Techlife News

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New tutors undergo limited training: they watch
recordings of tutoring sessions. But Goyal’s main
request from prospective volunteers is a passion
for helping the kids they tutor progress.

“Our system is pretty scalable. The only thing we
really need to manage (2,000) students would
be more tutors,” Goyal said.

Although the pandemic has forced many
students to retreat inward, Goyal said working
with others on a big project has allowed her to
look outwards.

“My confidence level has increased,” said Goyal,
adding that she’s made friends with kids from
her school whom she’s never met in person.
Furthermore, running a growing nonprofit “does
help with the boredom” of being stuck at home,
she said.

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Image: LM Otero

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EU FINES VIDEO
GAME FIRMS FOR
BLOCKING CROSS-

BORDER SALES

The European Union has issued fines to a U.S.
video game platform and five game makers after
they blocked players from buying cheaper copies
of the games in other countries in the bloc.
The EU’s executive Commission said Wednesday
that it fined Valve Corp., which owns the Steam
online PC game distribution platform, and the
game makers a total of 7.8 million euros ($9.5
million) because they restricted cross-border
sales in violation of the bloc’s antitrust rules.
The companies used so-called geo-blocking
practices to prevent players from activating
and playing games sold either on DVD or by
download, the commission said. Steam activation
keys prevented games from working outside
the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania,
Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, it said.

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“Such practices deprive European consumers of
the benefits of the EU Digital Single Market and
of the opportunity to shop around for the most
suitable offer in the EU,” Executive Vice-President
Margrethe Vestager, the bloc’s competition
watchdog, said in a statement.
The geo-blocking restrictions affected about
100 games and lasted until November 2018.
Valve, which was fined 1.6 million euros,
refused to cooperate with the investigation, the
commission said.
However, Valve said it “cooperated fully” with
the commission’s investigation by providing
all requested evidence and information. “We
disagree with these findings, and plan to appeal
the decision,”Vice-President of Marketing Doug
Lombardi said by email.
The game makers - Bandai Namco, Capcom,
Focus Home, KochMedia and ZeniMax -
cooperated and received discounts on their
penalties, the commission said.

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FEDEX TO CUT UP
TO 6,300 JOBS
IN EUROPE OVER
NEXT 18 MONTHS

FedEx plans to cut up to 6,300 jobs in Europe as Image: Wilfredo Lee
it completes the process of combining its own
operation with that of a Dutch delivery company
it bought in 2016.

FedEx said in a statement that the cuts will take
place over 18 months and include express-
delivery operations and back-office employees
of TNT Express across the continent.

Memphis, Tennessee-based FedEx said
severance payments for between 5,500 and
6,300 layoffs will cost between $300 million and
$575 million through 2023, but that the job cuts
will save the company between $275 million
and $350 million a year beginning in 2024.

The president of FedEx’s European express-
delivery operation, Karen Reddington, said in a
statement that the job cuts are crucial to make

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the company more competitive in a changing such as Germany-based DHL. TNT had a major
market. FedEx had about 245,000 employees ground-delivery business in Europe.
worldwide, including about 43,000 at TNT, as of
last May 31. In buying TNT, FedEx succeeded where U.S. rival
United Parcel Service had failed – European
FedEx plans to downgrade an air-service hub regulators blocked a UPS attempt to buy the
in Liege, Belgium, to make Paris its sole primary company in 2013, arguing that a UPS-TNT
hub. The company compared that set-up to its combination would face inadequate competition
U.S. operation, where Memphis is the main hub on some routes and lead to higher prices.
and Indianapolis serves a secondary role.
FedEx hoped TNT would help it take advantage
FedEx paid $4.8 billion to acquire TNT and of the growth in online shopping in Europe, but
expand its presence in Europe against rivals the acquisition has not gone smoothly.

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Europe was in the midst of an economic
slowdown. Then TNT’s computer systems
became infected during a worldwide
cyberattack called NotPetya, disrupting service
and causing FedEx to take a $300 million
charge against earnings in 2017.
FedEx said that it has successfully integrated
FedEx and TNT information-technology systems
and key parts of the air and ground networks.
Shares of FedEx fell 1.2% and have lost 3.9% in
2021, compared with a 1.1% gain this year in the
Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

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162

SKOREAN COURT
GIVES SAMSUNG

SCION PRISON
TERM OVER
BRIBERY

Billionaire Samsung scion Lee Jae-yong was
sent back to prison after a South Korean court
handed him a two and a half-year sentence for
his involvement in a 2016 corruption scandal
that spurred massive protests and ousted South
Korea’s then-president.
In a much-anticipated retrial, the Seoul High
Court found Lee guilty of bribing then-President
Park Geun-hye and her close confidante to win
government support for a 2015 merger between
two Samsung affiliates. The deal helped
strengthen his control over the country’s largest
business group.
Lee’s lawyers had portrayed him as a victim of
presidential power abuse and described the 2015
deal as part of “normal business activity.”

