Abstract
This article discusses the discriminatory, anti-women workplace culture in China’s tech industry and how tech workers organise online activism in response. In August 2021, an online petition broke out to demand justice for a sexual crime victim at the Chinese e-commerce enterprise Alibaba. This is a powerful example of digital activism leaping beyond the constraints and challenges of labour organising in the global tech sector. The article shows how social media could bring new possibilities to the tech worker movement in both authoritarian and democratic countries.
Introduction
In recent years, researchers in labour politics and union studies are paying more attention to workers in the tech industry and their collective actions on the global landscape. This includes video game producers in Australia and the United Kingdom, as well as tech workers in India (e.g. Keogh & Abraham 2022; Pottenger 2020; Roy 2022; Woodcock 2020). Despite the popular belief that tech work is privileged and ‘white-collar’, with good salaries and a bohemian lifestyle, journalistic reports reveal that this work experience is often mixed with stress, long working hours, insecurity, and institutional gender discrimination against women (see, for example, The Economist 2019). Recently, a massive protest against workplace sexual harassment and discrimination against women unfolded at Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard, one of the world’s most famous video game companies, where female workers reported their experience of humiliation, sexual harassment, and even physical abuse from male colleagues on a daily basis (The Guardian 2021).
In this regard, there has been a recurrent call from practitioners to unionise in order to strengthen their voices and to negotiate collectively for better work conditions. Some notable examples of this effort include the Tech Workers Coalition in the United States and Game Workers Unite in Britain. Yet, unionisation has been difficult for several reasons: Woodcock (2020) notices that British game workers have no prior experience in or knowledge about organising a union; Dorschel (2022) suggests that the ‘new middle class’ identity and their ‘entrepreneurial self’ reduce tech worker interest in collective organising. Against this background, this article adds to the discussion by reflecting on the latest collective action against workplace sexism in China’s tech industry – ‘807’ activism. Local media termed this activism ‘807’ as the protest took place on 7 August 2021 (see also, Liu 2023b). The materials discussed in this article come from my doctoral research project (2018–2022) on workers’ experience in China’s tech industry, including in-depth interviews with tech workers and workplace observations in a sizable Chinese e-commerce enterprise.
It is no exaggeration to say that a misogynistic culture commonly exists in China’s tech industry. Local news reports state that Richard Liu, the chairperson of the Chinese e-commerce firm JD.com, forced his female subordinate to resign because of her pregnancy; reporters from Reuters (Cadell & Jourdan 2018) also find that JD.com has a history of organising men-only staff social events; other examples include the tech giant Tencent’s scandal involving a staff event that featured a game in which female employees, on their knees, unscrewed bottles caps held between the legs of male colleagues; and more generally the long-lasting gender stereotypes and pay inequality in these companies. On another note, Human Rights Watch (2018) revealed that tech giant Alibaba’s recruitment practices were highly discriminatory against women and that female employees often were sexually objectified for recruitment purposes. For example, several recruitment ads on Alibaba’s website stated a preference or requirement for male candidates, and one job ad that stated a preference for female candidates added that they should ‘possess fine personal image and qualities’ (p. 38). Some ads even used the physical attributes of female employees to attract male applicants and described the female employees as ‘late-night welfare’ (p. 86). Another ad highlighted in the report said the female candidate should be ‘impressive enough to computer programmers’ and that ‘physical characteristics like those of popular female Japanese porn star Sola Aoi could help the applicant succeed’ (p. 38). What is worst, complaints related to sexual harassment in the workplace made by female workers are often easily dismissed by their managers.
These issues came to a boiling point in August 2021, when Ms Zhou, a female worker at the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba protested in the staff’s canteen against allegedly having been raped by her manager. Her action soon sparked a fierce protest against this discriminative workplace culture in the company, with over 6,000 tech workers signing an online petition demanding that their employer, Alibaba, investigate this issue. They also demanded the implementation of institutional and policy changes intended to promote a better work environment for women. Without the involvement of the official union All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), this activism was organised bottom-up by some committed workers in the company. Their actions have eventually caused several industry leaders in China’s tech industry including Alibaba and Tencent to review their workplace policy against gender discrimination. As Woodcock (2020) writes in his analysis of the Game Worker Unite, ‘just because workers are not organised does not mean there is not any resistance and this does not preclude them becoming organised’. This activism in China showcases that, as well as unionisation, tech workers can weaponise social media platforms to fight for workplace changes.
