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996 working hour system

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Re: 996 working hour system

#51

Post by smallmancontrov »

logicchains wrote: post #39
smallmancontrov wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Labor laws that can be bypassed by outsourcing+importing are a complete joke, this was known when they were passed, and the resulting "compromise" reflects the reality of who was actually in charge. We need to fix this, but we'll have the same opponents as we had before, so it will be an uphill battle. It would be pretty funny to see Capitalist America twist Communist China's arm into un-fucking their labor rela…

> Labor laws that can be bypassed by outsourcing+importing are a complete joke, All labor laws can be bypassed by importing; it's a natural economic consequence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_price_equalization . Only restrictions on trade can slow the equalisation of wages across two countries.

What's wrong with restrictions on trade? Alexander Hamilton's 1791 Report on Manufactures spells out why they are so damn important, and this line of thinking ruled American policy for the next 150 years. America industrialized itself using protectionism. It's trade liberalization that is the recent anomaly, although it has now run for enough decades that its promise of "better for everyone, honest!" can be evaluated against reality. The results are in: the benefits accrued to capital, who saw a many-fold return on their assets, and the costs accrued to labor, who saw stagnant wages for decades.

If you want the macroeconomics assessed in detail and the usual apologetics evaluated against evidence, I refer you to "Trade Wars are Class Wars" by Klein and Pettis.

Re: 996 working hour system

#53

Post by yorwba »

logicchains wrote: post #41
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #23

China actually adopted the 8-hour workday in 1930 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day#China ). The 996 policy is a regression which needs to be fought by organized labor, the same way organized labor had to fight (and sometimes die) to get the 8-hour workday.

>The 996 policy is a regression which needs to be fought by organized labor There's no organised labor in China; all unions are banned, except of course for the communist party.

Being banned doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Workers are able to and do strike illegally when they feel that will improve their situation. https://maps.clb.org.hk/?i18n_language=en_US&map=1&startDate...

Re: 996 working hour system

#54

Post by ketchupdebugger »

hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #50
wiseowise wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can, but that’s still work time.

Yeah, that's why 996 kills people slowly. 996 is taking away your own time for the company, and most likely in a not so productive way. So you don't get the refresh, the first 1-2 companies which employs you get the most benefit because you are not drained yet, but companies later in the line got a used battery almost completely drained -- and that's why China also has the 35 yrs old rule.

also at 35, you are more likely to have kids. Once you have a kid, you wont submit to 996 anymore, so they'll just lay you off and replace you with a fresh out of college grad

Re: 996 working hour system

#55

Post by KingMob »

porphyra wrote: post #12
lvl102 wrote: post #3

And you wonder why China is experiencing brain drain. Rest of world is moving toward 4-day work week and these guys think their citizens are dumb enough to slave away their lives.

It's an East Asian cultural thing to work super hard for some reason, same with Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. By "Rest of the world" you really just mean a handful of Western European nations with stagnant economies, but by god I do wish I could work less.

Well, I can mostly speak to Japan, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was also true in China.

The long hours of Japanese work culture are true, but simultaneously, there's a lot of wasted time. Japan evens praises sleeping at the office, when you're clearly getting no work done.

This might be limited to white-collar office workers; no idea about people on the factory floor.

Re: 996 working hour system

#57

Post by toomuchtodo »

LastTrain wrote: post #19
toomuchtodo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.4dayweek.com/casestudies https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39457728 ("HN: 4-day week made permanent for 89% UK firms who took part in Worlds biggest trial") https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/14/countries-that-are-embracing... ("4 countries that are embracing—or experimenting with—the 4-day workweek") https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/companies-around-the-wo... ("Companies around the world adopt four-day…

“Moving towards” was the question.

Are we arguing direction or rate of change in velocity?

Re: 996 working hour system

#58

Post by markus_zhang »

ketchupdebugger wrote: post #54
hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's why 996 kills people slowly. 996 is taking away your own time for the company, and most likely in a not so productive way. So you don't get the refresh, the first 1-2 companies which employs you get the most benefit because you are not drained yet, but companies later in the line got a used battery almost completely drained -- and that's why China also has the 35 yrs old rule.

also at 35, you are more likely to have kids. Once you have a kid, you wont submit to 996 anymore, so they'll just lay you off and replace you with a fresh out of college grad

Yeah. It's a vicious cycle. UNLESS you made into a lead or a manager of some sort -- but it's still rare and you are still required to do a lot of overtime.

Re: 996 working hour system

#59

Post by rawgabbit »

TrackerFF wrote: post #18

I've always wondered, do these work? As in - is the production of the 996 workers more, less, or equal to those working 40 hour weeks? Did it arise out of some data-driven research, or is it mostly just the result of cargo-culting, where one successful company had such hours/schedule, and the other companies just followed suit?

From my experience working in the US for companies that wanted to emulate that culture. 996 was nothing more than a result of poor management, lack of planning, and the attitude that employees are disposable and could be easily replaced.

The phrase I associate with and cringe at is "all hands on deck". Oh, you didn't know that project A's deployment will wipe out project B's testing in the lower environment? All hands on deck. Oh, you didn't realize your novel idea of deploying 40000 processes to update the databases will result in a denial of service attack on our own servers? All hands on deck. Oh, you didn't get knowledge transfer from the last bunch of contractors who were let go and now you can't figure out how they deployed A into abstraction layer B which has a dependency on C and no documentation exists? All hands on deck.

Re: 996 working hour system

#60

Post by lvl102 »

porphyra wrote: post #12
lvl102 wrote: post #3

And you wonder why China is experiencing brain drain. Rest of world is moving toward 4-day work week and these guys think their citizens are dumb enough to slave away their lives.

It's an East Asian cultural thing to work super hard for some reason, same with Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. By "Rest of the world" you really just mean a handful of Western European nations with stagnant economies, but by god I do wish I could work less.

I don’t think people in East Asia work harder at all. It’s mostly sitting around and taking two hour lunches. I regularly worked 80-100 hours for most of my 20s and early 30s. It’s not sustainable at all and 95% of the population do not even have the physical and mental stamina to do it for more than a couple of weeks out of the year. Out of all the places I’ve experienced, East Coast (and particularly NYC) has the hardest working culture. It’s not even close.
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