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Wearing a mask and black suit and tie, Lee was
taken into custody following the ruling. He didn’t
answer questions by reporters upon his arrival at
the court.

Injae Lee, an attorney who leads Lee Jae-yong’s
defense team, expressed regret over the court’s
decision, saying that the “essence of the case is
that a former president abused power to infringe
upon the freedom and property rights of a
private company.”

He didn’t specifically say whether there would be
an appeal. Samsung didn’t issue a statement over
the ruling.

Lee Jae-yong helms the Samsung group in
his capacity as vice chairman of Samsung
Electronics, one of the world’s largest makers of
computer chips and smartphones.

In September last year, prosecutors separately
indicted Lee on charges of stock price
manipulation, breach of trust and auditing
violations related to the 2015 merger.

It isn’t immediately clear what his prison term
would mean for Samsung. Samsung didn’t
show much signs of trouble during the previous
time Lee spent in jail in 2017 and 2018, and
prison terms have never really stopped South
Korean corporate leaders from relaying their
management decisions from behind bars.

Samsung is coming off a robust business year,
with its dual strength in parts and finished
products enabling it to benefit from the
coronavirus pandemic and the prolonged trade
war between United States and China.

Samsung’s semiconductor business rebounded
sharply after a sluggish 2019, driven by robust

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demand for PCs and servers as virus outbreaks
forced millions of people to stay and work
at home.

The Trump administration’s sanctions against
China’s Huawei Technologies have meanwhile
hindered one of Samsung’s biggest rivals
in smartphones, smartphone chips and
telecommunications equipment.

Samsung Electronics said earlier this month that
its operating profit for the last quarter likely rose
by 26% from the same period a year earlier to
9 trillion won ($8.1 billion). The company will
release its finalized earnings later this month.

Lee, 52, was originally sentenced in 2017
to five years in prison for offering 8.6 billion
won ($7 million) in bribes to Park and her
longtime friend Choi Soon-sil. But he was
freed after 11 months in February 2018 after
the Seoul High Court reduced his term to
2½ years and suspended his sentence,
overturning key convictions and reducing the
amount of his bribes.

The Supreme Court last week confirmed a
20-year prison sentence for Park, who was
convicted of colluding with Choi to take
millions of dollars in bribes and extortion
money from some of the country’s largest
business groups, including Samsung, while
she was in office from 2013 to 2016.

The ruling meant that Park, who also has a
separate conviction for illegally meddling
in her party’s candidate nominations ahead
of 2016 parliamentary elections, could
potentially serve 22 years behind bars until
2039, when she would be 87.

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Choi is serving an 18-year prison sentence.

In a news conference, South Korean President
Moon Jae-in said he has no immediate plans
to grant presidential pardons to Park and
another imprisoned former president,
Lee Myung-bak, who’s serving a 17-year
term for corruption.

Conservative politicians and some members
of Moon’s liberal party have endorsed the idea
of pardoning the former presidents for the
sake of “national unity” as the country’s deeply
split electorate approaches presidential
elections in March 2022.

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CANADA OKS
RETURN OF

BOEING 737 MAX
AIRCRAFT

The Boeing 737 Max can return to Canadian
airspace beginning this week, officials said,
concluding nearly two years of government
review after the aircraft was involved in
two deadly crashes that saw the planes
grounded worldwide.
Transport Canada said the planes will be
permitted to fly as long as they meet conditions
specified by Transport Canada in December,
including allowing pilots to disable a faulty
warning system that was found to be central to
two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019.

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“Canadians and the airline industry can rest
assured that Transport Canada has diligently
addressed all safety issues prior to permitting
this aircraft to return to service in Canadian
airspace,” Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said
in a statement.

The measures go beyond those announced by the
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in November,
which required Boeing to make changes to the
computer systems inside the plane and required
pilots to undergo training in flight simulators.

