BEIJING (AP) — China’s official Xinhua News Agency is calling for shorter work hours in the country’s tech sector following the sudden death last week of a young employee at a leading e-commerce platform. Last month's tragedy refocused attention on “the pain of an abnormal culture of overtime," Xinhua said in a brief editorial posted Tuesday on its Twitter-like Weibo account. Dreams should be pursued through striving, but workers’ legitimate rights and interests should not be sacrificed and employers may be breaking the law in encouraging health-sapping overwork, Xinhua said. “Strengthening the protection of legal rights and interests for workers, letting those chasing their dreams run along in a healthy manner and introducing more warmth into the development of enterprises — that's the form striving should take," the news agency said. The editorial follows the Dec. 29 death of a 22-year-old employee of Pinduoduo as she was walking home with a colleague at 1:30 a.m. Few details have been released, other than that the woman apparently suffered stomach pains before collapsing, but internet users have seized on the case as an example of the health impacts of long working days.

Source: Daily Sun January 05, 2021 09:22 UTC