Labour politics and resistance in China’s tech industry
Researchers studying labour politics in China have long been critical of the ACFTU’s role in representing workers interests because, as Chen (2009: 663) explained, the ACFTU is ‘subservient to the state’ and ‘de facto government organs’. Such bureaucracy limits the autonomy of the Federation within the framework defined by the government and prevents it from becoming a voluntary organisation that represents social power rising bottom-up from society (Chen 2009: 663–664). In a similar vein, Taylor and Li (2007: 703) critically conclude that ‘the ACFTU is largely ineffectual in carrying out trade union functions, lacking the willingness or ability to protect workers’ interests’. During my fieldwork in China, I spoke to workers about their concerns over joining the ACFTU. Similar to the situation in the West, none of the workers have joined a union. Some interviewees were under the mistaken impression that unions can do little more than improve the minimum labour standard in China, which is not an issue for tech workers who enjoy some of the best wages in the labour market.
Moreover, it is noteworthy that all forms of strikes or walkouts from work are illegal in China, as the right to strike was removed from China’s Constitution in 1982 (China Labour Bulletin 2020). Therefore, in general, Chinese workers lack any ‘associational’ and ‘institutional power’ in the labour market (Wright 2000). Lee (2007: 24) paints with an even more pessimistic brush, arguing that ‘given the large labor supply, the prevalence of unskilled and low waged jobs, and the non-existence of independent unions, Chinese workers can hardly be described as having marketplace, workplace, or associational bargaining power’. The same story could be told in the tech industry: every year, hundreds of thousands of tech graduates from all parts of mainland China look for jobs in the tech industry, believing it is the economic sector with the best future (Jiang 2022). As workers are widely available, employers can easily dismiss workers who participate in collective actions and ignore their demands. From what I learnt from the interviewees, this sense of insecurity and the financial pressure related to losing one’s job is a strong barrier for tech worker participation in collective actions.
Yet, against all these unfavourable conditions, Chinese workers have managed to use a bottom-up approach to retain their agency to initiate resistance. Chen (2016: 25) summarises three notable characteristics of Chinese labour activism over his decades of research on the topic: spontaneous actions are usually initiated by individual activists who often are directly involved in the dispute; and workers’ claims are enterprise-specific, non-cumulative and non-sustained in nature, both of which mean that no organisation exists after the activist event and the actions themselves are short-lived. Due to the economic downturn in recent years, Chinese workers, including those in the tech industry, remain trapped in a disadvantageous position in the industrial relations dynamic, and their demands can only be achieved through government mediation and arbitration. This phenomenon diverges from experiences in the West, for example, in the Activision Blizzard scandal, the California government avoids any intervention into the dispute and refuses to comment on it (The Guardian 2021). This means Chinese workers rely heavily on legal means to engage in disruptive collective actions to voice their discontent. However, ‘playing by the rules’ does not guarantee the authority will permit their actions nor answer their demands. Since 2013, labour activism motivated by workplace discontent has met a strong backlash from the government (Fuchs et al. 2019; Liu 2021).
For example, in 2019, Chinese tech workers lit up the first collective actions in the industry. It is argued that workplace policy in the tech industry, one of China’s key economic pillars, has been loosely regulated. For instance, while a Chinese court found that the ‘996 practice’ – 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days per week – violates the China Labour Law, no follow-up government action has yet restrained this inhumane management practice, which continues to be common in the tech sector. Liu (2023a) argues that this is because the government benefits tremendously (not least in the form of enormous taxation) from achieving ‘China’s technology dream’ and believes that ‘996’ is necessary for this achievement. Therefore, it could be argued that it is against the state’s interest to limit working hours in the industry and, consequentially, this ‘996’ schedule remains. With an increasing awareness of labour rights, in March 2019, Chinese tech workers initiated an ‘anti-996 movement’ by publicising their working hours and related information on Github.com . Lin (2020) suggests that anti-996 resistance is an example of networked organising that shares familiar features with previous labour activism in China, such as a 2016 strike by Walmart store workers. In networked activism, workers organise from more than one workplace; each location serves as part of a mutually supporting network through sharing information, discussing strategy and actions, and, most importantly, showing solidarity.
