Passage Two Given the fierce competition in the high-tech sector industries, start-ups have to take drastic measures to survive, let alone thrive. To develop new products, and produce and market them, companies need a great deal of resources and skilled manpower. Perhaps this is the reason that they make their employees work overtime. But forcing the “996” (working from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week) schedule on the workers is illegal. To protect the rights of workers, the Labor Law stipulates that employers should not force their workers to work more than eight hours a day, or more than 44 hours a week. If employers do need their staff to work extra hours to meet production deadlines or fulfill other tasks, they can ask them to work overtime – but not than 36 hours a month and only after consulting and reaching an agreement with the labor union and the workers. More importantly, employers have to pay at least 1.5 times the usual salary to the employees for overtime work. This is to protect the rights, interests and health of the workers. Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, has added fuel to the debate, by saying that employees who get the “opportunity” to work according to the “996” schedule are the lucky ones, because in many companies employees don’t get the chance to work long hours. But the fact is, if employers do not meet the two essential requirements to make employees work overtime – consulting workers and restricting the amount of extra work – and force the “996” schedule on their workers and make them work for more than 60 hours a week, they violate the Labor Law. It is therefore important that standards to calculate workload per day should be set and quantified, and supervision over the exploitation of labor made stricter. In addition, internet companies should, according to the law, reduce the work schedule and pay workers their due for overtime work, and find better ways to increase their employers’ productivity. But under no circumstances should workers’ rights, interests and health be compromised.