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On the morning of February 29th, 2020 1:30, a female employee in Pinduoduo, Urumqi, Xinjiang suddenly fell to the ground on her way to work. She was taken to the hospital and died after nearly 6 hours of rescue.
Caijing reporter learned that this employee was an employee of the "Buy More Vegetables" business in Xinjiang before his death, and/kloc-0 joined as Guan Peisheng in July/9. Because of the time difference, one o'clock in the morning in Xinjiang is equivalent to eleven o'clock in the middle of the night in Beijing, which is also the daily off-duty time for female employees. Pinduoduo announced that the employee was cremated on June 3rd, 65438.
In 2020, major Internet companies have entered the community group purchase. The giants such as Didi, JD.COM and Meituan all declared that they must win this war, which was followed by large-scale subsidies for burning money and rapid expansion. "Buy more food" is a community group buying business launched by Pinduoduo in 2020.
The news of the employee's death was first released by the users of the workplace social platform "Pulse" on the evening of 65438+1October 3, and the original page was inaccessible on the morning of the 4th. A few hours later, public opinion was ignited: a screenshot suspected of Pinduoduo's response showed that the official account of Pinduoduo certification was in Zhihu's topic "How to treat the sudden death of Pinduoduo employees working overtime?" The reply said, "Look at the people below, who didn't give their lives for money." The reply is deleted.
On the afternoon of 4th, Pinduoduo confirmed the sudden death of employees, but at the same time claimed that the screenshot of Zhihu was untrue. However, "Zhihu Little Butler" issued a document saying that Pinduoduo's response on Zhihu was indeed created by Zhihu certified account Pinduoduo, and it was deleted in less than one minute. Pinduoduo later changed her mind and said that this article was published by employees of Pinduoduo marketing cooperative suppliers on personal mobile phones.
In 2020, Pinduoduo made great strides and its share price rose by 373.59%. By the close of the US stock market last Wednesday, the market value of Pinduoduo had soared to $2 196 billion, making it the third largest Internet company after Tencent and Ali. According to Forbes real-time data, founder Huang Zheng's net worth reached 63.5 billion US dollars, surpassing Ma Yun and Ma Hua Teng, becoming the second richest man in China.
At the anniversary of Pinduoduo last year, founder Huang Zheng said in his speech, "It is not empty talk to start the hard-core struggle mode." When talking about why front-line employees stay up until the wee hours, Huang Zheng said, "Shopping is a good business, a bitter business, a long-term business and a touchstone for Pinduoduo people. You pick and deliver goods while others are sleeping, so that consumers can get fresh dishes before cooking. "
However, on the first working day of the new year, a company with the aura of "making wealth" was pushed to the forefront of "sweatshops" on the hottest track of community group buying.
654381On the afternoon of October 5, Pinduoduo said in response to a Caijing reporter's question that there was no new response to the incident.
She is only 22 years old, loves to laugh, and had planned to get married before her death ... In all kinds of news, the portrait of the girl is hard to be associated with the sudden death of crazy work.
A person close to Mohammad told Caijing that someone around him knew the dead girl, which made him feel even worse. He confirmed that the signature of the girl's work still stays quietly on "defending the frontier for more".
He said that the salaries of employees in Pinduoduo's first-line Kaesong (responsible for local business promotion) are not as high as expected, and many of them are fresh graduates with a monthly salary of more than 10,000 yuan.
Pinduoduo is famous for its intense work. According to him, the front-line employees who buy more food have great work intensity, and they can even work continuously for more than 0/00 days in busy areas, often working until the early hours of the morning.
"We all thought it was a matter of time before people died, but we didn't expect it to be so soon." In an interview with Caijing, several employees in Pinduoduo also made similar remarks.
Buying more vegetables is the core business of Pinduo at present. The employees interviewed told Caijing that in the early days of its establishment, the food buying team was composed of personnel from various departments, and all business departments had indicators and were distributed at different levels. "At that time, I heard that the intensity was high and no one wanted to go. However, when asking about the grocery business, the human resources will send an email to the immediate leader, saying that you asked to transfer. "
Young and strong will also be given priority. A former employee revealed that colleagues studying sports in the department were interviewed three times, and even threatened not to switch to the grocery business and could not get the year-end award.
Even so, the business line is still short of manpower. 165438+ 10, Pinduoduo announced that this year's salary increase will only be targeted at business employees who are willing to switch to grocery shopping. The aforementioned interviewee recalled to Caijing reporter that the next day, his manager had a private chat with the employee who proposed job-hopping, saying that it was very hard to buy food, and he hoped that he would consider it carefully.
