China needs unions.
32-year-old programmer in China allegedly dies from overwork, added to work group chat even while in hospital
Submitted 1 day ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
Zephorah@discuss.online 1 day ago
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
People in China really need to do what their anthem says:
起来，不愿做奴隶的人们 (Arise, those who refuse to be slaves)
MasterBlaster@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Didn’t you hear? China’s been one gigantic people’s union since 1949. That’s the whole point of Communism. As you can see, it’s working swimmingly well.
josemf@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Chinas communist party is as communist as trump is a democratic leader.
Or as our German „Christian party“ is christian…
ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
Tiananmen square protests were (also) against introduction of capitalism to China, so… you know… (jacobin.com/…/tiananmen-square-worker-organizatio…)
KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 hours ago
Tell me you don’t know what communism is and can’t recognise a dictatorship under the guise of communism without telling me you don’t know what communism is.
I imagine that you’re from the US? If so, it’s understandable. Dr. Strangelove was what opened my eyes to how demonised it is and how misguided people in the US are to its true ideology and meaning.
The USSR, where the gov controlled most of the means of production, is the antithesis of communism.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Oh I’m sure that’ll go perfectly well in China!
Maybe ask some students on how well that went when they protested on some big square there…
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Tbf they did protest against the so-called “zero covid” policy and the government sort of gave in.
Zephorah@discuss.online 23 hours ago
I’m aware. I still think they’re the country most in need of labor unions.
joyjoy@lemmy.zip 22 hours ago
That have one. It’s called the CCP.
worhui@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
His ‘fainting’ was likely cardiac arrest. It sounds a lot like heart attack symptoms.
I have heard of this happening to people in the US who work in finance. It’s never ‘overwork’ here. It’s just a heart attack from poor life style choices.
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
On occasions I have done overtime or feel under pressure due to work, I do feel my heart palpitating. But I am lucky I immigrated to a country where the work culture is more relaxed compared to others. Had I gone to another country, I might have ended up the same as the guy in the article.
mastertigurius@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Known as 過労死 (karoshi) in Japan, sadly not a new concept. This is the result of the misconception that working harder will yield better results - it only leads to stagnation and ruin. Hoping that more people will realise this and initiate some change in the work culture; not only in Asia, but in the West too… The work culture in both the US, UK and many parts of the EU needs some serious overhaul.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 hours ago
Currently playing Cyberpunk2077.
Kind of fascinating how this word sounds very similar to ‘Kiroshi’ which is a fictious corporate providing optical eye implants.
mastertigurius@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
It could be a play on words based on the root verb 切る (cut). 切ろ死 (kiroshi) could then mean something like “cut to death”, a very reassuring name for a surgical implant corporation.
draco_aeneus@mander.xyz 15 hours ago
It’s not really “know as 過労死” in Japanese. That’s just the words for “excess”, “work”, and “death”. That’s kinda like saying “it’s known as ‘overworking to death’ in Britain”.
MuskyMelon@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Some lucky manager just found his bottom 5% for the force ranked annual review. /s
Seriously, if you’ve ever managed in large corporation, you’ll understand this.
huxley75@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Typical day in America…except we can’t afford the actual hospital and die working from home
Prove_your_argument@piefed.social 1 day ago
Nowhere near the same.
Labor protection laws are basically shit and have largely been eroding since FDR almost a hundred years ago, but we don’t have the 996 mentality here by a long shot.
Food pantries are everywhere. It’s not like latin america where starvation is much of an issue almost everywhere if you don’t have a job. No idea how the food situation is in China, but I can’t imagine them handing out free food to anybody.
ERs accept everyone, but all they can do is basic treatment of acute conditions. In civilized states like Massachusetts they have state sponsored health insurance like MassHealth which covers costs which is partially paid for by medicaid for the poorest people of any age.
Medical debt is incredibly hard to collect on too. Pretty much is the last kind of debt you should ever consider paying if your choice is between paying your mortgage, paying the tax man, or paying medical. Education debt is far worse and impossible to escape short of death though.
The healthcare situation is fucked in the US, but it’s mostly due to insurance companies, lack of regulation for pharma and medical devices, and wages overall.
In terms of jobs, it’s very rare in the US to see companies who want to see workers there over 40 hours a week in the shittiest of jobs which are typically paid hourly and eligible for overtime. In the blue collar world you make bank and they incentivize extra overtime with extra pay on top of overtime rate in the busy seasons depending on trade. In the white collar world it is rare to see anyone working much over 45 hours outside of a handful of toxic roles and upper leadership positions / highly compensated roles like management consulting.
Americans just don’t understand how good they have it, despite all the awful flaws thanks to billionaires owning politics. Yeah, it can definitely be better and we should ask for better… but when you start looking at the rest of the world, the overwhelming majority can’t comprehend our quality of life. Air conditioning? practically unheard of for more than half the world mostly living much closer to the equator where heat is literally killing people.
ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
It’s not like latin america where starvation is much of an issue almost everywhere if you don’t have a job
1 in 8 USians is on SNAP. 1/3 of people on SNAP are employed.
LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
This comment is so frustrating 😅 one of the only concrete statements you make about Chinese policy is “i cant imagine them handing out free food to anybody”. Literally political criticism based on vibes.
By all means there’s lots to criticize about the Chinese government but at least actually make criticisms, not just “I know China to be evil and therefore they must not do good things” 😅 also that last paragraph is such an insane over generalization. As though the entire world experiences a uniformly lower standard of living than the US. There are people in the US who live in absolute near starvation squalor with literally no rights whatsoever. Not to their health, their freedoms, nor their labor.
China is also not a uniform state. There are parts of China with higher overall quality of life and lower overall quality of life. China as a nation has improved their overall quality of life at one of the fastest rates over the past 5 decades by pretty much every metric. They have cheap electric vehicles, they have much better housing options than they used to, they have some of the largest and most technically modern public transportation systems in the world.
They aren’t doing every single thing wrong. They have done a lot of things right. Again, not that I support or endorse a lot of their politics, but dismissing it all as backwards starving impoverished who cannot fathom American opulence is both very stupidly elevating the miserable reality of being poor in America, and erasing any progress the country has made. The end goal should be a better world for all workers. This includes those in China and those in America. Dismissing progress is completely counter to that goal.
Nindelofocho@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Im not sure where you’re seeing companies only want you for 40hours. Kitchens and serving you are often expected to work more than 40hours. Sure you may get overtime if your boss isint a theif but whats overtime on minimum wage or even a bit above? Barely anything. Salaried positions its also very strongly implied that you will put in more than 40 hours in many places. Sure you dont have to but expect to stagnate or be put on PIPs
PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Most people work two or three jobs because they can’t get full time jobs with healthcare or benefits. Which means they work 40+ hours every week regardless because it’s all they can do to survive.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
but we don’t have the 996 mentality here by a long shot
When I was in China I have memories of my mom taking me to her workplace when I was a kid (I think because nobody was at home, grandma was supposed to be watching us but I can’t remember why she wasn’t available for some reason), she worked in some electronic store doing sales.
I remember play some (probably bootleg) games on a portable DVD player and like you put this disc in it then you connect a controller and voila…
I remember feeling so lonely just by myself in this sort of mall-like place with a lot of people walking by, while mom worked, barely had time to check on me… I mean I don’t remember it vividly as in every detail, I was still like either like preschool/kindergarden age or 1st/2nd grade, but I remember the general vibe around there. I had an older brother but he wasn’t there so idk whete the hell he was.
But yea mom was so busy, dad had trouble finding a stable job, constantly jobseeking.
“Childcare” is just finding relatives, usually the kid’s grandparents, according to my mom, it’s said that my paternal grandparents, US permanent residents, refused to watch over us even during their short visit from the US.
Mom worked overtime a lot. Like I remember sometimes just being at home and mom and dad come home so late.
My aparment had this weird child-proof lockthing that my parents could just lock in from the outside incase no adults was home since they didn’t want their kids to go wandering outside. (firehazard lol, jeez dad wtf)
ERs accept everyone, but all they can do is basic treatment of acute conditions.
Not sure how they are as of right now, but in China, for a long time, they’d require you to pay before getting ER treatment
Medical debt is incredibly hard to collect on too.
In China, they can go after family members…
Americans just don’t understand how good they have it
Lol I remember my family didn’t have internet until we left China…
I lived in a very slum-looking area of Guangzhou right next to the 白云山 (Baiyun mountain). I asked recently about the internet thing and my dad said they were just starting to install internet like very late, like around 2010 around when we left, my dad said it was expensive… so for us, we never got internet in China
Never got to experience the “golden age of internet” that most of y’all talk about… cuz I didn’t even get an internet at all.
Parents didn’t really use internet until like 2014 and smartphones became ubiquitious and then soon afterwards they installed Wechat. That’s like the only thing they use lol.
There’s a lot of like worker safety stuff that China just doesn’t have, also no independent unions and strike-action was uncommon and almost unheard of until we got to the US and then hear about strikes on the news so often it’s kinda a culture shock.
Food safety was so… meh…
Mom mom used to warn me about the food safety thing all the time, stories about people smuggling in milk formula from Hong Kong because there was so much fake milk in mainland. My mom didn’t trust the milk and she said she just breastfed me. Water needs to be boiled… When I found out that Americans just drank from the tap, that was sort of a culture shock.
