Chinese factory worker sets fire to textile plant over 800 yuan in unpaid wages
(rfa.org)
from Pro@programming.dev to world@lemmy.world on 24 May 2025 00:04
https://programming.dev/post/30901392
from Pro@programming.dev to world@lemmy.world on 24 May 2025 00:04
https://programming.dev/post/30901392
A Chinese factory employee set fire to a textile plant in China’s southwestern Sichuan province in his frustration over unpaid wages of just 800 yuan (or US$111), according to videos posted on social media and eyewitness accounts shared with Radio Free Asia.
#world
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This is how you do it!
We (the west) often look at the chinese with some amount of arrogance about them being “peasants”.
Truth is, Winnie Pooh has to take some care, because they will fuck things up if their situation gets worse instead of better.
I mean, people who think the Chinese people are just ‘peasants’ tend to be pretty goddamn ignorant.
Systems are difficult to oppose in every society. We’re all just trying to get by.
ignorant is too light, I say racism, say whatever you want about china, if you see Chinese people as peasants you’re a racist POS
I see plenty of typical* Americans on the streets who can barely plot their own country on a world map. At some point, it is an actual lack of information, ignorance, whether by their environment or their own disinterest, rather than some racial or nationalist prejudice. It’s offensive and stupid, and shouldn’t be excused, but sometimes I think it isn’t even racism. Or, at least, their own racism - it’s still the effect of a nationalist exceptionalist government and culture, so racism is still relevant to their ignorance regardless of what their own opinions, morals and character might be.
Now, all that said, there are millions who are just racist pieces of shit who know better. So fuck them.
* I know the country isn’t homogeneous and there is no typical American, but I’m not talking about just super rural folk or the centers of cities
The vast majority of people saying Chinese people are ‘peasants’ are racist, but if someone told me that they met someone in Fuckknowswhereville, USA, who genuinely thought that mainland China was still struggling under a feudal regime, living hand-to-mouth with villages of illiterates who lacked the educational tools to organize against their overlords, and was genuinely overjoyed to hear the contrary, that the Qing Dynasty had fallen and that China entered the modern world, rather than disbelieving or dismissive… well, I’ve heard too many innocently stupid opinions from my fellow Americans about international issues to reject that out of hand.
Admittedly, being from Fuckknowswhereville, USA, also greatly increases the chance of them being horrifically racist pieces of shit.
But that was absolutely the same for peasants? Which then would make it accurate again to call them oppressed peasants?
That’s not the defining characterisric for peasants, you pawn :p
“Peasant” has much more wide-reaching connotations than just powerlessness.
Nothing wrong with being a peasant, in this context: History is full of peasant revolts. People in the European middle ages were perfectly aware of how the system was stacked against them. Arguably, more than they’re now.
Peasants? In one of the top capitalist countries?? Haha, good one… They certainly have farms, but that’s just one end of the production …
Milton, is that you?
I believe you have my stapler
“just 800 yuan (or US$111)”
“just”
Fuck man, I’d go ballistic over $111 of unpaid wages, and that’s probably a bigger chunk of that employee’s monthly wages than mine.
www.erieri.com/salary/job/factory-worker/china
That’d be 26 hours at average factory wage, according to this site. I don’t think that it’s likely more than a week, if that.
With west you mean usa? Most of Europe gets paid on a monthly basis.
Where in “the west” do you live? My paychecks (Switzerland) are definitely monthly.
I only ever heard of North Americans getting paid weekly/bi-weekly as standard.
A bunch of Europeans in this comment section forgetting there are more “western” countries than just western Europe and the USA/north America.
Fortnightly is the most common in Australia, with some people paid monthly also (depends on the company).
And thankful for this. Monthly sounds terrible
Notice how I specifically talked about places I heard of, never claimed I knew of every country. And I don’t really care one way or another myself tbh, I guess monthly mostly serves to reduce paperwork. More frequent sounds like it might better as the employee.
My first reaction was “That’s not very much - guess they should have paid him!”
I doubt they actually owe ¥800 in total, because they could have just pay 99 other workers ¥8 less and can still pay this person ¥792, this way, the factory owner only owes ¥8 to 100 different individuals rather than oweing ¥800 to one individual. I doubt someone is gonna do arson for ¥8 delayed payment.
So I assume they probably owe other employees as well. Just to illustrate:
If they owe ¥800 to 100 employees, each.
That’s ¥80 000 Yuan/RMB ≈ $11 140 USD
A lot of debt.
They will not probably see the sun for the rest of life.
Fuck yeah. Ask them if it was worth it now. You were going to live as a wage slave regardless.
I think that’s at least a week’s work.
Proletariat Uprising
Power to the people!
To quote the CCP (which is ironic, given they are the oppressors): “革命无罪，造反有理！” (Revolution is not a Crime, Rebellion is Just!)
We've come full circle.
800 yuan to this person could be equivalent to the entire factory for the company
We should all strive to be more like this man.
