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A Chinese company has come under fire for fining
“lazy” employees who take more than one toilet break per day.
Anpu Electric Science and Technology, a Chinese corporation based in
Dongguan, Guangdong province, admitted to enforcing a bizarre
once-a-day toilet break policy and fining employees who break it
with 20 yuan ($3). According to notices issued by the company and
leaked on social media by disgruntled employees, at least seven
staff members were penalized on December 20 and 21. The rule has
sparked outrage online, but company officials explained management’s
decision to create the bizarre rule by saying that many employees
were lazy and used toilet breaks to smoke and avoid their duties.
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“We are helpless. The fact is that the workers are lazy at work,” a
company manager, surnamed Cao, told Guangdong TV. “The management talked
with those workers many times, but didn’t achieve a positive result
yet.”
Cao added that the toilet break-limiting rule was deemed a better
alternative to firing staff, because finding new workers would have been
more difficult. He also clarified that offenders had not been asked to
pay the 20-yuan fines, instead the amount was deducted from their
monthly bonuses.
Interestingly, accordingly to company policy, workers wanting to take
more than one toilet break a day, have to register with their boss
before visiting the restroom, which only enraged Chinese netizens even
more. However, there were some people who actually sympathized with the
company.
“They are forced to do this,” one person commented on Chinese website
163.com. “Some employees use the toilet for too long and use it
frequently. It will no doubt hurt the company’s productivity.”
However, most people blasted Anpu Electric Science and Technology and
its management, calling the rule exploitative and humiliating.
“What era is it? The freedom of going to the toilet has become a
luxury,” one Weibo user lamented.
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News of the toilet-break penalty caught the attention of the Dongguan
Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau. Officials there
have started an investigation into the matter, but they have already
told Chinese publication The Paper that the rule was illegal.
Apparently, toilet breaks are a serious issue in China, with private
companies taking all sorts of weird measures to keep the time spent by
staff in the restroom to a minimum. Last year, we wrote about a
corporation that had installed timers on bathroom stalls, and SCMP
reports that in 2018, tech giant NetEase spent 2 million yuan to block
internet service in its bathrooms.
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