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星宇为什么要解雇校招生？在中国为什么只有“告洋状”才有用？|王局拍案20260907 — Transcript

by 王志安 · 5,494 words · 761 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:20The recording you're hearing was made in early August this year,
0:23inside a meeting room at Changzhou Xingyu Automotive Lighting.
0:27On one side were the company's HR staff.
0:30On the other were fresh college graduates
0:32who had just joined the company through campus recruitment in July.
0:36This year, Xingyu hired 440 graduates,
0:40mostly for technical and R&D positions.
0:43But under their contracts,
0:44they first had to spend one month working on the factory floor,
0:48tightening screws, assembling car lights,
0:51basically doing the same work as regular factory workers.
0:55That part is actually understandable.
0:58For new graduates,
0:59spending some time on the production line
1:01to learn how the whole manufacturing process works makes sense.
1:06After one month though,
1:07they were supposed to return to the jobs they had originally been hired for,
1:11technical and R&D positions.
1:14So when HR called them into a meeting in early August,
1:17many of them were excited.
1:19They thought they were finally leaving the assembly line,
1:21and starting the jobs they had signed up for.
1:24But what HR told them next came as a complete shock.
1:46Those positions were no longer available.
1:48The company simply didn't need them anymore.
1:50So the graduates were given two options.
1:52The first was to leave the company.
1:54As what the company called a gesture of goodwill,
1:57they would receive half a month's salary as compensation.
2:00The second option was for those who still wanted to stay,
2:03but they would be transferred to different jobs.
2:05And where would they be transferred?
2:07Straight back to the factory floor,
2:09doing assembly line work and tightening screws.
3:07They had already spent a month doing this work,
3:09and now the company was telling them to keep doing it.
3:12The original one-month internship would be extended to three months,
3:15and their pay would switch to a piece rate system,
3:19just like regular factory workers.
3:21We checked the rates.
3:22For tightening a screw or fitting part of a car light,
3:26they would earn about 0.2 yuan per piece.
3:30The graduates were furious.
3:31Many came from top 985 universities,
3:34and some had master's degrees or even PhDs.
3:38When Xing Yu recruited them,
3:39they were promised R and D and technical jobs.
3:43But after they arrived, those positions were gone,
3:46and they were being sent back to the factory floor to tighten screws.
3:51This kind of assembly line work usually doesn't require a university degree,
3:55so after spending years studying, many of them felt
3:58they might as well have gone to deliver food instead.
4:01They couldn't accept it.
4:03But the company's HR staff were extremely tough about it.
4:15The message was basically,
4:17if you want to sue us, go ahead.
4:19Xing Yu is one of Changzhou's so-called
4:21top socially responsible companies and best employers.
4:23What can you really do to us?
4:25In the end, many of the graduates reportedly had no choice
4:28but to sign resignation agreements and leave with just half a month's salary.
4:32And this is where the whole thing gets pretty ugly.
4:35Many of these students pointed out that, as fresh graduates,
4:38they were eligible for a number of special opportunities,
4:41including civil service exams that are only open to recent graduates.
4:45But after spending a month at Xing Yu,
4:47the company had already enrolled them in social insurance.
4:50Once that happened,
4:51they were no longer officially considered fresh graduates.
4:54In the job market, they had effectively lost that status,
4:57and some could no longer apply for those civil service positions.
5:01Some graduates even asked the company to cancel their social insurance record
5:06so they could get their fresh graduate status back,
5:08but the company simply ignored them.
5:10The attitude was basically, if you want to leave, leave.
5:14If you want to stay,
5:15go back to the factory floor and tighten screws.
5:18But these graduates didn't just let it go.
5:20They reportedly took three steps.
5:22The first was to contact the media.
5:24They reached out to China National Radio,
5:26and Liqi News was among the first outlets to report the story.
5:59Later, Kashin and Southern Metropolis Daily also
6:02gave the story extensive coverage.
6:04Some reports described it as a humiliating either-or choice.
6:09In other words,
6:10the company was basically telling these graduates,
6:13either go back to the factory floor
6:15and keep tightening screws, or leave.
