I don't condone conditions like this, but everyone should be able to put this in the context of the general standard of living in China. I've been to dorms in Chinese Universities and they don't look much different from the dorms these workers live in.
The average income per person is $6,600, but still 10% of China's population, mostly rural people, live on less than $1 a day. (There are some very rich people in the cities bringing the mean up) The people working in these factories are mostly rural youth, not well educated, doing the best to provide for their families and earn more than what they can doing small scale farming.
I'm not convinced that how our western eyes view things is the same as how locals view this. Even taking home $.50 an hour like the article says means $2000 a year. If you used to be making a dollar a day, this factory job is much better than a dead end job as a farmer. Just keep that in mind.
Exactly. People on first world countries (especially Americans, for some reason, but I won't go into that) seem to forget that the same dollar buys different things around the world.
For example, the workers in that factory pay ~$1.50 a day for factory food. I don't think you can get food for a day with that amount in a place that accepts dollar as the main currency.
No, but I can certainly get equal food for less than $10 a day in NYC where I live now. Hell I basically buy whatever food I want when I go through the grocery store without looking at price tags (it's food, why skimp on the basics?) and Mint.com is telling me my average food in a month - including liquor and restaurants, is about $450 or $15 a day. (I cook at home almost every day, so for me eating out/liquor is about $150 and groceries about 300).
In contrast - minimum wage is $7.50. So making the absolute bare minimum I could pay for food in 2 hours in the US, and roughly 3 in China. In exchange I eat chicken, fish, steak, or ground beef for every single dinner with some vegatebles and something else. I have eggs a lot of days for breakfast, and a real lunch every day. I have dessert, fresh fruit, coffee, juice, milk.
That's everything I could possibly want. And you can pay for it in 2 hours a day in the US. What would it cost these kids to pay for that kind of food? More than their whole day's salary.
Minimum wage is not a consistent measure and doesn't even have the same meaning everywhere.
And food availability varies too. I would probably have to make twice my current salary to eat Chinese food everyday.
But if you went further in your comparison you would probably conclude that you would make many times more money than them at the same job in the US. But that's because its two different countries, not because Microsoft is underpaying employees overseas, which is the point.
Though your calculations were way better than the author's simple currency conversions.
Very good comment. They are better off with these jobs than without them. Still, they should have some basic working conditions. Such as max 45hrs a week. 2 week vacation a year, etc.
Right, because working more than 45 hours a week is a crime against humanity and here in the civilized West nobody ever works more than that rollseyes
I have a cushy office job but the friends from my adolescent years are now mostly blue collar.workers. Those who have their own businesses (one-man shops: plumbing, construction contractors, painters, those type of jobs) work 50 to 60 hours a week, plus client meetings and paperwork in the evenings and on Sundays. Those who work in factories work regular weeks of 40 hours and they put "Yay! I'm getting overtime!" statuses on their facebook pages when they get to work another 10 or so hours, either during the week (evenings) or on Saturdays. Of course sometimes they complain too when their boss asks them to work on the day after a big soccer game or whatever and when they had rather slept in, but in general the overtime is what makes the pay quite good - so it is mostly considered a perk to get to work overtime.
When I was in highschool, my summer job was as a lifeguard. My coworkers would fight for overtime because the time-and-a-half was a good perk. This included both teenagers who need no job and adults who worked for a living. This is in the United States. Granted lifeguarding is a rather easy job, but laws against overtime are silly.
These people are working 15 hour shifts and they work 6.25 days a week. That means they are working over 90 hours a week; every week. I can't believe you actually compare that with the conditions in the west. The marginal cost for the employee of each additional hour is huge. Big difference between working 40 hours with frequent overtime and 90 hours a week.
Hey, you are the one proposing a limit of 45 hours - which is HALF of what you cite here, and which would take away the fat from many people's incomes not only in China but in Europe & the US as well. I guess that the next thing you're going to say will be that the limit should be at 50 or 60 or 70 or whatever - I say, let people make their own damn choices. If these people are being whipped into working 90 hours weeks, I'd be all against it; in fact I think that a democratic regime overthrowing a dictatorship that oppresses its citizens like that is morally perfectly fine. But as long as nobody is made to do anything, I don't see the problem. In fact if you give this guy the choice between working 90 hours in a factory for a few years and subsistance farming for the same amount of time and still being afraid that you'll starve because of a drought, too much rain, locust plague or whatever, he wouldn't have to think too hard or long.
The Chinese government has three (approximately) week long holiday periods around the lunar new year, labor day, and national day. For factories like the one described in the article, they can expect up to about 30% of their workers to leave on vacation and not come back.
I'm sure I've read that the 40 hour week was created because someone did some measurements and realized that if you worked people for longer than that on a regular basis, then they got tired and started messing up. That is, the limit is for the benefit of the business, not the employee.
