The Peking University Marxist Society and Student Activists

http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article47492
Date Written:  2019-01-01
Publisher:  Europe Solidiare Sans Frontières
Year Published:  2019
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX23221

Their report on the living and working conditions of university staff approaches Mao's suggestion that 'knowledge of any kind is inseparable from direct experience' when it states that 'it is only through practice that you can produce genuine knowledge.'

Abstract: 
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Excerpts:

As you leave, a steely-faced woman empties your bowl into a wheelie bin. She’s there when you arrive. And long after you've gone. According to a report published by the Peking University Marxist Society, canteen staff work up to 14 hours a day, six days a week, with one day off taken as two half-days. According to the report, they are not paid for all the hours they work, and, in at least three canteens, the majority of workers have no social insurance (it is the employer’s responsibility to ensure all employees are covered). Most of them come from the surrounding provinces and moved to Beijing looking for work. They live in group dormitories underground.

The report, which examined workers' pay and living conditions across the university, can still be read on the PKU Marxist Society’s public WeChat (mainland China's most popular social media, messaging and payment app). But the letter posted by the head of the society on 20 September, after it had been unable to find a faculty adviser willing to support its registration for the new semester, is no longer available. The letter cited the report as an example of the society's contribution to campus life, and referred to its active support for workers’ rights on campus. As well as canteen staff, the PKU Marxists have supported the construction workers who staged a protest in 2015 to demand unpaid wages. But as they noted, it isn't only university staff who have to deal with unfair labour conditions: 'If the situation is like this even within the walls of a university, how ruthless must the outside world appear when its mask of compassion and harmony is removed.'