An employee who works for Duoduo Shopping told Caijing that the grocery shopping business is divided into two jobs: operation and technology. The employee involved in the accident is operating. His job includes not only pushing the ground, but also moving vegetables to the warehouse and following the truck to the residential construction site.
65438+ 0-2 am, their day has already begun. They take part in the transportation with the car for about 2 hours, rest, start working at noon the next day, and get off work at midnight 1 1- 12, and so on.
Everyone is overloaded. Other departments in Pinduoduo headquarters have an invisible bottom line of working 300 hours a month, while the food shopping business is 380 hours. Those below this invisible bottom line may be interviewed by the supervisor.
In terms of working hours, continuous work 13 days, rest 1 day, and only one day needs approval. "After the National Day, there is basically no normal holiday break," said the employee. It is a tacit practice to deduct holidays. On the eighth day of National Day, they only had one day off.
Pinduoduo isn't the only one running around the crazy track of community group buying.
At present, buying more food, the US group buying food and choosing Didi Orange Heart occupy the head track of community group buying business. The first two have entered more than 200 cities, and it is less than 4 months since the "Buy More" App was launched.
Internet giants have fought one battle after another, and this year's battlefield has shifted to community group buying. Previously, Didi CEO Cheng Wei said in his speech that community group buying "has no investment ceiling". At the meeting, Liu Zai's senior management proposed that he should personally lead the "good community group buying war"; Wang Xing also conveyed the determination that "this battle must be won" in the middle and high level of the US Mission more than once.
Similar statements have appeared in Taxi Fight, Bike Fight and Takeaway Fight.
Indicators are issued at different levels, and the most difficult first-line tasks can only be chewed by the lowest-level employees.
A preferred employee of Didi Orange Heart told Caijing reporter. Their working hours are from 1 1 to 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Due to the massive expansion of personnel, employees in Chengdu's workplace are often crowded in the corridor or even sitting in chairs.
At the beginning of the project, employees in Didi. com revealed that the transfer salary has doubled, but at present it has only increased the subsidy by 20%. Even so, the three-month assessment and rating system still attracts employees to quit. For them, they also work overtime in other departments, and there is only one promotion opportunity a year, but "there is an opportunity there."
Previously, due to the epidemic in Wangjing, Beijing, Meituan announced that all employees were working from home, and the community group buying line was the only exception. A person who recently joined the Meituan to buy food told Caijing that the work intensity is three times as high as before, there are no weekends, no fixed off-duty hours, and a large number of people are still recruiting.
"Crazy, really crazy." An employee said in an interview. It was three o'clock in the morning, and she had just finished her last meeting today. "The Internet industry has been overloaded, and the grocery shopping business is currently overloaded in this overloaded industry."
The company is a reinforcement machine, and every screw is being squeezed when accelerating. High-level charge, employees turn around, and even suppliers are exhausted.
A vegetable wholesaler who asked not to be named told Caijing that he contacted Didi Orange Heart several months ago to optimize the supply of vegetables. He thought that in case the volume of community group buying becomes larger and larger in the future, it cannot be abandoned by the times.
But soon he gave up on himself. He told Caijing that after the supply began, he would transport the food ordered that day to the warehouse of Orange Heart 1 1 every night. "Before 9 o'clock in the evening, they will count the order quantity of the day and start delivery the next morning, so they should finish all the preparations at night."
Before delivery, he had to unpack and package according to the requirements of orange heart and put a specific label on it. For this reason, he also bought a labeling device. After delivery to the warehouse, the staff will check and accept, and if the delivery quantity is not enough, they will be fined. "For example, if he wants 300 kilograms, and he thinks that there is 10 kilograms that does not meet the requirements, he will be fined, and it will be too late to send it again."
After cooperating with the community group purchase, the work and rest hours began to be reversed day and night, and often ended at 1 or 2 o'clock in the middle of the night. "The staff in the warehouse work harder. They have to sort and pack until 6 am." The supplier quickly terminated the cooperation. "I'm so tired. I don't want to be exhausted. "
Sudden death is not new in China today.
On 20 15, a Tencent employee died suddenly. Afterwards, his colleagues sent a petition letter calling on senior leaders to pay attention to the phenomenon of employees working overtime. 20 16, the former director of data technology and products department of Ali Group, Ou Sudden Death, and the deputy editor-in-chief of Tianya Community, Jin Bo Sudden Death.
