China’s ‘996’ work culture should not turn into Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times
- While it is true, as Alibaba founder Jack Ma has argued, that extended working hours are not a problem for those passionate about their jobs, a top-down inflexible approach to how long employees work is not the way for Industry 4.0 to go
The idea that “work does not feel like work when you love your job” may be a cliché. Yet, there are many people in the tech sector who care deeply about their work and clients. Money is often not the main motivator.
The professional and personal dignity gained from work, and the sense of purpose and the belonging to a community that drives momentous changes in society are more important. Their jobs may involve drudgery at times, but work is an important source of professional satisfaction, self-esteem and personal identity.
The problem with 996 is not the long hours, but the lack of autonomy that workers have over the organisation of their time. My concern is with the employers’ unilateral imposition of work schedules. When I teach labour law, I show my millennial students clips from Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 satirical film Modern Times. The opening title “a story of industry, of individual enterprise – humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness” is inscribed over the face of a giant clock. The next scene juxtaposes a herd of sheep with a mass of workers entering a factory gate.
Chaplin’s character, a nameless “factory worker”, tightens bolts on an accelerating assembly line. In a key scene, unable to keep up with the ruthless pace of the belt, Chaplin is pulled into the belly of the factory’s colossal machine. Once the machine spits him out, he continues to tighten imaginary bolts as he leaves the factory. He is chased by a policeman after trying to tighten a woman’s dress buttons. He rushes back into the factory and creates chaos, before he is arrested and sent to a psychiatric hospital.
A theme from Modern Times is the potentially dehumanising effects of industrialisation. If we want to prevent the dehumanisation of Industry 4.0, we must have more control over the organisation of our time.
This is particularly important for those of us engaged in “knowledge work” that requires expertise, experience and creativity. For knowledge workers, long working hours may be the trade-off for the discretion they have in determining the organisation of work tasks, content and processes.
This is not to say every worker in tech enjoys the professional autonomy that comes with knowledge work. Some tech jobs may indeed be so monotonous that they can be aptly described as “digital assembly line work”. It is likely though that such jobs are increasingly being automated.
Such measures include rights for parents and carers to request part-time work or other variations to working time arrangements. In Germany and the Netherlands, all workers enjoy the right to request the adjustment of their working time, schedule and place of work. The employer can refuse the request if there are compelling business interests to do so, as specified in legislation, but must inform the employee of the reasons in writing.
It is hard for any decent employer to defend a workplace culture that compels workers to work excessive overtime. We should commend the tech workers behind the anti-996 campaign for drawing public awareness to the widespread labour law violations in this “golden child” sector of the Chinese economy. The real issue is not about long working hours, but a plea for greater control over what we do with our time.
Dr Mimi Zou is the inaugural Fangda Fellow in Chinese Commercial Law at the University of Oxford. She is a leading expert on Chinese and Hong Kong employment law, with over 50 publications in the field