Winnie the pooh probably gonna torture this dude
that’s the spirit chinese bromrade
Hell yah
Just $11? Just? If you need that money, then it’s a lot of money to you. But capitalists always use double speak. They could have said that the company was trying to stiff him over a mere $111, which would have been 0.000001% of the company’s operating costs.
Pay that man his money.
If the CCP’s all about championing the humble worker then surely they’ll approve of this guy’s actions, right?
CCP shuts down alternative unions and prevents any left wing demonstrations, it’s ironic, you don’t have to fall into a party line when you’re not a party member yet they’re being hunted down as if they just broke the rules of
centralised democracydemocratic centralismI think you mean democratic centralism.
“Centralised democracy” I think would make sense when contrasting parliamentarian vs. direct democracy. None of the ML parties ever implemented democratic centralism but bureaucratic centralism (ie. party leaders decide, base follows). It was never intended to be an organisation principle for a whole country, just a party, OTOH it’s a neat way to dress up autocracy as democracy so of course it’s been done plenty of times.
Lenin described the SPD as democratically centralist and well, yes, maybe back then. The structures are still in place but the whole party is paralysed when it comes to making decisions so in the end the Seeheimer rule, i.e. the neoliberal wing. It’s a rather perverse situation: An actually still lefty base, or at least union people, following a neoliberal vanguard with red paintjob.
Yea brain fart, good catch
It’s because you just broke the rules of dictatorship ;P
Surely they’d prefer workers to go through official channels so the owner of the factory can be prosecuted, not act alone and go on adventurist rampages. They’re not anarchists lol
From the article:
So the “official channels” would just tell him unpaid wages don’t exist
What about the ACFTU? Or one of the labour inspectorates? Going to police is the first step, but it’s hardly the only official channel.
The education system clearly failed to prepare this worker for what they should do if their boss steals their wages, but there were definitely other options besides going all propaganda of the deed on the factory. I certainly sympathize with them though!
You know what’s funny, is that on Voyager, you can’t instantly see what instance someone is registered too unless you tap on the username or respond, but I could still tell your tankie ass was from .ml before doing any of that.
PS: hilarious that someone with a username pun of communist is defending the capitalist business owner so hard too
Even other .ml users in the thread are praising the worker. You can’t make this shit up.
I did no such thing, don’t accuse me of defending some bougie piece of shit for stealing wages.
I’m just saying, the solution isn’t to destroy productive capacity or go on an individualistic adventure. It solves nothing and now those other workers just lost their jobs.
There were other steps that could have been taken. If they had exhausted every avenue then maybe an adventure is all that’s left, but I just don’t think that’s what happened here.
And if adventure is the only hope, at least just target the boss and don’t take way peoples’ work opportunities.
So same as an US-American petitioning trump? 🤣
I guess you oppose burning teslas? Bootlick much?
What if I told you that the US and China are different countries and that they have different governments?
I oppose adventurism.
People should be organized and follow democratic centralism, parties and unions and organizations and such. They shouldn’t just go off on whatever adventure pops in their head because they’re mad at some rich guy for being a piece of shit.
Again, that shit is for anarchists, and in case you haven’t noticed they haven’t been very historically successful.
Have you lit a factory on fire or are you a bootlicker too?
Stakanov found a lighter
Ummm, based?
BASED
A quick peek at the article doesn’t show any fatalities/injuries, so based?
No fatalities/injuries means the management team hasn’t learned a thing. So, cringe.
What a king
A better way to do it is to wait a couple of weeks, burn the place down so it looked like a naturally occurring fire, and not get caught.
Meanwhile most Americans who are forced to work full time with no paid vacation or healthcare instead go off and say, “I don’t pay attention to politics, it’s depressing. I’m just gonna work on myself,” as they accept never being able to afford their dream vacation, their own home, or that new truck they desperately need.
Based
Idk. On one hand I really appreciate the energy but on the other hand this is kind of fucked up for everyone else that works there, and I assume there were people inside when he did this. Like what are all his coworkers going to do for work now that the factory is burned down? I know that’s part of why capitalism sucks but it’s not like they can do anything about it as individuals.
Assumption they were getting paid considering he wasn’t
There’s plenty of other factories that might even pay their workers.
form a union?
Usually that works best before you burn the factory down
They’re already in a union, this is China. All companies over a certain size are unionized by law.
Burn down the executive’s houses?
FTFY.
Cave Johnson made a lemon for that.
Note that RFA is mentioned as a very bad source in other communities.
RFA is a literal CIA propaganda outlet. Like directly created and funded by the CIA to spread anti China propaganda.
…wikipedia.org/…/Radio_Free_Asia_(Committee_for_a…
Well China is more or less state capitalist now so… Based CIA?
I don’t know if I’m joking or not, I hate both the CIA and China so whatever.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/f5e1ccfc-ab97-41ac-a9ac-59460a99b185.png">
Fight back!
Should have given him his $111
My dear overworked and underpaid fellow Americans please take notes…
Guess who the Chinese government will punish now (hint: it wont be the workers)
Should have just given the man his stapler.
Where’s his picture so we can canonized him like St Luigi.