I rode the bus past a factory every day on my way to work, and it looked rather grim. It wasn't a sweatshop by any means, but the workers looked unkempt and not exactly happy.
Now, I'm no expert in the Chinese labor movement, but AFAIK workers have been getting more and more restless since Xi took power.
The thing is, I wouldn't put my expectations on the labor movement there. Most people, and specially young people, tend to blame the government for failures of the market, just like Republicans do in the US. If there is a revolution, it will be a CNN-friendly color revolution.
I had a Mandarin tutor who would complain about how they don't have universal healthcare like Europe, AND whine about companies having to pay too much tax in the same breath. I mean, come on.
As for my own experience working there, I don't have much to complain about. Something that initially bothered me was the amount of unpaid overtime you were *expected* to do. It wasn't much on a day to day basis, but over a month it amounted to some 30 hours or so. After a while it felt like a duty to stay past hours. The boss never left on time either, so not staying was extra awkward.
My boss had a bust of Lenin in his office, weirdly enough.
Funy that you mention VPNs. I had a personal VPN business while I lived there, and my costumers were almost exclusively college kids.
I know it's a dick move, but while I advertised "no logs", the software I used left logs anyway. I have peeked at them, and the usage falls into one of three categories 90% of the time: Porn, more porn, and Instagram. So idk, I expected people who seek VPN services to be a tad bit more "woke" than average, but I was wrong.
(Protip: never hire a VPN service. Rent a server and build your own instead)
I briefly met Fred Engst there (google him), and his views on the Chinese working class were rather grim. He also thought a Maidan style "color" revolution was much more likely than anything Socialist.