The planes have been grounded since March
2019 following the crashes of a Lion Air flight near
Jakarta on Oct. 29, 2018, and an Ethiopian Airlines
flight on March 10, 2019, killing a total of 346
people. Investigators determined that the cause
of the crashes was a faulty computer system that
pushed the plane’s nose downward in flight and
couldn’t be overridden by pilots.

Boeing admitted in court filings that two of
its technical pilot experts deceived the U.S.
FAA about a flight-control system called the
Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation
System, or MCAS, that could point a plane’s nose
down if sensors indicated the plane might be in
danger of an aerodynamic stall — that it might fall
from the sky.

The system was not part of previous 737 models.
MCAS was added because the Max’s larger
engines, which are mounted higher and farther
forward on the 737’s low-swept wings, gave
the plane a tendency to tilt too far nose-up in
some conditions.

Boeing downplayed the significance of MCAS and
didn’t mention it in airplane manuals. Most pilots
didn’t know about it.

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JACK’S BACK:
CHINESE
E-TYCOON ENDS
SILENCE WITH
ONLINE VIDEO

China’s highest-profile entrepreneur, Jack Ma,
appeared this week in an online video, ending
a 2 1/2-month absence from public view that
prompted speculation about the future of the
e-commerce billionaire and his Alibaba Group.
In the 50-second video, Ma congratulated
teachers supported by his foundation and made
no mention of his disappearance or official
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Image: Firdia Lisnawati

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efforts to tighten control over Alibaba and other
internet companies over the past six months.
The video appeared on Chinese business news
and other websites.

The normally voluble Ma disappeared from public
view after he irked regulators by criticizing them
in an Oct. 24 speech at a Shanghai conference.
Days later, regulators suspended the planned
multibillion-dollar stock market debut of Ant
Group, a financial platform that grew out of
Alibaba’s payments service, Alipay.

That prompted speculation online about
whether the 56-year-old Ma, China’s biggest
global business celebrity and a symbol of its
tech boom, had been detained or might face
legal trouble. Alibaba and the government
haven’t responded to questions about him.

The Jack Ma Foundation said in a statement
Wednesday: “Jack Ma participated in the online
ceremony of the annual Rural Teacher Initiative
event on January 20.”The foundation and
Alibaba didn’t respond to questions about Ma’s
status and when his next public event might be.

President Xi Jinping’s government says anti-
monopoly enforcement against internet
companies will be a priority this year. Alibaba
and other companies have been fined for
violating anti-monopoly rules. Some social
media services have been reprimanded for
lapses in enforcing censorship.

In his October speech, Ma complained
regulators had an antique “pawnshop
mentality” and were hampering innovation,
according to Chinese media. He appealed to
them to make it easier for entrepreneurs and
young people to borrow.

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Image: Charles Platiau

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That clashed with the ruling party’s marathon
campaign to reduce surging debt in China’s
financial system that prompted fears
about a possible bank crisis and led rating
agencies to cut Beijing’s credit rating for
government borrowing.

Some people suggested the ruling Communist
Party was making an example of Ma to show
entrepreneurs couldn’t defy regulators. But
finance experts said Xi’s government was
uneasy about Alibaba’s dominance in retailing
and Ant’s potential financial risks.

Anti-monopoly regulators warned executives
Alibaba and five other tech giants in December
not to use their dominance to block new
competitors from entering their markets. The
central bank and other regulators have ordered
Ant to overhaul its business before its market
debut can go ahead.

Alibaba’s share price in Hong Kong is down 10%
since October but recovered some of its loss
from its low point this month.

Ma, a ruling party member, stepped down as
Alibaba chairman in 2019 but is a member
of the Alibaba Partnership, a 36-member
group with the right to nominate a majority
of the company’s board of directors. He
played a leading role in developing Ant,
which grew out of Alibaba’s online payment
service, Alipay.

In the video Wednesday, Ma, wearing a blue
sweater over a white T shirt and gray trousers,
smiled and waved to viewers. It included
a scene the video said showed Ma visiting
a school supported by his foundation on
Jan. 10.

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US BLACKLISTS
XIAOMI, CNOOC,
SKYRIZON, RAISING
HEAT ON CHINA

The U.S. government has blacklisted Chinese
smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp. and China’s
third-largest national oil company for alleged
military links, heaping pressure on Beijing in
President Donald Trump’s last week in office.
The Department of Defense added nine
companies to its list of Chinese firms with
military links, including Xiaomi and state-owned
plane manufacturer Commercial Aircraft Corp. of
China (Comac).
U.S. investors will have to divest their stakes
in Chinese companies on the military list by
November this year, according to an executive
order signed by Trump last November.
Xiaomi said in a statement that its products
are for “civilian and commercial use” and said it
is not owned, controlled or affiliated with the
Chinese military.

