Tech workers in China started a GitHub repository titled 996.ICU, a reference to the grueling and illegal working hours of many tech companies in China - from 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week. "By following the '996' work schedule, you are risking yourself getting into the ICU (Intensive Care Unit)," says the 996.ICU GitHub project description. The project calls for Chinese tech companies to obey the labor laws in China and the international labor convention.
This initiative has garnered massive support within China. GitHub users have been starring the repository as a way of showing their support. In the span of a few weeks, the project has been starred over 200,000 times, making it one of the fastest growing GitHub repositories in the service's history.
这一倡议在中国获得了大规模的支持。GitHub 用户一直在以 star GitHub 存储库的方式来表示他们对该项目的支持。在几周的时间内,该项目已经收获了超过 20 万次 star,使其成为 GitHub 服务历史上增长最快的项目之一。
The code-sharing platform GitHub, owned by Microsoft, is a place for developers to save, share, and collaborate on software projects. Most important for the 996.ICU movement is that GitHub is accessible in China. It is the dominant platform for developers to collaborate and is a crucial part of Chinese tech companies' daily operations. Since going viral, Chinese domestic browsers, such as those by Tencent and Alibaba, have restricted access to the 996.ICU repository on their web browsers, warning users that the repository contains illegal or malicious content. We must entertain the possibility that Microsoft and GitHub will be pressured to remove the repository as well.
In response to these events, we, the workers of Microsoft and GitHub, support the 996.ICU movement and stand in solidarity with tech workers in China. We know this is a problem that crosses national borders. These same issues permeate across full time and contingent jobs at Microsoft and the industry as a whole. Another reason we must take a stand in solidarity with Chinese workers is that history tells us that multinational companies will pit workers against each other in a race to the bottom as they outsource jobs and take advantage of weak labor standards in the pursuit of profit. We have to come together across national boundaries to ensure just working conditions for everyone around the globe.
To other tech workers and industry supporters, we urge you to join us in our support of the 996.ICU movement.
对于其他技术从业者和行业内外的支持者,我们恳请您加入我们对 996.ICU 运动的支持。
To add your name to the list of supporters, make a pull request with your name and affiliation, as you would like it to appear on the list of signatories. You can also email msworkers4good@protonmail.com with this information and we can add it for you. Read more about adding yourself as a supporter here.
* We launched this petition publicly at the same time that we announced it within Microsoft. We will be updating the number of signed employees periodically as signatures are added.
Topher Weiss, Software Developer, Rational Interaction @ Microsoft
Alexander Mancevice, Software Developer, CargoMetrics
Cathy Lee, Brand designer, Oscar Health
Yann Achard, Senior Software Engineer, Microsoft
Camille Malonzo, Software Engineer Microsoft
Kelly Wagman, Microsoft Research Assistant
Mary L. Gray Senior Researcher Microsoft Research New England (Associate Professor School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering Indiana University, Bloomington | Fellow Harvard University Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society)
Francis Tseng, Public Science
Esteban Roncancio, Software Engineer, TripAdvisor
Naomi Harrington, Program Manager, Microsoft
Mikayla Hutchinson, Software Engineer, Microsoft
David Meyerson, Software Engineer II, Microsoft
Bryan Hughes, Senior Cloud Advocate, Microsoft
Christopher Senderling, Microsoft
Gregory Ellison, Data Scientist, Microsoft
Stephanie Parker, Policy Specialist, YouTube
Adina Shanholtz, Microsoft
Marie Collins, Business Analyst, Google
Kristen Sheets, Brandeis University Computer Science
Erik Knechtel, Microsoft Contractor
Daniel Greene, Assistant Professor of Information Studies, University of Maryland
Amber Erickson, Software Engineer, Microsoft
Julie Mayer, Senior Privacy Manager, Microsoft
Minsoo Thigpen, Microsoft Program Manager
Lowell Bander, Software Engineer, Facebook
Wendy Liu, Tech Writer
Nisha Pillai, Software Engineer
DeepGrace, Senior C++ Expert
Liu Jun, Software Engineer, Guangbao-uni
Xeodou Li, Software Engineer, Udacity
Sangyu Li, Former MSDN Editor,Editor at Hubei Commitee of CCYL,Staff of Wuhan Railway Bureau