996 working hour system


The 996 working hour system is a work schedule commonly practiced by some companies in the People's Republic of China. It derives its name from its requirement that employees work from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, 6 days per week; i.e. 72 hours per week. A number of Chinese internet companies have adopted this system as their official work schedule. Critics argue that the 996 working hour system is a flagrant violation of Chinese law.
In March 2019 an "anti-996" protest was launched via GitHub.

Background

The culture of overtime work has a long history in Chinese IT companies, where the focus is typically on speed and cost reduction. Companies employ a range of measures, such as reimbursing taxi fares for employees who remain working at the office late into the night, to encourage overtime work.

Relevant legislation

The Labour Law of the People's Republic of China states:

Chapter 4　Article 36　The State shall practise a working hour system wherein labourers shall work for no more than eight hours a day and no more than 44 hours a week on the average.
Article 41　The employer can prolong work hours due to needs of production or businesses after consultation with its trade union and labourers. The work hours to be prolonged, in general, shall be no longer than one hour a day, or no more than three hours a day if such prolonging is called for due to special reasons and under the condition that the physical health of labourers is guaranteed. The work time to be prolonged shall not exceed, however, 36 hours a month.
Article 44　The employer shall pay labourers more wage remunerations than those for normal work according to the following standards in any one of the following cases:
Wage payments to labourers no less than 150 per cent of their wages if the labourers are asked to work longer hours;
Wage payments to labourers no less than 200 per cent of their wages if no rest can be arranged afterwards for the labourers asked to work on days of rest;
Wage payments to labourers no less than 300 per cent of their wages if the labourers are asked to work on legal holidays.
Chapter 12　Article 90　If the employer prolongs work hours in violation of stipulations in this Law, labour administrative departments can give it a warning, order it to make corrections, and may impose a fine thereon.
Article 91　The employer involved in any one of the following cases that encroach upon the legitimate rights and interests of labourers shall be ordered by labour administrative departments to pay labourers wage remunerations or to make up for economic losses, and may even order it to pay compensation:
Refusal to pay labourers wage remunerations for working longer hours;

Companies involved

58.com

In September 2016, the classified advertisement website :zh:58同城|58.com officially declared its adoption of the 996 working hour system, attracting criticism from employees and social commentators. The company responded that the 996 system would be an encouraged, not compulsory, practice.

JD.com

After 58.com's 996 schedule was made known to the public, an internal email from the vice-president Gang He of JD.com was leaked online, which contained a demand for the management team of JD.com to implement the 996 working hour system "on a flexible basis."
On, an employee of JD.com alleged that some departments have begun implementing the 995 schedule, while other departments have already finished doing so. Following the report, the public relations department of JD.com announced that overtime work was not compulsory.
Richard Liu, the founder of the company, referred to people complaining about the work schedule as "slackers".

Youzan

On, the social platform Maimai showed an employee from Youzan stating that their supervisor had enforced the 996 schedule. Bai Ya, the CEO of Youzan, replied, "it would be a good thing to look back at a few years later." Some media criticized this schedule. On the afternoon of, the Labour Supervision Group of Xihu District, Hangzhou announced that the company was under investigation.

Others

At least 40 companies, including Huawei and Alibaba Group, have implemented the 996 schedule or an even more intensive alternative.

Online protests

996.ICU GitHub campaign

On, the 996.ICU repository and website were created. The repository states that the name "996.icu" refers to how developers who work under the 996 system would risk poor health and a possible stay in an intensive care unit. The movement's slogan is "developers' lives matter".
Two days later, on, the repository had already received 50 thousand stars, and 100 thousand stars on, which made it the top trending repository on GitHub. The repository reached 120 thousand stars on, and 200 thousand stars on 9 April 2019, making it the second most starred repository on GitHub. The flurry of activity led to the "issue" page of the repository to be flooded with spam and shut down, which was hotly discussed on Zhihu, Sina Weibo, and WeChat.
The original aim of the repository was to list the companies that use the 996 working hour system, but soon developed into a movement - the - to explicitly prohibit companies using the 996 system from using open source code on GitHub.

Browser blacklist

On, it was widely reported that QQ Browser and WeChat, UC Browser, 360 Browser and many of other Chromium-based Chinese browsers blocked the 996.icu repository on GitHub, describing it as "an illegal and fraudulent site."

Support by Microsoft employees

On, employees at Microsoft and GitHub created a GitHub repository named "support.996.ICU" in support of the 996.ICU campaign, which they believe could be under threat of Chinese government censorship.

Positions

Support