6:18That quickly drew widespread attention online,
6:21and the story started trending.
6:23That was the first thing the graduates did.
6:25They went to the media
6:26and turned the issue into a public controversy.
6:30The second move was connected to Xinyu's planned Hong Kong listing.
6:34On July 29th,
6:35Xinyu submitted its application to list in Hong Kong,
6:39and when a company applies for a listing,
6:40it goes through a compliance review.
6:43The Hong Kong Stock Exchange
6:44looks at different aspects of the company,
6:46including whether its labor practices
6:48comply with the rules.
6:50So many of the graduates who had been pushed out
6:53filed complaints directly with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
6:57I suspect some of them may have watched the episode we did on Chen Hao.
7:01Remember that case?
7:02Xiao Hongshu was also preparing for a Hong Kong listing,
7:05and Chen Hao filed a complaint directly with the exchange.
7:09At first, Xiao Hongshu took a very tough attitude,
7:12but once the Hong Kong Stock Exchange became involved,
7:15the company quickly softened its position
7:17and tried to settle the matter privately.
7:19We covered that case before.
7:21So these graduates used a similar strategy
7:23and filed complaints with the exchange, and in theory,
7:26the way Xinyu handled these graduates
7:28could certainly raise questions about labor compliance.
7:31According to reports, the exchange gave a very official response,
7:35saying it would not comment on the specific situation of an individual company.
7:39But labor compliance is still part of the listing review process,
7:42so these complaints could definitely put some pressure on Xinyu.
7:46That was the second move.
7:48Then came the third move,
7:49taking the complaints to Xinyu's international customers.
7:52Xinyu is an automotive lighting manufacturer
7:55and the largest smart automotive lighting company in China,
7:59with around 11.6% of the domestic market
8:02and about 4.6 % of the global market.
8:06Its customers include major
8:07international automakers such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW.
8:12So some of the graduates wrote their complaints in English
8:15and sent them directly to Mercedes-Benz and BMW.
8:18And this was actually a smart move,
8:20because European companies have strict requirements
8:23for labor compliance throughout their supply chains.
8:26The same is true in the United States.
8:29Take Apple, for example.
8:30Apple requires its suppliers to meet certain labor standards
8:33and regularly audits them to make sure workers are being treated properly.
8:38European companies face similar requirements.
8:41Mercedes-Benz and BMW cannot simply use suppliers
8:44that operate like sweatshops and then pretend they know nothing about it.
8:49If serious labor problems are found in their supply chains,
8:52these companies can also face
8:54regulatory and reputational pressure.
8:56They also have formal complaint channels,
8:59and those complaints
9:00may lead to independent investigations.
9:02So these graduates use those channels
9:05and sent complaints to Mercedes-Benz and BMW.
9:09Then on September 1st,
9:11both companies said they had received
9:12the complaints and would look into the matter.
9:15So you have to admit,
9:16having knowledge really does make a difference.
9:18Some people say learning English is useless these days.
9:22But how can English be useless?
9:24If you want to file a complaint with a European company
9:27or an international organization,
9:29you can't just write everything in Chinese
9:32and expect them to understand it.
9:34You need English.
9:35So don't listen to people saying foreign languages no longer matter.
9:38They still matter.
9:40And the same goes for having access to information
9:42from outside your usual environment.
9:45The more you understand how different systems work,
9:48the more options you have
9:49when you need to defend your rights.
9:51In my view, these three moves by the graduates
9:54were all very well targeted and quite effective.
9:57After the graduates took those three steps,
9:59the local authorities responded pretty quickly.
10:02On August 25th,
10:03the Chengzhou Human Resources and Social Security Authorities
10:07released the results of their investigation.
10:10Let me summarize the main points.
10:12First, they confirmed that Xingyu
10:14had recruited 440 university graduates this year
10:17and had terminated the contracts of 107 of them.
10:20The authorities said the company had been too harsh
10:23and blunt in the way it communicated with the graduates
10:25and had failed to properly handle the layoffs.