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“The Company will take appropriate course of
actions to protect the interests of the Company
and its stakeholders,” the statement read,
although Xiaomi did not elaborate on what
those actions might be.

Xiaomi Corp. overtook Apple Inc. as the world’s
No. 3 smartphone maker by sales in the third
quarter of 2020, according to data by Gartner.
Xiaomi’s market share has grown as Huawei’s
sales have suffered after it was blacklisted by
the U.S. and its smartphones were cut off from
essential services from Google.

Separately, the Commerce Department put
China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC)
on the entity list, an economic blacklist that
forbids U.S. firms from exporting or transferring
technology with the companies named unless
permission has been obtained from the U.S.
government. The move comes after about
60 Chinese companies were added to the list
in December, including drone maker DJI and
semiconductor firm SMIC.

CNOOC has been involved in offshore drilling
in the disputed waters South China Sea, where
Beijing has overlapping territorial claims
with other countries including Vietnam, the
Philippines, Brunei, Taiwan, and Malaysia.

“China’s reckless and belligerent actions in
the South China Sea and its aggressive push
to acquire sensitive intellectual property and
technology for its militarization efforts are a
threat to U.S. national security and the security
of the international community,” U.S. Commerce
Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.

“CNOOC acts as a bully for the People’s
Liberation Army to intimidate China’s neighbors,

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and the Chinese military continues to benefit Image: Greg Baker
from government civil-military fusion policies for
malign purposes,” Ross said.

A CNOOC spokesperson said in a statement
that it will “continue to monitor the progress,”
acknowledging that the company had been put
on the entity list.

Chinese state-owned company Skyrizon was
also added to the economic blacklist, for its
push to “acquire and indigenize foreign military
technologies,” Ross said.

Beijing Skyrizon Aviation, founded by tycoon
Wang Jing, drew U.S. criticism for an attempt
to take over Ukraine’s military aircraft engine
maker Motor Sich in 2017. The concern was that
advanced aerospace technology would end up
being used for military purposes.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson
Zhao Lijian criticized the move as suppressing
Chinese companies, and said the Trump
administration was “generalizing the concept of
national security and abusing state power for no
apparent reason.”

“China will take necessary measures to resolutely
safeguard the legitimate rights and interests
of Chinese enterprises, and resolutely support
Chinese enterprises in safeguarding their own
rights and interests in accordance with the law,”
Zhao said at a briefing.

He said the U.S. actions violated principles of
market competition and international economic
and trade rules, and undermined the confidence
of foreign enterprises investing in the U.S., all of
which would eventually harm the interests of
U.S. enterprises and investors.

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DEATHS, SELF-
IMMOLATION
DRAW SCRUTINY
ON CHINA TECH
GIANTS

E-commerce workers who kept China fed
during the coronavirus pandemic, making their
billionaire bosses even richer, are so unhappy
with their pay and treatment that one just set
himself on fire in protest.
China’s internet industries already were known
for long, demanding days. With millions of
families confined at home, demand surged and
employees delivered tons of vegetables, rice,
meat, diapers and other supplies, often aboard
scooters that exposed them to sub-freezing
winter cold.
For white-collar workers in the technology
industry, pay is better than in some industries
but employees are often expected to work 12
hours a day or more.
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Image: Andy Wong

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Image: Andy Wong

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The human cost caught public attention after
the deaths of two employees from e-commerce
platform Pinduoduo, known for selling fresh
produce at low prices. Their deaths prompted
suggestions they were overworked. In an
indication of high-level concern, the official
Xinhua News Agency called for shorter work
hours, describing long hours of overtime
at the expense of employees’ health as an
“illegal” operation.

Renewed concerns over dire working conditions
for delivery drivers also came to the forefront
when a video circulated on Chinese social media
showing what it said was a driver for Ele.me, part
of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, setting
himself on fire to protest unpaid wages.

The controversy is a blow to the image of
internet industries that are transforming China’s
economy and generating new jobs. They
have made some of the founders among the
world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs. During the
heights of the pandemic, the fortunes of the
biggest, including Alibaba founder Jack Ma and
Pinduoduo founder Colin Huang, swelled as
online consumer spending boomed.

