Source: Worker Bulletin
1. Tea Party: The Truth and Lies of Paid Work
In the last issue of Tea Party, the editorial team spoke about “fake work”. Those who lose their jobs and pay money to rent a workstation, they maintain the appearance of work. Some do it to fill gaps in their resume, some to escape their high-pressure families. This shows the deep-rooted fear young people in the modern age have of having the label of not having a proper job.
Ma Yiji classified it as an extension of paid internships. He pointed out that transportation, food, and rent costs have already put employment and internships in losing-money mode. Wu Yun then reminds us that in an overwhelming job market where “milk tea shops limit employment to age 25” pretending to work could be a temporary refuge against a sluggish job market. These discussions let us notice, when work status and social pressure is tied together “going to work” is not just about receiving your daily wage, it becomes a “social shell” that must be maintained.
Reader Stories
Reader Xiaofu recounted the story of a classmate:
I will graduate this summer with a major in marketing. Some of my classmates from my graduating class in order to gild their resumes before the autumn hiring season, reportedly paid thousands in March to agencies that were said to be able to “refer people to big companies”, as a result they were arranged to do odd jobs in a little known outsourcing company. Everyday they arranged forms, printed documents, didn’t touch important projects, and did not receive an official internship certificate. Once the agency received the money they disappeared. They wasted their time and money for no reason.
Reader C also gave an account of his reasoning for “paying to work”:
When I returned to work after Chinese New Year, I saw my name on the layoff list. I felt the sky was about to fall. Luckily, I received N+1 compensation. At the time, I was afraid of having a gap in my resume, and was stressed everyday about it. So I spent 39 yuan everyday to go clock in at a “fake work company”. There were tables, Wi-Fi, and a bunch of strangers who had also been laid off. As far as I’m concerned, I’m not deceiving myself, it’s spending money to give myself some structure. It gives my life and job search rhythm a support point, it keeps my life from falling apart.
If our reader friends want to keep contributing to this discussion, or have more content to share on this topic, you’re welcome to fill out the following questionnaire: https://forms.office.com/r/a1VpJWNirN. We will take them and gradually publish them on this page. Readers are also welcome to propose topics of interest to our questionnaire.
2. The Law and Legal Protections
Using the Air Conditioner as a Reason Not to Turn On the Air Conditioner
In June 2025, a factory workshop in Shanghai turned into a “steamer basket”, workers reported symptoms of heatstroke and dizziness due to working in a high heat environment. Facing the workers’ demands to turn on the air conditioner, the boss of the company expressed “we already paid the high temperature fee, don’t think about the air conditioning” turning a blind eye to the health protection of the workers.
The Administrative Measures for Heatstroke Prevention and Cooling (An official government document in China) stipulates that in addition to providing high-heat allowances, companies must provide appropriate worker protection conditions:
- When the workplace becomes higher than 33°C (91.4°F), the company must adopt effective cooling measures
- When the temperature reaches 37°C (98.6°F), any outdoor work must stop and indoor temperature must be kept below 35°C (95°F)
Based on the inspection, the labor department determined that temperatures greatly exceeded 33°C (91.4°F), and ordered a correction on the spot. Providing the high-temperature allowance is not a substitute for actual cooling measures. The high-temperature allowance is a compensatory benefit, and providing a safe work environment is a forced requirement.
Convenience Store Forced Employee to Pay for Expired Food
In June 2025 in the Guanshan district of Guiyang city in Guizhou, Kaihui Convenience Store was exposed for multiple labor disputes:
- Employee Ms. An reported that in April she worked 30 hours of overtime without a day off, she received only 1,267 Yuan (instead of the agreed 3,200 yuan)
- Employee Ms. Yang reported that she received 2,200 yuan after working for 51 days. The deductions to her wage included unsold sausages, buns, expired food items, and expensive cigarettes that were counted as lost in the store
The “Tentative Provisions on the Payment of Wages” specifies that if an enterprise wants an employee to shoulder economic losses, it must have definite evidence to prove that there was deliberate destruction or gross negligence by that employee. At the same time:
- The deduction cannot be more than 20% of the employee’s wage
- The employee’s wage must not fall below the minimum wage after deduction
On June 6, the Labor Security Supervision Agency investigators declared on the spot that many of the store’s actions were suspected of being illegal, however the store manager involved in the matter still claimed that he didn’t think it was illegal. On June 12, after coordination with the Labor Security Supervision Agency, Ms. An and two other people received their backpay, other labor disputes are still awaiting arbitration.
3. Resource Recommendations
“Bitter Sweet Ballad” Documentary
Bitter Sweet Ballad is a documentary directed by Liang Junjian, an associate professor at Tsinghua University. He filmed the life and growth of four students at Beijing Dandelion Middle School. This school is specifically for the children of migrant workers, so almost all students will return to the place of their household registration in the 8th or 9th grade to take the high school entrance exams.
At first, the director came in with a clear idea when he entered the school: film a “music can change fate” story. But once he actually started filming, he realized life was more complicated than any story. Liang Junjian didn’t force a “comeback” story on them. But he actually abandoned the grand narrative, through two years he quietly immersed himself in the kids’ lives as they repeatedly moved, left teams, and transferred schools.