Considering the process of organising workers, social media platforms also play an essential part in ‘807 activism’. On 7 August 2021, a female Alibaba employee protested in the staff canteen, alleging that she had been sexually offended by her manager during an overnight business trip. She was sexually assaulted by the client when she was drunk and, afterwards, when she was resting in her hotel room, she was raped by her manager. She then uploaded a post on social media providing details of the incident, her formal complaint, and the company’s inadequate follow-up: This includes feigned ignorance by the local police and her company asking for further investigation. Both her online and offline actions sparked a fierce discussion on Alibaba’s internal employee forum as well as the Chinese social media platforms WeChat and Weibo, and soon hundreds of outraged colleagues initiated a petition to urge their employer to perform a meaningful follow-up. Later, a two-thousand-word open letter, titled ‘The Joint Initiative of 6000 Ali-People on the 807 Incident’, was published on the evening of August 8. It was signed by over 6,000 workers and widely circulated by the concerned people including workers in other tech companies and members of the general public. In this letter, petitioners urged the police and the company to investigate the incident impartially, and answers and compensation need to be provided to the victim. Also, they urged the company to reflect on its business culture, especially in how complaints are filed and responded to, and to reflect on the protection of women in the workplace.
In past labour activism in China, especially in factories, strikes, road blockages and walkouts from work were common strategies to create immediate economic pressure on employers to negotiate with their workers’ representatives. However, without legal protection, and with the state increasingly repressive against labour activism, these strategies are becoming risky. The 807 activism was restricted to online space. Petitioners did not walk out from work, so previous countermeasures used to crack down against strikes and work stoppages, such as arresting a leader or using security forces to disband crowds were meaningless. The petition was soon circulated within the tech company and to the public, which attracted even more journalistic attention, including the official news outlet People’s Daily. This networked organising also enables people across China to take part, including female workers in other tech companies, to show their solidarity with the activists. The attention from the media and the general public created enormous pressure on the senior management, and soon Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba, announced that the accused manager had been dishonourably discharged, the senior managers who had refused to follow up on Ms Zhou’s complaints had been compelled to resign, and the human resource director would receive a demerit penalty. In addition, to answer the concerns raised by the general public, Zhang stressed that there is zero tolerance of sexual crime in Alibaba and he quickly established a special working group that reports directly to the board of directors (People’s Daily 2021). The influence of this activism has spread to other Chinese tech enterprises. For instance, shortly after the petition, Tencent CEO Martin Lau suggested that his company’s business drinking policy would be reviewed. In the end, the activism was settled in a partial victory: while some positive changes were brought to China’s tech industry, the suspect who involved in the alleged sex crime was not arrested.
Justice for tech workers: lessons learnt and the road ahead
Despite the geographical difference, the 807 activism discussed in this article shows that the work experience in the tech industry under the global production of digital labour has a lot in common, especially for female workers who suffer under sexist workplace cultures. For certain, labour organising is one necessary measure to fight against gender discrimination in the industry. My fieldwork in China indicated that challenges to organise workers, including legal/political constraints to establishing grassroot unions, are similar in China and some Western countries. However, the 807 activism suggests that social media can be used to organise and empower workers, and online action can bring meaningful changes in the workplace. Scholars who investigate labour organisation through digital networks sometimes refer to this phenomenon as ‘social media unionism’, arguing that social media can improve unions’ engagement with audiences (e.g. Hau & Savage 2022) and enable new forms of connection between unions and other social groups, with the possibility of leading to union revitalisation. This article extends the discussion of organisation and mobilisation to an ad hoc campaign, suggesting that workers should be flexible and creative in battling for a better workplace. This implication is relevant to digital-economy-related labour movements around the world, particularly in non-democratic contexts where the formation of grassroot unions is prohibited.