10:28As a result, Xingyu's HR director was suspended.
10:31That was the first point.
10:33Second, of the 107 graduates who had left the company,
10:3722 had already found new jobs,
10:39while another 14 had entered the interview process.
10:42The local government said it would continue helping the others find employment.
10:47Finally,
10:47the authorities said they hoped
10:49other companies in Chengzhou would learn from this case
10:52and take their social responsibilities seriously.
10:55Of course,
10:55that last part was basically the usual official language,
10:58nothing particularly strong.
11:00But once the local authorities issued that statement,
11:03Xingyu's attitude changed very quickly.
11:06On August 27th,
11:07the company published an apology on its official website.
11:11It said these graduates had only just entered the workforce
11:14and had been with Xingyu for barely a month
11:16before running into this situation.
11:18The company said it felt deeply sorry,
11:20admitted there had been mistakes in decision making
11:23and problems in how the whole process was carried out,
11:26and announced several measures to make up for it.
11:29First, the 107 graduates who had left would receive
11:32another three months of living expenses.
11:35Some of them were still staying in company dormitories,
11:38and Xingyu said they would not be forced to move out.
11:40They could continue living there until they found new jobs.
11:44Second, if any of those 107 graduates were
11:47still unemployed by November,
11:49the company would give them another six months salary.
11:52Basically, the message was we'll take responsibility until this is resolved.
11:56Third, Xingyu said it would work
11:59with the relevant authorities
12:00to organize special recruitment events and bring in other companies
12:04to help these graduates find new jobs.
12:06Those were basically the three main compensation measures.
12:09The company also apologized to the public
12:11and to different sectors of society.
12:13But I looked at the statement carefully,
12:16and one thing stood out.
12:17It never directly apologized
12:18to the graduates who had actually been forced to leave.
12:22Then, on September 2nd, Xingyu held an earnings briefing.
12:27During that meeting, the company's chairwoman, Zhou Xiaoping,
12:30again addressed the controversy and apologized.
12:34But during that apology,
12:35she also said Xingyu had reported certain media outlets for what
12:38it called false reporting to the relevant
12:41cyberspace and public security authorities,
12:44and that the company would defend its legal rights.
12:47In a way, that sounded like a warning.
12:49The message to the media was basically, be careful with your reporting.
12:53If even one detail is wrong, we may come after you.
12:56For example,
12:57if 107 graduates left the company and you report 108,
13:01Xingyu could call that false reporting
13:03and file a complaint with the authorities.
13:06So from my point of view,
13:07Zhou Xiaoping's statement suggests that the company did not really
13:11believe it had done anything fundamentally wrong.
13:13It was Scared of what?
13:15On one side, there was huge public pressure,
13:18with people accusing the company of giving graduates a humiliating choice,
13:23either tighten screws or leave.
13:25On the other side,
13:26some of these graduates had taken their complaints overseas,
13:29even to major European clients.
13:31That put Xingyu in a very difficult position.
13:34So for now, the company had to back down a little and
13:37make concessions to these workers.
13:39But the feeling I get is that this was less about admitting wrongdoing,
13:43and more about trying to get through the crisis first,
13:46and dealing with the people who caused trouble for them later.
13:49That's basically the full story.
13:51Now let me talk about how I see this case.
13:53The first thing I want to discuss is something pretty interesting.
13:57After this happened,
13:58a public WeChat account published an article warning
14:00about employees taking their complaints overseas.
14:04The article argued that when workers have labor disputes with companies,
14:07they should stay within China's legal system,
14:10for example, going through labor arbitration
14:12or the local human resources authorities.
14:15Instead, it said,
14:16some workers try to bypass domestic regulators
14:19and complain directly to foreign companies or institutions.
14:22According to the article,
14:24that amounts to encouraging foreign long-arm jurisdiction
14:27and handing a knife to imperialism.
14:30It even suggested that this kind of behavior should be
14:32brought under China's anti-organized crime campaign.
14:35In other words,
14:36these college graduates were somehow being treated like
14:39criminal forces helping hostile foreign powers.
