14 DAY TRIAL // Air pollution in China in pretty bad these days, but it turns out it takes the news that a renown company is thinking about compensating its workers for the conditions they are exposed to while in this country, to really put things into perspective.
Thus, it was this past Thursday when Japanese multinational electronics corporation Panasonic went public with the news that it was planning to pay workers in China so-called danger money over the country's ongoing air pollution crisis.
More precisely, it would appear that the company wishes to provide workers who currently live in cities across China with a salary premium intended to compensate them for the fact that they are constantly exposed to unsafe air pollution levels.
Multinational corporations have been known to offer hardship premiums to their workers before, yet Panasonic is the first company to come out and say that its staff deserves salary premiums on account of the risks they face as a result of poor air quality in the area where they work.
In a recent interview, Kamel Mellahi with the Warwick Business School in the United Kingdom pointed out the fact that “This puts huge pressure on other multinationals to follow suit. Given the high status of Panasonic in China, one expects other multinationals to start introducing something similar.”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard any company be quite so brazen about it. It’s a bit like saying we know we are exposing you to something that could be life-threatening. We’re going to admit it and compensate you for it,” added Robert Parkinson, head of Beijing-based recruiter RMG Selection, as cited by Think Progress.
For the time being, it is unclear just how much money Panasonic workers in China are to be offered as a means to compensate them for the air pollution that they are constantly exposed to. Information concerning how many people will be eligible to receive such hardship premiums is also lacking.
Interestingly enough, there are many who think that, now that the Japanese multinational electronics corporation has decided to compensate its workers in China for the risks that they face due to poor air quality, the country's high officials will be pressured into stepping up efforts to solve the ongoing crisis.
Just for the record, it must be said that air concentrations of PM2.5, i.e. fine particles measuring 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter, in China are so high that some specialists maintain that current environmental conditions are similar to those one would expect to document during a so-called nuclear winter.