According to Hunan’s “Xiaoxiang Morning Post,” on Monday (January 19), sanitation workers in Yuncheng, while cleaning in snowy weather, were asked by netizens “Don’t they get a break on this day,” and received the reply “Everyone has been given a locator, if you don’t move, you’ll be fined.”
A staff member from the Yuncheng Sanitation Center said in an interview that wearing a locator with a work badge is to ensure safety, and because work requires tracking and time limits. Resting cannot exceed a certain period, and there are dedicated personnel monitoring the backend. The area manager will also verify, “Sanitation workers are relatively older, it’s impossible to let them move all the time. We have to consider their physical strength, and there is no such thing as being fined for not moving.”
Does the distribution of locator badges to sanitation workers in Shanxi Yuncheng truly “guarantee safety”?
What safety can location tracking actually ensure? Technically, location tracking cannot reflect the physical condition of sanitation workers nor prevent accidents, so it cannot guarantee safety.
Anyone with even a little understanding of the class situation of Chinese laborers can see that the purpose of location tracking is to monitor workers, to extract as much labor as possible during working hours. When I worked as a commercial worker in a shopping mall, I once chatted with a cleaner from our area. He said he had to start work at 7:30 a.m. (the mall only opened at 10:00), and finished at 10:30 or 11:00 p.m., working at least 15 hours a day. Besides two meal breaks, he was not allowed to rest or sit down. However, his wages could only barely cover his livelihood, with half of his family’s rent taking up most of it. These things were told to me with resentment when I asked him how his work was.Why does the bourgeoisie treat sanitation workers this way? The economic reason is very simple: because the wages paid by the bourgeoisie essentially buy labor power, not labor itself. Therefore, the more labor the workers produce within a fixed working time, the more surplus value the bourgeoisie can appropriate. For property management companies, forcing sanitation workers to work intensively not only reduces the number of workers and cuts wage costs; but also, the labor of sanitation workers is the basis for them to share in surplus value. The more labor sanitation workers contribute, the more surplus value they can share. When I worked at an elevator company, our trainer said that if we “become more professional,” make the maintenance look better, and make clients believe that such maintenance can reduce accidents, the company would have reason to charge higher maintenance fees to elevator users. In this kind of service industry, although service workers do not directly create surplus value, their “performance” is the basis for service capitalists to demand a larger share of surplus value (see the chapter on commercial capital in Political Economy).
The demand for “performance” from sanitation workers leads to harsh fines, and such news is very common.
被“以罚代管”的制度杀死的环卫工 - 激流网
Some petty-bourgeois people sympathetic to sanitation workers say they should throw less trash and be more considerate. However, the situation of sanitation workers cannot be improved simply by citizens being “more civilized” and throwing less trash. Capitalists fine based on the amount of trash, or require workers to wear locators. Whenever possible, they try every means to drain the blood and sweat of laborers! As long as the bourgeoisie exists, and capitalist production relations persist, the working masses will continue to suffer their brutal oppression. Only by overthrowing the old society, defeating the exploiting class and its foundation—private ownership—can the working people be truly liberated!
Take a good look at those revisionist elements still boasting about “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (such as the American Communist Party (ACP)). This is what they call “dictatorship of the proletariat”!
The so-called “learning from the advanced provinces and cities” is actually learning from exploitative practices. Giving sanitation workers GPS trackers started in Rudong County, Jiangsu Province, in 2015, and has continued to this day. The following year, Shenzhen followed suit, initially piloting in Luohu and Futian, and in 2017 expanding to 10 districts in Shenzhen. The requirement is that sanitation workers move at least 0.8 kilometers per hour; if they stay in one place too long, their wages are deducted. Yuncheng started this in December 2023, and it has been over two years now. Looking nationwide, the vast majority of regions have equipped sanitation workers with GPS trackers or smart wristbands. A sharp public comment said, “The ones who should be wearing GPS trackers, such as rapists and pedophiles, haven’t even worn them yet. Instead, they are given to… sanitation workers. All the sneaky tricks are used on the working people.”