14:42Not surprisingly, the comments section exploded.
14:45People were mocking the article non-stop.
14:48Some left sarcastic comments, and others basically said,
14:51if you're going to act like this,
14:52at least keep the dog on a leash.
14:55But after I read the article more carefully,
14:57I actually think people may have misunderstood the author,
15:00because this guy was very obviously being sarcastic.
15:04If you look at the introduction on his account,
15:06he says things like, I'm extremely patriotic,
15:09I only read the Global Times, I only use Huawei phones,
15:12never Apple, my favorite actor is Wu Jing,
15:15and China should build closer relations with countries like North Korea and Cuba.
15:20Once you read enough of it,
15:21it's pretty obvious that he's not being serious.
15:23He's using irony to make a point.
15:26And honestly, in China's current media environment,
15:29sometimes if you say what you really think directly,
15:31you can get into trouble.
15:33So some people end up expressing their views
15:35through sarcasm and reverse language instead.
15:38Of course, I'm guessing the authorities understood what he was doing too,
15:42because when I searched for the account again later,
15:44it had disappeared.
15:46Apparently someone had figured out what his real intentions were.
15:50But the question raised by that article is still worth discussing.
15:53Does taking a complaint overseas actually work?
15:58Judging from this case, the answer is clearly yes.
16:02Think about what happened
16:03when these graduates were first pushed out by Jing Yu.
16:06The company's HR staff were extremely tough.
16:09Their attitude was basically, if you think we're wrong,
16:12go ahead and take legal action.
16:14And were they scared of that?
16:16Honestly, probably not.
16:18Under China's labor laws,
16:19if you've only worked there for less than three months,
16:22the amount of compensation you can get through
16:24the normal legal process is quite limited.
16:27At most, maybe a couple of months' salary.
16:30But for these graduates,
16:32losing their fresh graduate status was far more serious
16:35than just losing a few months of pay.
16:37So even if they won through the domestic legal process,
16:41what they could actually recover was still very limited.
16:44Now compare that with Jing Yu's current compensation package.
16:47The company is offering three months of living expenses.
16:50And if the graduates still haven't found jobs by November,
16:53they'll receive another six months of salary.
16:55That's nine months in total.
16:57Add the original half-month payment,
16:59and you're talking about nine and a half months' worth of compensation.
17:03That is far beyond what they were likely
17:05to get through the normal labor law process.
17:07So the question is,
17:09why did Jing Yu suddenly become so generous?
17:12At the beginning, HR was acting incredibly tough
17:15and offering only half a month's salary.
17:18Why the sudden change?
17:20Did the company suddenly discover its conscience?
17:23I don't buy that.
17:24For a company, this kind of behavior isn't really about personal conscience anyway.
17:29It's shaped by incentives, rules and pressure.
17:32A company doesn't just wake up one morning and suddenly become kinder.
17:36So in Jing Yu's case,
17:37I think there's only one real explanation.
17:39They got scared.
17:41And what scared them was the pressure from outside China.
17:44Remember, Jing Yu had submitted its Hong Kong listing application on July 29th.
17:49If Jing Yu ran into a serious compliance problem at that point,
17:52and its Hong Kong listing was delayed by six months or even a year,
17:56the losses could be huge.
17:58So of course the company was worried.
17:59Compared with that,
18:00paying a little over a hundred graduates,
18:02another six months of salary is really not that much.
18:05And then there's another issue.
18:07Mercedes-Benz and BMW are both Jing Yu customers.
18:11If either of them launches a supplier investigation,
18:14that can become very troublesome.
18:16They could send people into the company,
18:18inspect documents, review labor practices,
18:20and in some cases even use the issue as leverage
18:23in future negotiations and push down prices.
18:27That kind of pressure can be much more effective
18:29than simply relying on domestic labor law.
18:32So yes, in China,
18:33taking complaints overseas can actually work.
18:36And I would say that when graduates run into situations like this,
18:39they should make use of those channels.
18:41Look at the Chen Hao case.
18:43And now the Jing Yu case.