Overtime is not only the norm, but also a generally accepted culture. Ma Yun once said, "No company should and cannot force employees to own 996", but "996 is a blessing". The internet industry is considered to have a "35-year-old crisis" because of its high work intensity, that is, over 35 years old, and will be eliminated by the company because of its physical quality.
"In Beishangguang, only companies that are about to close down will not work overtime."
In addition to the extension of working hours every day, the "big and small week" system is being accepted by more and more companies. Recently, a auto quickless announced that in order to make the front, middle and back offices cooperate more closely, a auto quickless will start the staff week on 20211.
According to China's "Labor Law", employers employ employees to implement fixed-time working system and irregular working system. Among them, the fixed-time working system means that the working hours of workers are no more than eight hours a day and no more than 44 hours a week on average, and the employer shall ensure that workers have at least one day off every week.
Flexible working hours system means that enterprises can implement other work and rest measures with the approval of the labor administrative department. The employing unit needs to obtain separate approval from the labor department if it wants to implement the flexible working system. The specific situation varies from region to region, and in most cases it should be less than 44 hours per week.
Lawyer Zhang of Beijing Tiantong Law Firm told Caijing that there is no labor public interest litigation widely used abroad in China at present, which is a way for social organizations or procuratorial organs to represent workers' litigation rights. Therefore, there are only two ways to solve disputes. Administratively, the labor inspection department can take the initiative to supervise, demand correction and impose administrative penalties.
In civil matters, employees who work overtime can sue for overtime pay. However, in reality, few people do this.
An Internet practitioner who asked not to be named just jumped from Baidu to Pinduoduo. He told Caijing that he felt that he was not an employee, but a tool on the assembly line: the workstation was crowded and depressed, the toilet was scarce, and eating counted time. This project is so fast that there is almost no breathing space.
Because I am too tired, I want to leave my job just one week after I joined the company, but my income is really high. His income in 2020 is 6.5438+0.8 million, including stocks. He said that buying more vegetables is the most intensive department of the company at present. As a technician, I go to work six days a week. By default, I get off work in the afternoon 1 1, but I often work overtime until the early morning.
He didn't think there was anything wrong with Pinduoduo. "This is a two-way choice. The company didn't let you leave. If you give more money, you will naturally have high requirements. " He calculated an account, "spell" in Pinduoduo for one year, you can buy a house in your hometown, and you can buy a villa for three years. He plans to go back to Baidu in a few years. "Baidu's management is much more relaxed."
He mentioned that Pinduoduo had poached so many people from the WeChat team that Tencent had to stand up and let WeChat sign an agreement with Pinduoduo not to poach people. "Pinduoduo digs people with double or triple wages, and everyone makes money by default."
Pinduoduo's former employees hold similar views. According to its disclosure, it will be a turnover peak after getting the year-end award in May every year. "Some people just want to make quick money. Obviously, when they deal with each other at work, they can push it around, and their hearts are just a little small. It is not the gesture of everyone Qi Xin working together to do the project. "
"Everyone stays in the company mainly for money. Everyone is short of money. They are already poor, or temporarily poor. The part that is not bad may be waiting for the option to be exercised. "
Not everyone wants to exchange their lives for money, but it seems that they can't help themselves in the spring tide. An investor who pays attention to Pinduoduo told Caijing that Pinduoduo and Meituan, as big manufacturers, still maintain their entrepreneurial spirit and wolf nature, which is one of the reasons why the capital market is optimistic about these two companies. "To make the company grow rapidly, we must work hard enough. This is the value of many products, I recognize it. "
104,65438, Shanghai Labor and Social Security Supervision Department said that it had investigated the employment situation of Pinduoduo Company and would check the employment contract and employment time of the company.
A person familiar with the first-line business of buying vegetables said that up to now, "after this incident (the girl died), the company has not changed much and continues to formulate various KPIs."
Pinduoduo Company stipulates that employees are not allowed to have private communication groups, and has asked employees to keep quiet. A Pinduoduo employee who refused to be interviewed said, "The mobile phone software can be monitored and it is not convenient to say."
There seems to be no internal influence. The sudden death of many employees who bought food was further fermented on social networks, but the aforementioned Pinduoduo employees still held meetings until the morning 12. "It may affect people who joined later, and they will choose jobs with slightly lower wages but less intensity.
Everything is quiet. No resignation or protest. 202 1 On the first working day, the news that the girl left sank into some people's hearts like a stone. "Keep it in mind." A Pinduoduo employee said, "It is not good to express opinions, and I am afraid that the company will have ideas."