常超过四百元（他们的薪水通常按日计算），这在中国是较高的。我每天早上通勤乘坐公交车时，车厢内的乘客主要都是建筑工地工人，所以我比较了解。 总而言之，强迫加班是违法的行为。允许自愿的加班可能会“绑架”一些员工，但这需要更完善的法律来改善，而不应该单纯地禁止加班。企业不应该因为员工拒绝加班而辞退他，如果企业没有合法的理由辞退员工则需要给予赔偿。 :::
for most people who 996, it solves nothing.
You mean 996 is a big problem within state-owned enterprises as well?
工作十二小时的人最主要是低端制造业的工人，由于世界市场这一剥削体系，这些工人只能拿到低工资。当你试图强行提高他们的工资，这只会加剧低端制造业向越南和其他工资更低的国家转移，造成失业问题。这不是国有企业能解决的问题。google translate it plz,im going to sleep
Translation: “The people who work twelve hours are mainly low-end manufacturing workers. Due to the exploitation system of the world market, these workers can only get low wages. When you try to forcibly increase their wages, this will only exacerbate the transfer of low-end manufacturing to Vietnam and other countries with lower wages, causing unemployment. This is not a problem that state-owned enterprises can solve.”
I see your point. These problems can’t necessarily be solved while China continues to export cheap commodities globally. I’m not well-informed enough to know how important the goods created by these workers are to China’s collective prosperity.
So the solution is to end the American military interventions that support puppet Neo Liberal tyrants in former European colonies as well as to remove the pro American transnational institutions that impose authoritarian rule over the global economy to support the criminal activities of transnational private firms.
Yes, among other things
中国生产的廉工业品是世界必须的。发达国家的第三产业产品不能供你在日常生活使用，而发展中国家出口的工业产品比起第三产业的产品对人类生活更重要。然而大量生产工业品的国家得不到高回报。这本质上是剥削
Translation: “The cheap industrial products produced in China are a must for the world. The products of the tertiary industry in developed countries cannot be used by you in your daily life, and the industrial products exported by developing countries are more important to human life than the products of the tertiary industry. However, countries that produce industrial products in large quantities do not get high returns. This is essentially exploitation”
Can’t say I understand this. Probably a bad translation.
western countries dont produce many products that you must use in daily life while asian countries produces. but asian countries only get much smaller number of money. it’s exploitation
Right, I understand that part. Sure, as long as China continues to produce very cheap goods for global consumption (exploitation), huge amounts of very low-paid work (or very large-scale automation) is needed, which leads to people choosing to work longer to earn enough money. At some point, that won’t be necessary anymore; based on Amerika’s aggressive behaviour (especially recently), who knows how long China will continue to trade with the imperial core
in modern times no country can stop trading. if china stops trading with western countries where do you think china can get high-tech products from?
ive said that most people dont 996
Yes? Even if it’s a low percentage, it would still be several million people, right? If they had more state-owned jobs as alternatives, and there was no mandatory overtime in such jobs, wouldn’t that help those people?
第一，任何工作都没有强制性加班。第二，中国有十四亿人，中国需要很多就业岗位，除了已经在城市找到工作的人，还有数千万人待在农村并且希望前往城市工作。中国有许多没必要但是依然吸纳了很多人的工作。这些工作由于其并不是必要的，实际上很轻松，但工资不高，但这些岗位的作用是解决就业问题。请问你想从哪里找到更多岗位？更多岗位不是你说想创造就能创造的
Translation: “First, there is no mandatory overtime for any work. Second, there are 1.4 billion people in China, and China needs many jobs. In addition to those who have already found jobs in cities, there are tens of millions of people who stay in rural areas and want to go to cities to work. There are many jobs in China that are unnecessary but still absorb a lot of people. Because these jobs are not necessary, they are actually very easy, but the wages are not high, but the role of these positions is to solve the employment problem. Where do you want to find more positions? More jobs are not created if you say you want to create them.”
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