18:44If they had simply hired a lawyer and filed a lawsuit,
18:47would it really have had the same effect?
18:49Probably not.
18:50That's the first point.
18:52The second thing I want to talk about is the statement
18:54released by the Changzhou Human Resources Authorities.
18:58On the surface,
18:59it looks like they investigated the case and took action.
19:02But if you look closely, there are some major problems.
19:05First, the statement says Jing Yu recruited 440 graduates
19:09this year and terminated the contracts of 107 of them.
19:13That gives you the impression that only 107 people
19:16were affected and that the remaining 333 were fine.
19:21Almost as if this were just a normal round of layoffs.
19:24But that's not the real issue.
19:26According to what HR told the graduates in that meeting,
19:29the message was clear.
19:30The original positions were gone.
19:33Either resign or go
19:35work on the factory floor tightening screws.
19:38So here's the obvious question.
19:39What happened to the other 333 graduates who stayed?
19:44Are they still working on the assembly line?
19:46If they are, then has the problem really been solved?
19:49Of course not.
19:50Many of these people have bachelor's degrees,
19:53master's degrees, even PhDs.
19:55Their labor contracts said
19:57they were hired for technical or R&D positions.
20:00If you hire people for engineering and R&D jobs and then
20:03send them to the factory floor to do basic assembly work,
20:07that is a serious issue in itself.
20:09But the official investigation says
20:11almost nothing about it.
20:13Instead, it spends time responding to claims that Jing Yu
20:16may have been abusing government subsidies,
20:18saying there was no evidence of subsidy fraud.
20:21To me, that feels like it is avoiding the bigger question.
20:24And there's another key issue.
20:26Jing Yu itself said that these positions
20:28no longer existed because of changes in the market.
20:31But then you have to ask, why did the company recruit
20:33more than 400 graduates for R&D and
20:36technical positions in the first place?
20:38Only two or three months later,
20:40suddenly those positions were no longer needed.
20:43Why?
20:43What changed so dramatically?
20:45The official investigation says
20:47almost nothing about that either.
20:49And that, in my view,
20:50is one of the central questions in this whole case.
20:53Think about it.
20:54A company recruits more than 400 university graduates,
20:57brings them in, and after just one month,
20:59tells them that the jobs they were hired for no longer exist,
21:03and they should go tighten screws instead.
21:05That is not normal business planning.
21:07Something clearly went wrong.
21:08So after the story came out,
21:10people online started trying to figure out why
21:13Jing Yu suddenly no longer needed all these positions.
21:16There were several theories.
21:17The first theory was that Jing
21:19Yu never really intended to keep these graduates
21:21for very long in the first place.
21:24The idea was that because there are government
21:26subsidies and employment incentives for companies
21:28that hire fresh graduates,
21:30Jing Yu may have recruited them, collected the subsidies,
21:34and then pushed them out.
21:36That was one of the earliest theories
21:37people came up with.
21:38But the Chengzhou authorities later said
21:41they found no evidence that Jing
21:42Yu had fraudulently claimed those subsidies.
21:45I have to say, that explanation does make sense.
21:48Why?
21:49Because while the government does offer subsidies for hiring fresh graduates,
21:53there are usually certain conditions attached.
21:56At the very least, you normally have to keep
21:58those graduates employed for three to six
22:01months before you can qualify for the subsidy.
22:03Otherwise,
22:04every company could just hire a graduate today,
22:07fire them tomorrow, and collect government money.
22:10Obviously, the system wouldn't work that way.
22:12In Jing Yu's case,
22:13most of these graduates had only been there
22:15for about a month when the company told them to leave.
22:17So they almost certainly would not have met
22:19the requirements for those employment subsidies.
22:21That means the theory that Jing Yu hired them simply
22:24to collect government subsidies probably doesn't hold up.
22:27That's the first theory.
22:28Then there was a second theory.
22:30Jing Yu is currently trying to list in Hong Kong.
22:32And when you're preparing for an IPO,
22:34your financial statements
22:36and company profile matter a lot.
22:38There are two possible reasons why hiring
22:41440 university graduates could have helped.
