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An environmental services company in eastern China has stopped sending its sanitation workers alerts via smart bracelet if they don’t keep moving. Other monitoring via the devices is continuing. Photo: Thecover.cn

Chinese workers freed from Big Brother style monitoring after public stink

  • Company bows to pressure one day after its policy of using smart bracelets to keep track of idle workers is revealed
  • Cleaners will no longer be sent alerts if they don’t move enough on the job
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A company in eastern China which used smart bracelets to monitor its sanitation workers while they were on the job has dumped the policy after a public outcry.

Nanjing West River Environmental Services in Jiangsu province started requiring some of its workers to wear the smart bracelets in March.

The devices sent out alerts saying “please continue working, add oil!” if there was no movement from the wearer for more than 20 minutes.

The phrase “add oil” is a popular Chinese expression with multiple meanings including “keep going”, “work harder” and even “good luck”. It was added to the Oxford English dictionary last year.

After initially defending the smart bracelet programme as a way to reduce management costs, the company’s vice-president Zhang Dongzhong told Beijing Youth Daily the function was removed on April 4, a day after the policy was made public.

“This [programme] has greatly improved the efficiency of the city’s sanitation,” Zhang said.

While the devices no longer encourage workers to keep moving, they continue to be used as a way for cleaners to clock in, and to track their location and ensure they remain in their designated work areas.

In the April 3 video report which sparked the controversy, Tang Haipin from the company’s monitoring command centre, told Jiangsu Television that the three functions used together allowed for total monitoring of its sanitation workers.

The television report included vision of a large, wall-mounted screen inside the command centre which displayed a map of Nanjing featuring dozens of dots, each one representing a sanitation worker.

Several unnamed sanitation workers were interviewed for their thoughts on the smart bracelet and none were fans.

“I see litter on the streets and I pick it up. The streets are clean, they are crazy to make you go back and forth,” one cleaner said.

Users on China social media site Weibo were not placated by the removal of one function and called for an end to the whole programme.

“With this money, why don’t you pay the workers more? Coming up with these awful things is all about ‘results’,” a user from Shaanxi wrote.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Workers freed from monitoring after outcry
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