Invite colleagues
In news reported in the Wall Street Journal, Executives of Baidu Inc., China’s leading Internet search company, held talks over the weekend with striking workers who say they are angry over salary cuts and new sales commission policies that they believe are designed to force them out of their jobs.
The report said Hundreds of Baidu employees in southern China have either stayed home or gone to the office and refused to work since May 4.
UPDATE: Thanks to Lawrence who placed a link in the comments section of a secret video taken of the staff meeting (watch here)
The industrial action burst into the open on Friday, when several hundred employees of the Shenzhen office marched to their local labor bureau to file a complaint against the company, according to strikers and officials in the labor bureau. In the nearby city of Guangzhou, the labor bureau said it had received complaints from “scores” of employees.
Baidu employs thousands of staff in China and I think that Baidu should worry that this discontentment does not spread to their northern offices. That would in all cases be a disaster in both PR and economic terms.
The Wall Street Journal said that on May 1 Baidu cut the base salaries of sales agents, which averaged about 4,000 yuan ($590), by about 30%. At the same time it raised sales targets and threatened to withhold commissions and dismiss sales agents who failed to meet them.
This certainly will see a number of rebuttals both overtly and covertly towards the company. If I were Google, I would be in Guangzhou signing up these agents and meeting their old salaries and targets. Yet another blow to the reputation to this company following all of last years issues around carrying ads from unlicensed medical companies, allegedly removing non paying customers from the Baidu index and threatening companies that reduce search marketing spend that they may find themselves with no visibilty in the search results…..
Given, Baidu relies heavily on its sales teams to aggressively call and educate potential customers, typically small- to medium-sized business owners with limited knowledge of Internet marketing I am sure that the Company will want this sorted out very quickly.
If you have any information or views on this please comment below. Also you take your ideas/views onto twitter: @sinotechian
Written on Wednesday, 02 September 2009 13:40 by Matt McDougall