22:43First, if you suddenly add hundreds
22:45of graduates to your technical and R&D teams,
22:48the proportion of highly educated
22:50technical staff goes up.
22:52That makes the company look much more like a high-tech enterprise.
22:55Think about it.
22:56Hundreds of university graduates,
22:58master's degree holders, even PhDs.
23:01Two investors in Hong Kong,
23:02that can make the company look more innovative
23:04and give it a stronger growth story.
23:06The second possibility is that it could also
23:08help make the financial numbers look better.
23:12Let me briefly explain what kind of company Jing Yu is.
23:15The company was founded in 2000
23:17and originally grew out of a school-run enterprise.
23:20Its chairwoman, Zhou Xiaohong,
23:23graduated from Bethune Medical University and originally studied medicine.
23:27She later became a teacher at a health school,
23:29which happened to have this school-run business.
23:32In 2007, the enterprise went through restructuring,
23:35and Zhou somehow ended up taking control of
23:37the company and became its chairwoman.
23:39Then in 2011, Jing Yu listed on China's A-share market.
23:43Zhou Xiaohong directly owns about 42% of the company.
23:46Another person acting in concert with her, Sun Xiaowei,
23:49owns around 6.11%.
23:51She also controls roughly another 6%
23:53through an asset management company.
23:55Altogether,
23:56she controls about 54% of the company's voting rights.
23:59And Jing Yu is actually quite
24:01competitive in its industry.
24:02It is the only Chinese automotive lighting company
24:05ranked among the world's top 10.
24:07As I mentioned earlier,
24:08it has around 11% of China's automotive lighting market
24:12and about 4.6% globally.
24:14But in DLP smart headlights,
24:16its position is much stronger.
24:18It reportedly controls around 90% of the Chinese market,
24:22and roughly 26% to 28% of the global market.
24:26DLP headlights are a more advanced type of intelligent lighting system.
24:30With traditional headlights,
24:31if the beam shines directly toward a pedestrian or another driver,
24:35it can be very dazzling.
24:36Smart headlights can adjust the light pattern automatically,
24:39reducing glare while still keeping the road well lit.
24:43So technologically speaking,
24:44Jing Yu is a fairly competitive company.
24:46But the domestic auto industry has been under
24:49more pressure over the past couple of years.
24:51The Chinese market is already quite developed,
24:54so car makers have increasingly been relying on overseas exports for growth.
24:58For Jing Yu, from January to July 2026,
25:01revenue increased by only around 1.5%,
25:04compared with the same period last year,
25:07while net profit fell by roughly 5% to 6%.
25:10So the company is clearly facing some pressure.
25:12And if you're preparing for a Hong Kong IPO,
25:15while your financial performance doesn't look particularly strong,
25:18that can affect your valuation and potentially your share price after listing.
25:22So if you bring in hundreds of graduates
25:24for R&D and technical positions, that can make
25:27the company look more high-tech.
25:29Then if you later reduce headcount,
25:30your labor costs go down, and some of your productivity
25:33figures can also look better on paper.
25:35That's why some people suspect the whole hiring
25:38and layoff process may have had something to do
25:40with preparing the company for its Hong Kong listing.
25:43Kaixin went through the company's reports and found something interesting.
25:46At the end of 2024, Jing Yu had 10,426 employees.
25:52By the end of 2025, that number had fallen to 7,532.
25:57That's a reduction of almost 2,900 people.
26:00So the obvious question is,
26:02if the company was still growing,
26:03where did all those jobs go?
26:05Then they noticed that Jing
26:07Yu was using more and more outsourced labor.
26:10In 2022, outsourced workers
26:12put in a total of about 2.38 million hours.
26:16By 2025, that number had jumped to 10.87 million hours.
26:21In other words, to improve efficiency and cut costs,
26:24the company seems to have outsourced
26:26a lot of work that used to be done by its own employees.
26:29And outsourcing has obvious advantages for a company.
26:32You don't have to treat those workers the same
26:34way as full-time employees.
