This year’s Singles Day shopping bonanza on 11 November has once again exposed the appalling conditions delivery workers labour under in order to meet consumer demand. Moreover, there are reports that working conditions are actually getting worse as the industry develops. 

Throughout much of the last decade, Shenzhen was one of the main centres of worker activism in China. Today, the picture is very different. 

Staff and customers of one of China’s best known education companies, YouWin Education, staged a mass protest at the company headquarters in Beijing on 19 October.