Chinese Company Forces Employees To Eat Live Worms For Not Meeting Sales Quota

Chinese companies have been known to subject their employees to some of the most strange and degrading punishments imaginable, but this latest one takes the cake.

According to People’s Daily Online, at around 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 8, approximately 50 people wearing store uniforms gathered in a square in downtown Hanzhong, Shaanxi province. Soon, a man arrived with two bags in his hands. One bag contained chopsticks, cups and two bottles of liquor; the other contained live yellow meal-worms. After reading off the names of under-performing employees, the man poured some liquor into each cup, added a worm, and then asked employees to drink the liquor. Five or six people accepted the man’s instructions and drank the liquor.

Witnesses took to the Internet to report that the group of young workers was approached by a man carrying bags of live worms, who proceeded to pick various numbers of them with chopsticks and drop them in plastic cups full of baijou. Employees who had failed to reach their sales quota were asked to step forward and drink the disgusting cocktail.

Five or six poor-performing employees were reportedly asked to drink the worm-infested baijou in front of their colleagues. One of the employees, who chose to remain anonymous, later told the Huashang Daily newspaper that each of the “offending” workers had to swallow four worms for every customer they lost.

One of the recipients of the brutal punishment was a pregnant woman, who refused to drink the cocktail for fear of losing the pregnancy.

“I can’t eat worms now, I can’t drink either, unless I don’t want my baby,” she reportedly told the Sales Manager.

Eventually, a male colleague received the cruel punishment on her behalf.

Meanwhile, photos of the unusual event taken by passers-by quickly went viral on the Chinese social media, and sparked the anger of millions of users.

The company that staged the punishment was soon identified as Ai Jia, a sales group formed by 10 construction companies.

Mr. Cao, one of the owners of Ai Jia, acknowledged the punishment, but added that the employees were “willing to receive it.”

Supported by the media coverage and the outrage of the general public, another employee of the company came forward and reported that every morning, employees of the group set a business target for the day, and if they fail to hit it, they receive various punishments the following day.

“Other than worms, we have also eaten live squid and ants before,” he revealed.

Despite the huge criticism, another Ai Jia company owner maintained that the punishment was actually just “a special form of encouragement.”

According to the article 88 of China’s employment contract law, employers are not allowed to humiliate or physically harm their workers, and the labor inspection bureau of Hanzhong city told the Huashang Daily that forcing people to eat live worms definitely counts as a violation of the law. They also urged employees subjected to the cruel punishment to report the incident to the local labor department.