Chinese workers revolt over 2-minute toilet breaks

[etoilecart]

BEIJING (AP) — Hundreds of Chinese factory workers angry about strictly timed bathroom breaks and fines for starting work late held their Japanese and Chinese managers hostage for a day and a half before police broke up the strike.

About 1,000 workers at Shanghai Shinmei Electric Company held the 10 Japanese nationals and eight Chinese managers inside the factory in Shanghai starting Friday morning until 11.50 p.m. Saturday, said a statement from the parent company, Shinmei Electric Co., released Monday. It said the managers were released uninjured after 300 police officers were called to the factory.

A security guard at the Shanghai plant said Tuesday that workers had gone on strike to protest the company's issuing of new work rules, including time limits on bathroom breaks and fines for being late.

"The workers demanded the scrapping of the ridiculously strict requirements stipulating that workers only have two minutes to go to the toilet and workers will be fined 50 yuan ($8) if they are late once and fired if they are late twice," said the security guard, surnamed Feng. "The managers were later freed when police intervened and when they agreed to reconsider the rules."

http://news.yahoo.com/chinese-workers-revolt-over-2-minute-toilet-breaks-081615186--finance.html

Sorry China but funniest news so far for 2013 :^O What if you had like #2 several times?

[valve37]

Two minutes, would that be 2 minutes on the throne or 2 minutes from the time you leave your work station and inclusive until you return to it? 

[theafkgamer]

That's stupid! The workers in those Chinese factories already work hard enough for the little money they earn.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

[dipmicro]

There was an issue in underwear factory I heard of (not in China), where female workers would take products to washroom, change and throw away theirs. Issue was so rampant, factory hired female security to check workers before entering washrooms. Workers considered it humiliating and revolted, and factory management told them "stop stealing and we stop checks".

Not sure if this applies here. But I don't think factory floor supervisors create such restrictive rules just to pester workers, there must have been economic reason. Some production lines are as fast as the slowest link and usually require supervisor attention to assign temp if someone needs to step out to the washroom. I seen such request denied "it's only 15min till break, you can hold that long, right?".

[dipmicro]

Btw. now I remembered the issue in that underwear factory was not workers changing their own underwear. They would take 5 and wear it on top of their own to sneak it out of the plant.

[karl*katz]

With a two minute washroom break I bet a lot of people skip the hand washing part.

[bb_cool_stuff]

I like it when Karl picks his spots.

Some of the posts are really bad jokes, i'm sure they are meant to be that way, but that one was good.

With a two minute break I bet a lot of people skip the hand washing part.

Maybe the wiping part also. Yucky !

[prior-of-verity*shake-hands-with-your-devil]

The two minute break is common in China....it's just rarely does anyone stand up about it out of ...fear. But it is just a scratch on the surface of the mistreatment of people in these factories which are either corporate owned or State owned in China.....and other countries in the world where we get products from for our consumer based society. I find it disturbing.