As a director, he gradually became aware of this: these migrant children aren’t symbols of “vulnerable groups” or targets of policies, rather they are ordinary kids trying to grow up and deal with loss in a different context. They’re not working hard to succeed, they slowly realize that not all hard work leads to success.
4. Photo Story
ChaPanda’s new Lychee drink received good reviews, but has left employees at various stores crying from exhaustion. The lychees used in the store are not pre-processed in a central facility, so workers have to gradually peel dozens of them by hand everyday.
5. Worker’s Scattered Reflections
The High-Earning Graduate’s Reality
3 years later, she works in a listed company in Beijing in a non-technical post, her annual salary is 270,000, this is triple what her 52-year-old father working in the countryside earns. But her seemingly generous salary is broken down into her base salary, end of year performance pay, and equity payments meant to be paid after four years. Her direct supervisor said “someone in the group needs to take the blame for the low-performance”, this caused her as the youngest member of the team, to have her year-end bonus cut in half. There is no respite during the workday, leaving the office after 22 hours is the norm, but leaving work doesn’t mean you’re off work. “Her Lark signature always has her contact number.” She got a fever and her whole body ached, she was diagnosed with influenza A, she dared only ask for a half day off. After getting her medicine at the hospital, she returned to her 3,000 yuan shared apartment, she still had to complete her work tasks by 8pm. The manager asked me if I could be strong, how could I dare say no?
Source: From post-2000 graduates, don’t want to fix the workplace, just want to flee
Workplace Isolation
Netizen, Maomaokuku recalled, his original company had a progressive set of policies for the integration of new employees. After he joined the company, he was only added to a small group chat with 3 or 4 people. The group chat only had his direct supervisor and a few colleagues, he wasn’t added to any other group until half a year later. He clearly knew that the boss had other group chats, and a big group chat for the department. He knew this because other people would not hide this, they would say “look at xx group” “I sent this material in xx group.” Sometimes he was not included in the meetings, and he was only informed of the final results of the meeting. The whole department made him feel the suffocating feeling that “you’re not qualified enough to fit in”, he was angry about why they had a consistent attitude towards outsiders. He would often ridicule this backward work culture with his friends. “Aren’t we all newcomers? Why does he receive this different treatment?”
Source: Stereotyped by their first jobs
The Non-Compete Agreement Explosion
The non-compete agreement system in China has been spreading rampantly, related cases have increased in the past five years, until an “explosion” in 2024. Previously, only dozens of cases were made public, but now some companies have hundreds of cases a year, especially with internet, renewable energy, self-driving vehicle, medical research and development, manufacturing professions. In terms of cities and regions, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and the southeast regions have the most cases. One time, I went to a large company to handle a case, I represented a worker to negotiate a settlement. When I sat down, the opposing lawyer showed an Excel sheet from his computer, scrolled to row 104 and found the case I was working with. Each column shows the amount the lawsuit was for, and the money that was ultimately obtained, number 104 is only in the middle of the entire form. I only see forms like this in the financial statements of the business department. The opposing lawyer secretly revealed, the revenue for the legal department this year weren’t bad. I was startled, the legal department, how could the words “legal department” and “revenue generated” be linked together?
Source: Workers Trapped in Millions of Yuan for Breach of Contract
Age Discrimination in Job Hunting
My father still hadn’t found a job. He asked, “how do you young people find a job?” I took out my phone and showed him some apps to find jobs, soon after my father signed up for one of those apps with my help. But after signing up, my father discovered that most of the positions he was interested in had age caps. The companies with more relaxed conditions required candidates to be below the age of 40, most set the cap to 35, and some even 30. “This is for you young people.” After browsing for a long time, my father uninstalled the app.
Source: “Old father looking for jobs, has become an isolated island in the sea of information”
The Returnee’s Struggle
I remember when I returned to the country, I sent my resume 200 times. I received 5 interview requests,” Lin Qiao smiled bitterly, “the most ironic thing is that my current job is to help others apply for schools in Malaysia.” Her paystubs show, after deducting the five social insurances and one housing fund, her monthly salary is 7,200 yuan, occasionally she performs well at work, she can barely make more than 10,000 with commission. But subtract Shenzhen rent costs, the necessary costs of life, and then subtract the 3,000 to repay loans and subsidize household expenses, Lin Qiao doesn’t have very much left.
Source: “Taking a loan to study abroad and come back, I work in Shenzhen, and make 7,000 yuan a month”
Coverage period for this issue: (2025/6/17 - 2025/6/30)
Writer: Tangyuan, Wuyun, Lanshui
Editor: Ma Yiji
Proofreader: Shuini
That concludes all the content of Issue 64 of the Labor Bulletin supplement. We are exploring ways to organize everyday worker news into a newsletter. Feel free to email us, We’d love to hear your feedback or have you join us as a volunteer. And please help spread word to friends inside the firewall. Click the button below to subscribe and read past issues.
