Jack ma has got this wrong

Alibaba founder Jack Ma is again in the news for his glowing support for China’s ugly sweat shops, euphemistically called ‘996’—or workdays that extend from 9.00 am to 9.00 pm, 6 days a week. In a speech last week, Ma called China’s gruelling overtime culture as a ‘huge blessing’ and then justified this with: “If you don’t work 996 when you are young, when can you ever work 996?” Jack Ma does not stand alone in what is seen as an 18th century, Industrial Revolution aberration.

Earlier, Tesla’s Elon Musk, a supporter of long hours of work, said: “Nobody changed the world on 40 hours a week.” Musk added he was all for people working 80 to 100 hours a week if they were to have an impact. 

Young techies who have lost body and soul to the 12-hour regime, have not taken this lying down. A storm of online protest has swamped Jack Ma and his supporters. One such movement ‘996.ICU’ launched on GitHub encouraged workers to share their experience of excessive overtime, and to blacklist companies like Alibaba and Foxcomm. China’s state-owned news agency Xinhua has reminded readers that ‘996’ is a violation of the 8-hour labour law. It is indeed anachronistic that advocates for the sweat shop still exist when Europe is moving to a 4-day, 30-hour week convinced that a life balanced with leisure and family time makes a worker more productive.

What Jack Ma and Elon Musk need to be reminded is that working long hours for your own enterprise is not the same as working for a mentally-numbing, physically draining routine for an employer who pays a pittance and steals the best years of your life. In India, though the Factories Act, 1948 prescribes a 6-day, 8 hours-a-day schedule, the law is observed more in its breach. Entire industries—power loom workers, security guards, construction labourers—sweat for 12 hours a day without a labour inspector ever batting an eyelid. If we are to move to a more humane, democratic society, Jack Ma’s proposition must be firmly thrown in the bin.