26:36You may not have to provide the same social insurance,
26:39bonuses, benefits or job protections.
26:42In practice,
26:43the company also has much more flexibility in how
26:45those workers are managed.
26:46So you can see that Jing
26:48Yu was under quite a lot of pressure
26:49to improve efficiency and reduce labor costs.
26:52That's why some people suspect that getting rid of these
26:55440 graduates may have been part
26:57of an effort to make the company's financial figures
27:00look better ahead of its Hong Kong listing.
27:02Do I think these theories make sense?
27:04To some extent, yes.
27:06But were they actually the reason?
27:08The official investigation didn't say.
27:10Then there was a third theory.
27:11In 2023, Jing
27:13Yu was certified as a high-tech enterprise in Chengzhou.
27:17That status comes with a number of benefits,
27:19especially tax benefits.
27:20For example,
27:21the corporate income tax rate for a certified
27:24high-tech company can be 15%,
27:26compared with the normal rate of 25%.
27:29That's a very significant reduction.
27:31But the certification is only valid for three years,
27:34which means Jing Yu would need to apply again in 2026.
27:38And to qualify as a high-tech enterprise,
27:40there are some hard requirements, things like
27:43how much the company spends on R&D and what
27:45percentage of its employees are R&D staff.
27:49According to one set of figures, as of March 2026,
27:53Jing Yu had 2,128 R&D employees, accounting
27:57for about 27.6% of its total workforce.
28:01More than 500 of them had master's or doctoral degrees.
28:05So if you look at those numbers,
28:06whether the company kept or fired these 440 graduates
28:09probably wouldn't make much difference
28:11to its high-tech certification.
28:13The national requirement is that R &D staff
28:15make up at least around 10% of the workforce.
28:18I also saw a Chengzhou requirement that may
28:20put the threshold higher, at around 20%.
28:23But Jing Yu was already at 27.6%.
28:27So even if all 440 graduates were removed,
28:30it probably still wouldn't affect the company's eligibility.
28:33That means the theory that Jing Yu hired
28:36these graduates simply to boost its numbers for
28:38high-tech certification
28:39doesn't seem very convincing either.
28:42Later, Kaixin interviewed someone who had worked at Jing
28:45Yu for about two years before leaving voluntarily.
28:48He gave a different explanation.
28:50According to him,
28:51Jing Yu hires 1 or 200 fresh graduates almost every year,
28:55mainly for technical and R&D positions.
28:57But the company often hires far
28:59more people than it actually needs.
29:01For example, maybe it only needs 50 people,
29:04but it hires 200.
29:05After those 200 people join,
29:07the company quickly decides that many of them
29:09are not suitable.
29:10Or simply that it only needs 50 in the first place.
29:14Then the extra people are
29:15reassigned to factory floor jobs,
29:17doing assembly line work and tightening screws.
29:20And as we mentioned earlier,
29:21that work is paid by the piece.
29:22Maybe 0.2 yuan for tightening one screw.
29:26For a university graduate,
29:27you can imagine how humiliating that feels.
29:30After spending years getting a degree,
29:32who wants to end up tightening screws on a factory line?
29:35So what happens?
29:36A lot of people simply quit on their own.
29:38And according to this former employee,
29:40Jing Yu has gone through this kind of cycle
29:42every two or three years.
29:43The key point is that if employees resign voluntarily,
29:47the company doesn't have to pay them
29:48any severance at all.
29:49Under Chinese labor law, if you resign voluntarily,
29:53then technically the company didn't fire
29:55you, so it doesn't have to pay severance.
29:57But if the company lets you go
29:59because of its own business decisions or restructuring,
30:02then it has to compensate you.
30:04That's where things like N plus 1 or N plus 2
30:07severance come from.
30:09So according to this former employee,
30:12Jing Yu had already made it a routine practice
30:14to reassign fresh graduates to unwanted positions,
30:18and basically push them into resigning on their own.
30:21This wasn't the first time.
30:23But this case seems a little different.
30:25According to the recordings made by these graduates,
30:28it looks as if the company may have wanted to get
30:30rid of all 440 of them.
