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Over a decade after the 2008 financial crisis, the cracks in our neoliberal economy are still glaringly apparent. Multinational corporations continue to exploit cheap labor from around the world, and inequality has only worsened. To maintain this system, many leaders in the West have turned to nationalism to justify the economic plundering of other countries. Donald Trump’s presidency marks a new era of sinophobia. Even before entering the White House, he attacked China for stealing US companies’ intellectual property, accused it of “raping” the US with unfair trade policies, and — most importantly for his targeted audience — blamed it for the theft of American jobs. The hostility has only worsened since he took office. From battling over 5G technology to the seemingly endless trade war, news about China continues to saturate American media. But anxiety of China’s economic growth didn’t begin with Trump. For decades, Western media has churned out dystopian depictions of China. It has been portrayed as everything from a backward country with a disastrous human-rights record to a digitally powered authoritarian state that threatens American freedom. And while international criticism of the use of technology in China is often warranted, the narrative of American media is usually much simpler: The less free China looks, the more free America appears. This is the calling card of nationalism — that China is a growing menace, sucking jobs away from US workers. By dehumanizing foreign workers and pitting them against domestic workers, corporations are able to rationalize inhumane labor practices abroad. But most dangerous for workers is that nationalism pushes us to think that we have more in common with our bosses than with workers beyond the border. In order to truly raise living standards, we have to break out of this “us vs them” mentality and build solidarity with workers around the world. Otherwise multinationals will continue to outsource labor and suppress wages in a race to the bottom.

The Github Project Last month, tech workers in China put together a project on Github, a global software service and code collaboration platform, calling for companies to end “996.” Chinese tech workers have coined the term to describe the grueling practice of working 9 AM to 9 PM, six days a week. In the span of a few weeks, the 996.ICU GitHub project became the second most popular GitHub project of all time, swiftly overtaking some of the most well-funded open-source projects in the tech community. In terms of sheer quantity, it is the largest demonstration of collective action the tech world has ever seen: more than 230,000 tech workers (mainly in China) have “starred” the project on GitHub. A few weeks after the 996.ICU project’s release on GitHub, the tech companies Tencent and Alibaba blocked the project on their web browsers — a blatant attempt to censor the effort. Their attempts to quash the project proved ineffective, though, as both companies only boast a minority share of browser usage in China. The best way to censor the project was to do so directly at the source. Since the code-sharing platform is owned by Microsoft, they would need the Washington-based company to remove the project on GitHub. Aware that Microsoft was likely already facing pressure to censor the project, Microsoft workers released a letter, published on GitHub, demanding that the company keep it uncensored and accessible. The letter called on other tech workers around the world — Github’s primary user base — to join them. But the letter wasn’t just about keeping the 996.ICU GitHub project alive. It soon became a platform for international tech workers to stand behind their Chinese counterparts fighting for better working conditions. Written in both English and Chinese, the letter states: 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. We encourage Microsoft and GitHub to keep the996.ICU GitHub repository uncensored and available to everyone. Within the first week, nearly eight thousand people starred the letter. In addition to tech workers in the US, employees in Turkey, Singapore, the UK and many others all signed the GitHub letter with their names, roles, and company affiliations. Tech workers from France and Spain also translated the letter and added it to the GitHub page. Excited at the support they were getting, Chinese tech workers started to become active themselves, leaving comments of gratitude and adding their signatures. Discussion filled the project’s Issues page, a section on GitHub projects used for conversation. Commenters compared working conditions between the US and China, and shared employment experiences at different tech companies around the world. One user even posted the lyrics to the Internationale with both English and Chinese translations.