Today, I saw someone sharing a set of screenshots from Xiaohongshu online. It was a post by a user named “灥變” accusing Midea Corporation of exploiting her father in a sweatshop, forcing him to work twelve to fourteen hours of high-intensity labor, and threatening him with wages to prevent resignation. After the post gained some attention, Midea colluded with the Zhongxiu government to suppress public opinion, opened the account of the poster, and aggressively called and threatened to delete the post. Eventually, they even sent police to arrest people! By today, when I searched for this person, I found that all her posts had been forcibly deleted. Despite this, many people still sporadically continue to share this incident.
This also shows that Zhongxiu is the most reactionary imperialist country, controlled by a bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie closely tied to the state machinery. The private bourgeoisie can only rely on the bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie and use the power of the state machinery to directly carry out violent suppression against the people! In such a country, the people have no even a shred of freedom of speech!
There are netizens digging up a lot of black material about Midea’s capitalists under the post about this relay incident, such as delaying payments to suppliers, being directly kidnapped by suppliers, and the capitalist’s son dragging a woman into the water reservoir and drowning her. He was fine himself, and later said it was just a “joke,” sentenced to one year and six months, with a two-year probation, which can be said to be almost no prison time.
I also saw some people posting about this, clearly it was intentional murder, but no death penalty was mentioned, and he doesn’t even have to serve time in prison.
I just saw the follow-up to the incident, and I never expected Zhongxiu to behave so outrageously. Using court eunuchs to manipulate the Spring and Autumn Annals with euphemistic language, dressing up Midea’s factory as a victim, while the poster becomes an unreasonable troublemaker and a so-called lawbreaker using public opinion to stir trouble. A huge company like Midea has surprisingly become the weaker party in front of an ordinary person! The collaboration between state violence agencies and the monopolistic bourgeoisie has turned into a situation where the vulnerable group seeks help from the police! This reversal of right and wrong, black and white, reminds me of how current male chauvinism portrays men as the vulnerable group in society, and women who have been sexually harassed as some illegal force.
The most outrageous part of the follow-up is “Ms. Zhang… voluntarily deleted the false post and apologized on-site to the factory representatives.” The ridicule often seen in comment sections on Bilibili about Zhongxiu’s “issue being resolved and the victim having apologized” has surprisingly become reality (or rather, has already become reality countless times in the past)!
IT Home, September 15: According to “The Paper,” a netizen recently posted that his father works at Midea’s factory and has experienced extremely long working hours of 14 hours a day, and after quitting, faced unpaid wages. The post has received over ten thousand likes and comments.
In response, Midea told “The Paper” that the company has completed a comprehensive investigation into the recent public concern over “Midea’s employment practices.”
Midea stated that from September 8 to September 11, Mr. Zhang (52 years old), the poster’s father, worked as a frontline operator at Hefei Hualing Co., Ltd., with normal shifts. On September 12, Mr. Zhang voluntarily resigned without any abnormalities. On September 12, Ms. Zhang (28 years old), the daughter of Mr. Zhang, posted false information about Midea’s employment practices on Xiaohongshu using her younger sister’s (18 years old) account without verifying basic facts.
Midea said that after reviewing Mr. Zhang’s attendance records, factory surveillance footage, factory shuttle monitoring, and payroll transfer records for the days from September 8 to September 11, Mr. Zhang worked normally with no overtime until 9 p.m., and his working hours were normal. When the company transferred wages to Mr. Zhang, the bank system showed anomalies with the employee’s account, and multiple transfer attempts failed. By September 13, Mr. Zhang’s wages had been settled in person, and there was no intentional wage arrears by the company.
Midea also stated that at 8 p.m. on September 12, after Ms. Zhang posted on Xiaohongshu, public opinion quickly fermented. The company tried to contact Ms. Zhang to clarify the facts but was unable to reach her. On September 13, after failing to contact Mr. Zhang and Ms. Zhang, and given that the post had caused significant misinformation and severely damaged the company’s reputation, the police were contacted for assistance. On September 13, the police found Ms. Zhang to understand the situation. Confronted with the relevant evidence at the local police station, Ms. Zhang admitted that the claims of “overtime” and “wage arrears” were false, voluntarily deleted the false post, and apologized on-site to the factory representatives, then left. 美的回应“员工加班欠薪”指控：网传内容与事实不符 - IT之家
When I work and chat with my coworkers, they tell me that many factories have “no pay if you leave within 7 days before starting work” and “no pay for absenteeism” (because the factory simply refuses to process resignation, otherwise why would anyone be absent?). Moreover, the strictest rules are mostly found in home appliance factories, followed by electronics factories, photovoltaic factories, and auto parts factories, especially large bureaucratic monopolistic capitalist factories.
Also, salary is often delayed until the 15th or even the 20th of the following month. If forced to leave without fighting back, at least 15-20 days of labor income is lost. If leaving before payday, even the previous month’s wages may be confiscated!
There are also specific rules for wage settlement: daily labor is 12 hours, but overtime pay is not calculated daily. Instead, the first 17 working days of the month are all counted as normal working hours, and only the extra working days are paid as overtime. This means that if a worker works overtime for less than 17 days in a month, despite actually spending excessive labor time, they cannot receive the overtime pay they deserve. (Of course, overtime pay is necessary to have enough monthly income to support a family.)
The reason for resigning is obvious: long working hours and high labor intensity. But the bourgeoisie will not let workers go easily. Either they impose “4 resignation slots per department per month,” or their lackeys (such as “team leaders” and other management-level workers) find reasons not to process resignations, forcing workers to leave directly and labeling them as “absent without leave” (what crime is that?), then confiscating their wages.
Finally, even if workers take legal action to recover their wages, payment may be delayed until the next payday—because in some regions, wage payment regulations allow delayed settlement of wages after termination of labor relations, “as long as both parties agree.” In such places, few labor/service contracts lack such agreements.
