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996, GitHub, and China's digital workers rights awakening

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Re: 996, GitHub, and China's digital workers rights awakening

#121

Post by jialutu »

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #117
jialutu wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I completely understand what you are saying, because it's something I believe as well. However, what I am trying to find out more is whether this belief is correct or not and whether anyone has done any actual studies.

This is the way it is. Anyone who's worked in the industry (or any industry?) knows from experience that this is the way it is. I'm sure that there are data available. A quick Googling for "productivity vs hours worked" led me to this: http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2013/10/hours-worked-an...

Unfortunately there are quite a few problems in the report: 1. it measures productivity by GDP, which itself is not a great measure 2. it compares Greece vs Germany, and fails to mention that they rely on completely different industries; Greek - agriculture, Germany - manufacturing

But what we are talking about here specifically is the software development industry, where quantity does not always mean quality. So herein lies the problem that potentially a lot of our beliefs that "more hours worked means diminished return" could just be based on bad data analysis.

Re: 996, GitHub, and China's digital workers rights awakening

#122

Post by whoevercares »

gpickett00 wrote: post #4

Wow, that's a brutal work schedule. Hard to believe it's the norm. Isn't there enough demand that tech workers could elect to work elsewhere if their employer enforces this?

Not the case in China, the supplier side is huge with plenty of engineers available on the market at most lower experience levels

Re: 996, GitHub, and China's digital workers rights awakening

#123

Post by ex-aws-now-goog »

xiaoyafeng wrote: post #96

Actually, I don't think github is proper place to discuss workers rights. First if China gov block Github eventually, The whole programmer in china would lose a good place to share, learning knowledge. Second, In China, programmers are looked as mid-class, what most of them earn are as ten times as what other persons who work at other area earn. we can't because they speak loudly, then think they are right. they 996…

> they 996 just because they earn much more.

Maybe in absolute terms but their per-hour income is lower. They're working 1.8 times longer than a 40 hour week but not earning 1.8 times as much as they would when working in e.g. Europe.

Re: 996, GitHub, and China's digital workers rights awakening

#124

Post by zhouyxamp »

swuecho wrote: post #43
apatters wrote: post #24

For those of us who employ developers remotely and ask for a sane number of hours per week (usually 40), does this mean there's an opportunity to hire great developers from China who would like to have better work/life balance? Where would I start?

I think hacknews is good place. the barriar is english. chinese developer who visit hacknews pass the english requirement and usually are interested in software development.

I'm a Chinese developer. Yes, English is a high barrier for most Chinese developer to get in touch with developers out of China. I can read, write without any problem but talk is hard for me as I have no chance to talk to any English speaking people.

Re: 996, GitHub, and China's digital workers rights awakening

#125

Post by viraptor »

fasthandle wrote: post #14
sfotm wrote: post #6

Do Chinese workers not have the flexibility to avoid working for companies that force these schedules on them? I know next to nothing about working life in China, but wouldn't workers generally gravitate to the companies that value work/life balance? Is working for these companies just worth the prestige for some?

Yes, and no. IT development is one of the best paying professional jobs in China, commanding 3x to 8x a typical office worker's salary. If you have skills, experience, or for a fresh graduate an interest, in what in the US would be considered a mainstream enterprisy (Java, Angular, .NET) and passable English or Japanese language skills, you can get a position in development with a Fortune 500 or as a contractor to a…

> and passable English or Japanese language skills

It's there a lot of collaboration with Japan in Chinese IT? NEC?

Re: 996, GitHub, and China's digital workers rights awakening

#126

Post by marsRoverDev »

aloisdg wrote: post #92
apatters wrote: post #24

For those of us who employ developers remotely and ask for a sane number of hours per week (usually 40), does this mean there's an opportunity to hire great developers from China who would like to have better work/life balance? Where would I start?

A sane number of hours per week is far below 40. In France, we have a 35 hour work week. I am sure we can (and I think we must) go lower without losing much. Less hours for better hours.

My experience of working for a massive company in france was we had a "35 hour" workweek, which cadres would regularly ignore. They were typically doing 8:30-7pm or 9pm-7pm.

Re: 996, GitHub, and China's digital workers rights awakening

#127

Post by xorcist »

skybrian wrote: post #62
redwall_hp wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying this for years: censorship, like many things, has been privatized. Things like the First Amendment in the US are inadequate for the modern age, because the majority of our discourse touches multiple intermediary businesses on its way between individuals. There is no "just herpderp yourself" when communication and publication in our digital society involves information coming in contact with a handful…

On the other hand, switching to private communications has never been easier, at least for person-to-person chat. (Signal, etc.)

The question here was public discourse (or mass media if you will).

Securing a private channel is a very different problem altogether.

Re: 996, GitHub, and China's digital workers rights awakening

#128

Post by lucideer »

tiredyam wrote: post #35
president wrote: post #2

I would like to see something similar in the U.S. Unfortunately, I don't see a path to resolution anytime soon, both for U.S. and China. In the past 20 years, I have only seen society become more and more corporation-friendly.

... we do not have the same problems. Every single software engineer I know does not work 996 even if they work at a fast-paced startup

> ... we do not have the same problems

You/we do not have problems of the same scale/severity, but they are still the same problems.

This is the argument that things are good in one place because they're slightly better off than another place where things are worse. The status quo of working hours in the US are far from ideal.

Re: 996, GitHub, and China's digital workers rights awakening

#129

Post by Jwarder »

humanrebar wrote: post #118
jim-jim-jim wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. Liberalism is ill-equipped to promote free expression in any meaningful sense, because the principles it presumably holds sacred play second fiddle to the central tenant of the philosophy: private property. Most "live free or die" types wouldn't tell someone struggling against government repression, "If you don't like it, why don't you just leave your country?" Yet they do this all the time on corporate commun…

I think there's a case to be made that public discourse regularly happens on private property and that private organizations that provide public forums as a service must respect speech rights. Of course, I would prefer an amendment to guarantee this, but it's less tenuous than other precedents.

There is an old court case, Marsh v Alabama, where the Supreme Court indicated that the more a private property owner opens their space for public use the more the public's constitutional rights matter.

Re: 996, GitHub, and China's digital workers rights awakening

#130

Post by Ericson2314 »

ndnxhs wrote: post #110
hrktb wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To get the full picture you need to shift perspective and see humans more as resources. When a resource doesn’t produce enough anymore it gets replaced.

How can you possibly develop a product when none of your developers have been around for more than a few months?

If the entire industry is less productive, it's not a business problem.

Overworked employees a probably cheeper per hour too.

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