NEWS
A SEXUAL ASSAULT SCANDAL IN ALIBABA MAY LEAD TO CLAMP DOWN ON BUSINESS DRINKING IN CHINA
By Tony Zhu
12-8-2021
Credit: Siulan Law Mathews
China's anti-graft agency, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, criticised the culture of coerced business drinking on Tuesday following a sexual assault scandal at e-commerce giant Alibaba.
The criticism triggered worries that Beijing will clamp down on business drinking. Share prices of China’s leading baijiu producers corrected on Wednesday with Kweichow Moutai share price down 2.1 percent and Wuliangye Yibin share price dropped 2.8 percent.
"In the incident, an unhealthy dynamic in a working environment, a disgusting drinking culture, a lack of transparency when reporting issues together exposed pervasive, deeply rooted ‘unspoken rules’," the Commission said on its website.
It called on people to break the "unspoken rules" of coerced drinking in business.
A female Alibaba employee alleged that she was sexually assaulted by her manager and a client after being coerced into drinking on a business trip in July.
She reported the issue to her senior but met with no positive response. She then took the matter into her own hands and made it known to all Alibaba employees by distributing pamphlets in the company’s staff canteen.
Some 6000 employees from Alibaba signed a petition to ask for investigation and disciplinary actions from Alibaba’s management.
The incident caused a storm on Chinese social media. Some official news media also severely criticised Alibaba’s company culture before the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection came up with its own criticism.
Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang announced on Monday that the alleged perpetrator, along with several other Alibaba staff, had been fired.
The company has promised to eradicate “unspoken rules” in its ranks and urged its employees to feel empowered to reject coerced drinking.
(the writer can be contacted at: info@thewinechronicle.com)
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