30:32In the past, maybe Jing Yu really needed 50 people,
30:36so it hired 200, kept the 50 it needed,
30:39and pushed the other 150 out.
30:42But this time, it looks like Jing
30:44Yu may not have needed these 440 positions at all.
30:48Either the company recruited them
30:49even though there was never a real need, or it thought
30:53it needed them, and then suddenly changed its mind.
30:56Either way, it seems
30:57the company wanted to get rid of almost everyone.
31:00And why did that happen?
31:01I don't think the Changzhou authorities
31:04or the media have really figured that out yet.
31:07It's still a mystery.
31:09And in my view, until that question is answered,
31:12this story isn't over.
31:14The company can apologize 100 times,
31:16but if it never explains why this happened,
31:19then nothing has really changed.
31:21And there's another important point.
31:23No matter how many times Jing Yu apologizes,
31:26the way it handled these
31:27workers appears to have seriously violated labor law.
31:30A company cannot simply reassign employees
31:33to completely different jobs whenever it wants.
31:37You can't recruit 1,000 graduates for R&D,
31:40and then tell them the next day, forget research,
31:43go tighten screws, or work as security guards.
31:46Changes to someone's position
31:48generally require agreement from both sides.
31:51And if you say an employee is not qualified for a job,
31:54you're supposed to provide
31:55training and follow proper procedures.
31:57You can't just hire someone for an engineering
31:59position and suddenly send them to the assembly line.
32:03But the statement from the Changzhou Human Resources
32:06authorities barely addressed any of this.
32:09After reading this whole story,
32:10my impression is that the company never treated
32:13these workers as equal parties.
32:15It treated them like labor to be used and discarded.
32:19The attitude was basically, if I need you, I'll use you.
32:22If I don't, go tighten screws.
32:24And if you can't accept that, then quit.
32:27Once you quit on your own, the company doesn't even
32:29have to pay the cost of firing you.
32:31That to me reveals
32:33the company's real attitude toward its employees.
32:36And what's even more disturbing is that Xingyu
32:38is supposedly one of Changzhou's top 10 employers.
32:42If one of the city's best employers
32:44treats workers like this,
32:46imagine what things might be like
32:47at companies that didn't make the list.
32:50After the controversy broke out,
32:52people also started looking
32:53into Xingyu's operations in Europe.
32:56The company employs both local
32:57European workers and employees sent over from China.
33:01According to some accounts,
33:03the two groups are treated very differently.
33:05Local European employees
33:06generally aren't pushed into excessive overtime.
33:10But some workers sent from China
33:11reportedly work as much as 300 hours a month.
33:16Think about what that means.
33:17Even with no days off, that's about 10 hours a day.
33:20If you take a few days off,
33:22you could easily be working 12 hours
33:24or more on the remaining days.
33:27And that's in Europe.
33:28So what does that tell
33:29you about working conditions back in China?
33:32Where is labor law in all of this?
33:34I think this reflects a broader problem
33:37in parts of China's industrial system.
33:39Some companies simply don't believe
33:41they've done anything wrong.
33:43They think giving you a job is already a favor.
33:46If they want you, you work for them.
33:48If they don't, getting rid of you is simply their right.
33:52As I said earlier, whether an individual has a conscience
33:55depends largely on the person.
33:57But whether a company has a conscience
33:59depends largely on the system around it.
34:02If the system doesn't protect workers,
34:05companies are not going to suddenly
34:07grow a conscience on their own.
34:09Sometimes they may be scared,
34:11but that doesn't mean they think they were wrong.
34:13So at the end of today's program,
34:15I want everyone to listen once again to that recording
34:19between Xing Yu's HR staff and these fresh graduates.
34:24It's only about two minutes long.
34:25But in those two minutes,
34:26you can understand a lot about China.
34:28That's all for today.
34:29Thank you, everyone.

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This page contains the full transcript of 星宇为什么要解雇校招生？在中国为什么只有“告洋状”才有用？|王局拍案20260907 by 王志安 , generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 5,494 words across 761 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

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