Chinese workers WANT to work 65-hour weeks, sleep on plywood beds, and use their lunch breaks for sleep

This morning I checked /r/worldnews to get informed on world events. The top post was an article from The Huffington Post regarding abuse of workers in Southern China. The article itself cites a labor watchdog group called Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights as having put out a new report that alleges abuse of worker rights. Article commentators are usually ill-informed and reactionary, so I usually skip checking the comments below the article, and check the Reddit post for more intelligent discussion.

Xazier, a foreigner working in Southern China, has this to say:

This is a load of shit. Ok here is the scoop, I work in a factory in southern china and here are some points from a foreigner that has been working here for 5 years:

— Most factory workers will QUIT unless they get 65hours a week or more. THEY WANT THE OVER TIME. We have to follow EICC protocols which limit the overtime we can give and we have worker shortages ALL THE TIME because of this. They want to work 80–90 hours for the overtime pay, or they’re out the door, and they’ll get a job in another factory within a day, because of all the worker shortages.

— Dorms usually come with plywood beds standard, most workers have to buy their own mattresses, but most don’t. Most Chinese sleep on hard beds. Believe me, I’ve found so many apartments with ROCK hard beds, and the real estate agent looks at me like a crazy person if I say switch it for a soft one. Also keep in mind all dorm rooms are free with free food.

— Southern Chinese ALWAYS sleep through lunch break. My factory is like a nursery during lunch. workers, office staff, managers EVERYONE sleeps during lunch break for 30min-1hour, it’s just tradition. It used to be super hot down here so they’d sleep during the hottest part of the day, now it’s all air conditioned (my factory anyway) and they still take advantage of nap time.

Here are somethings they don’t mention:

— New generation of workers are lazy as fuck. And Chinese labor laws protect them like crazy. We had 5 guys smoking ON THE PRODUCTION floor, and we couldn’t fire them without paying them 3 months salary due to Chinese labor laws. They can not show up for work every 2 days and you can’t fire them if they don’t miss more than 3 consecutive days.

These articles drive me fucking nuts, take it from me I’ve been here and i’ve seen it all. Also, it won’t be long before factories move again. The wages in southern china are going up 20% per year, and most factories are moving inland to get to cheaper labor (plus labor shortages because most workers would rather take a pay cut and live closer to home than move to shenzhen/zhuhai/guangzhou/dongguan.)

Now this wasn’t always the case but the one child policy has a ton of spoiled teenager/20 year olds. You wouldn’t believe the shit they get away with that would get you fired in a heartbeat back home. We have to put up with it because of, you guessed it, worker shortages.

Ascenx, originally from Southern China, replied with the following:

Southern Chinese here. Can confirm.

About the lunch nap time, it’s very true. When I was a kid, the school even has mandatory nap requirement. If I opt for nap at home, my mom would make damn sure I don’t sneak out and goof around but take the nap as prescribed. Now that I live in the States, I literally had to eat only lean veges for lunch to break away from lunchtime napping habit.

About laziness. Playing video games and internet poker games are big among my generation. Very few are as ambitious as the older generation to take pains and make a difference for their own life.

About plywood… It was not until I came to the states did I hear that soft conformal beds are good for healthy spine. The urban legend is that Chairman Mao also only sleeps on hard bed. Very few households would use plywood bed. There are betters ones like coir mattress but made from the fiber of a native plantation (棕垫). These are actually rather nice to sleep on but also much more expensive. No factory would provide such housing. Occasionally I sleep on carpeted floor here.

These days, there are the traditional ones and more westernized ones. If you see a Chinese who strides a short walk after meal, who hates flossing, who sleeps on hard bed, who takes warm water foot massaging in winter, burn yellow papers to “wire” money to the deceased in the other world, you can be absolutely sure that’s a traditional Chinese there.

Of course this could be propaganda. PieroIsMarksman asked for sources for Xazier’s claims, so Xazier delivered:

Article about factories moving inland: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-03/foxconn-inland-china-push-spurred-by-labor-bi-says.html

Article about chinese liking hard beds: http://www.slumbermaax.com/pages/China-mattress.html (or you can read any blog about foreigners hating chinese beds…there are tons..)

Article about overtime: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324296604578175040576532024 it only has an interview about workers wanting to work the overtime, but from my experience this is 100% truth. For example:

we had a line stop due to some quality issues, and we had to stop production for three days, where we still had workers there on the line but not doing anything. They got paid normal hours, but we didnt’ give them overtime obviously. Over 15% quit by the 3rd day. This happens all time time. No OT = workers are out the door

Chinese labor laws, you can see an article here:http://www.academia.edu/165449/China_s_Labor_Standards_Myths_and_Realities

This part was important: China’s labor standards are low comparing with many developed countries, but may notbe necessarily low in all areas. As a matter of fact, many Chinese workers, which weretreated at “master” of plants and factories during the pre-reform era, are actually moreright-conscience, and tend to have low level of tolerance of unequal and unfairtreatments. Foreign investors and managers need to be aware of this fact. Based on legalcodes of two countries, we can classify Chinese labor standards into three categories: o

Areas that have higher standards than the United States

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/careers/china-factory-workers-encouraged-sleep-job-n266186

The pictures are funny because this looks just like my factory at lunch time…

Please call my sources out as bullshit if they’re not good enough, I put them together pretty quick.

Edit: Another article about worker shortages:http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323798104578455153999658318

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-19/scrapping-the-one-child-policy-wont-solve-chinas-worker-shortage

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/06/us-china-labour-interns-idUSBRE9050CV20130106 (this article is very accurate as well, last summer we used college interns to help with worker shortage for 3 weeks)

So it looks like Chinese don’t have it so bad, they just have a different culture that foreigners might not understand as well.