So after I found out about that, I often drink from the tap cuz I’m often thirsty and didn’t wanna waste time boiling water, also didn’r like warm water… I mean why not, we’re in the US after all (as long as “Flint, Michigan” doesn’t happen its gonna be fine), my parents still have the habit of boiling water… I feel like they’re just wasting electricity lol…
The only thing I liked was the subways in Guangzhou had the platform safety doors… I remember when I first arrived in NYC, I often have fears about just falling into the tracks, cuz the lack of doors… but yea that’s like the safety doors only thing I really missed
ieGod@lemmy.zip 9 hours ago
He reads like heavy cope.
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 1 day ago
Americans just don’t understand how good they have it
Yes.
Air conditioning? practically unheard of for more than half the world mostly living much closer to the equator where heat is literally killing people.
Well, not unheard of, but the way you over there use it is. Slight correction - yes. Turning it full on to have temperature 10 Celsius degrees lower than on the outside - no.
It’s not like latin america where starvation is much of an issue almost everywhere if you don’t have a job. No idea how the food situation is in China, but I can’t imagine them handing out free food to anybody.
Honestly almost everywhere outside of the golden billion countries starvation is an issue if you don’t have a job.
goatinspace@feddit.org 1 day ago
There are many that are not on the news
Pika@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
yea was about to say the only difference between this article and the US is that in the US it would be death in the office or at home not the hospital bed.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Except that the US requires hospitals to treat those who arrive in the ER¹ then they bill you to bankrupt you later. In China, you have to pay first before getting even emergency treatment. (Common trope in Chinese TV shows is a character gets sick and family can’t pay for an expensive emergency surgery and they somehow find a rich relative to pay for it)
(¹excluding chronic conditions like cancer, apparantly)
clot27@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
Quite the communism they are doing huh
3abas@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
China is not communist in any form anymore, they’re authoritarian late stage techno-capitalism with remnants of communist social structures. And before someone says “but they execute billionaires”, they only execute billionaires that get in the way of other billionaires’ profits, they never execute billionaires for being billionaires or for making those billions by exploiting the workers.
Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
The US labor laws are not far behind the fucked up Chinese 9-9-6.
kreskin@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
I saw a bunch of articles in the past few weeks about seniors needing to work more years and the idea of retirement in the US needing to change. Seems like the republicans are coming for social security soon. Maybe we shouldnt be tossing out young immigranst from the US when they are the best labor pool we can possibly get.
anon_8675309@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Just wait… they can get worse. And will if we don’t have free and fair elections anymore.
Sims@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
A random person dies by ordinary reasons - without sources - but he was Chinese, so therefore we just write it anyway…
Nonsense ‘article’…
whereIsTamara@lemmy.org 1 day ago
Lmfao, the fake communist would rather ignore the health risks of over work to blindly support a fake communist country. Tell me you’re Wumao without telling me you’re Wumao. 🤣🤡
Riverside@reddthat.com 10 hours ago
When I see on Lemmy a post about immigrants in Spain (my homeland) dying in summer due to heatstroke being overworked at 39°C, I’ll believe you. Until then, shut up, propagandist
LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Wumao refers to posters who post unrelated content to disengage conversations around subjects that are critical of China. The term also referred to a phenomenon on chinese social media platforms, and alleged that the community party was paying people to make the posts. The majority of people engaging in that pattern of content are members of the communist party, party officials in any capacity.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
wumao implies they get paid, western tankies just like to bootlick for free
thisbenzingring@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Wumao
today I learned…
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
How is poohie doing these days?
pipe01@programming.dev 22 hours ago
All the more reason for AI to replace us! /s
Sgt_choke_n_stroke@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Pick a comment and it probably is one of these two
Pee_comes_from_the_balls@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
China is actually a socialist democratic state, that is the political doctrine. For the economic doctrine, they just really used their head and created a very well executed model that is relatively new in economy.
It’s usually called a social market economy and it uses the best traits capitalism can offer for growth and scale whilst containing it so it remains innovative and improves the economic situation of it’s citizens. It’s well secured to not allow internal corruption (see what happened when Jack Ma thought he was as polically powerful as US billionaires) and structures like state councils to approve or refuse mergers if they deem it attempts at building monopolies. Wether it will fail or not, all economic models have always had one thing in common; they are born, change through time and evolve and die eventually. That is their only common trait aside from their fundamental nature in being ideological systems to manage ressources. Capitalism may die within the next 100 years if the trends of what has happened in the last 20 years keep themselves up but yeah, it should not be dismissed because of the historical chinese/western frictions.
Doomsider@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
China produced more billionaires than the US this year. The only way they accomplished this is to allow unfettered capitalism which is very evident. There is no going back and the billionaires will be calling the shots before to long. They are just another fascist nation at this point and the fourth/fifth largest producer of weapons to boot.
ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
Meanwhile in China: from taizi dang, to current and bi-yearly purges because of corruption, including people very close to Xi.
NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
A lot of humans will also die in the next 20 years due to climate change. It’s funny you think we’re just gonna keep on keeping on once climate change gets really bad everywhere.