In a video widely circulated on Chinese social
media, 45-year-old delivery driver Liu Jin poured
gasoline and set himself on fire outside a
distribution station for Eleme in the eastern city
of Taizhou, shouting that he wanted his money.
Others snuffed the flames and rushed him to
a hospital, where he is being treated for third-
degree burns on his body.

Details of Liu’s complaint could not be verified
and Eleme did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.

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Image: Andy Wong

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Separately, a 43-year-old delivery driver
collapsed on the job and died last week while
delivering food for Eleme.

The company said in a statement that it will give
600,000 yuan ($92,700) to the driver’s family and
raised its insurance coverage for drivers to that
level. Its statement said Eleme “had not done
enough in terms of accidental death insurance,
and needs to do more.”

The issue was highlighted again after a
Pinduoduo employee surnamed Tan committed
suicide after taking leave from the firm to return
to his hometown, less than two weeks after
a 22-year-old employee surnamed Zhang in
Urumqi collapsed while walking home from
work with colleagues, and later passed away.

Pinduoduo, China’s third-largest e-commerce
firm, released statements saying it was providing
assistance and support to the families of the
two employees who died. Shanghai authorities
also are reviewing working hours, contracts and
other conditions at the company.

The deaths raised an outcry on social media, with
many people suspecting that they were a result
of overwork. Chinese social media users blasted
the country’s technology sector, criticizing not
just Pinduoduo for a culture of long hours but
pointing out that this was an industry-wide
problem, with similar company cultures seen at
most of China’s large technology companies.

They also revived a national debate over the
tech sector’s so-called “996” working culture,
in which employees often work from 9 a.m. to
9 p.m. six days a week. Companies sometimes
pay huge bonuses to some employees, enticing
them to work more overtime.

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“We must strive to succeed in pursuit of dreams,
but the legitimate rights and interests of workers
cannot be ignored or even violated,” said state-
owned Xinhua News Agency in a post on
microblogging site Weibo.

The issue has also cast a spotlight on the
working conditions of delivery drivers, who
are under heavy pressure to get orders to
customers quickly and at times make less than
10 yuan ($1.55) per delivery. If they fail to meet
deadlines, fines imposed can range from as
little as 1 yuan ($0.15) to as much as 500 yuan
($77.30) if a customer lodges a complaint.

As part of the gig economy, such delivery
workers often do not get the benefits provided
to full-time employees, such as social or
medical insurance.

Since there are many people willing to work
under those conditions, it is hard for employees
to negotiate better pay and conditions.

Last August, the All-China Federation of
Trade Unions (ACFTU) — the only trade union
allowed to legally exist in communist-ruled
China — said that 6.5 million delivery workers
had joined it since 2018. However, the worker
rights group China Labor Bulletin, which tracks
labor relations in China, says little has been
done to improve workers’ ability to win better
treatment from companies. The union provides
only skills training, legal assistance and some
medical benefits.

“Labor unions need to become more effective,
otherwise labor laws cannot be enforced,” said
Li Qiang, founder of China Labor Watch, another
organization that monitors labor rights.

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Image: Andy Wong

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Under China’s labor laws, workers and laborers
should work no longer than eight hours a day,
or more than 44 hours a week on average.
Total amount of overtime should not exceed
more than 36 hours in a month, and should
only be done “after consultation with the trade
union and laborers”.

However, even though the labor laws exist,
they are rarely enforced as employees become
mired in a culture of overwork while striving
for bonuses or in cases of delivery drivers, to
eke out a living.

Delivery workers are part of a corporate
culture where even white-collar employees in
the technology sector work excessively long
hours, Li noted.

“Employees who do not work overtime cannot
survive in technology or white-collar jobs.
Everyone is working overtime. If they do not
work overtime, they will be terminated,” Li said.

Putting workers at an even bigger disadvantage,
indemnity clauses are at times written into
workers’ contracts in some industries, absolving
a company from responsibility for death on
the job and other such events, said Li of China
Labor Watch. Although such clauses may violate
China’s labor laws, the legal system in China is
opaque and laws can be difficult to enforce.

“In Western countries, if an employee dies
because of working overtime, then the legal
and economic costs will be greater, and they are
generally more restrained as the country’s laws
will intervene,” said Li. “But in China, there is no
bottom line when it comes to working overtime,
and companies are generally not held liable in
the event of death.”

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