Over the past three years, unprecedented photographs of
exhausted teenaged workers, toiling and slumping asleep
on their assembly line during break time, have been
smuggled out of the KYE factory.
That's what they do there. Even the office workers do this. They turn off the lights, and for 20 minutes, they all put their heads down on their desk and try to nap. You may be put off that such behavior is "mandated". What if you don't feel like napping? But it's not "exhausted workers" passing out from lack of sleep. What crap this is.
"photographs ... smuggled out"? Really? I've taken these photos myself, with factory management standing next to me. To western eyes, seeing a room full of workers sitting in silence with their heads down, in the middle of a work day, is interesting, and I wanted to show my wife. No "smuggling" was necessary.
The comment that kept jumping out at me was using a bucket as a shower. I was living in Thailand for about 1.5 years and apart from my lavish westernized apartment in Bangkok, about half the places I stayed in had buckets for showers. The first time I used one I kind of complained, but I got used to it quickly.
Then, when I moved back to England, my girlfriend at the time lived in a council flat. There was a bathtub but not enough water pressure for a shower. Luckily by that time I was an expert with the bucket.
Even fairly rich Indian families often use bucket baths rather than showers.
I know of a a wealthy stock broker in India, and his estate is unusual in that it has a shower. He never bothered to hook it up to the hot water since no one uses it.
Yep. It used to be the case that council housing was given as part of social care and/or at subsidised rents.
It still is, to a degree but nowhere near the amount it used to. Originally it was part of resettling the displaced population after WW2 and the bombing of the UK.
The Tories back in the 80's decided that "home owners" were Tory voters so introduced a "right to buy" scheme that enabled tenants to purchase their properties at discounted costs. This means that a lot of council property in the UK is now actually private property.
A lot of people made a lot of money with these purchases due to the recent housing booms. However it is a case of location, location, location as some lost money as in some locations properties can be practically worthless (Hull or Burnley being examples).
This article, IMHO, is written by someone who has no idea how things work just about anywhere that's not the industrialized West, and is shocked and appalled that things aren't as awesome as they are in the US of A.
It's a also a reminder for those of us who live in such ridiculous comfort and freedom that it can get much, much worse.
That being said, I think this article is sensationalist tripe:
> "The idea that ‘without sweatshops workers would starve to death' is a lie that corporate bosses use to cover their guilt."
Okay, my mother worked as a child sweatshop laborer in Taiwan in the 60s, before the country bootstrapped itself out of abject, agrarian poverty, and I take issue with this. It's a straw man; her family was extremely poor, but not in danger of starvation. Without sweatshop labor she wouldn't have starved to death, but she also wouldn't have been able to go to school, get educated, get employed in a white collar job, and eventually move abroad.
Anecdotes do not data make, but knee-jerk emotional reactions and weasel words don't help anyone.
> "To "shower," workers fetch hot water in a small plastic bucket to take a sponge bath."
I hope the author realizes this is common in Asia. Hell, that's how I grew up - showers were somewhat foreign and scary when I first encountered them. Surely there are more convincing indictments about the evils of this workplace.
> "We (who?) would respect us? We are ordered around and told what to do and what not to do. No one in management has ever asked us about anything. There is no discussion. You feel no respect."
This is why I can't take this article seriously - this is also how factories work in the West, where labor laws are followed and abuses minimal. Do we seriously expect factories to be a creative, communal endeavor where management talks everything over with line workers? This isn't office work.
Privileged white collars shocked and dismayed that blue collar work can really, really suck. News at 11.
Looking at the pictures in the article, this place looks no different than a million other factories in any other developing country. In fact, the conditions look downright sanitary, which isn't always the case. To me this isn't much more than another comfortable Westerner shocked and appalled that conditions are so much worse everywhere else in the world. Hi, welcome to reality.
> "While working, the young people cannot talk, use their cell phones or listen to music."
... and this is different than other factories how? Even in the West this is basically the case. What, do you think a production line is happy happy fun times where workers chat on a bluetooth headset with their friends while assembling electronics?
> "Workers need permission to use the bathroom or drink water."
It's an assembly line! How privileged do you have to be to consider walking away to the bathroom randomly at work to be anything but a luxury? Hell, it's a luxury that even in this country many people do not have.
> "Security guards search workers' bags and pockets as they leave the factory."
Same in the USA, especially in warehousing/supply chain jobs.
The only thing really convincingly bad about this particular workplace that the author has exposed are the long hours, but this is also typical of the country it operates in. Workers are paid for their overtime, and many in fact prefer it - many are doing this only as a means to something else - education, rescuing family from poverty, etc, and overtime means they get there more quickly. I really don't see anything egregiously or especially bad this place compared to any other factory one might come across - and it reads like a hit piece against Microsoft.
My mother-in-law worked in a factory in Taiwan in the 1960s. They didn't believe in providing ear protection to their workers and the loud machinery caused her permanent hearing loss in both ears that she still suffers from to this day. She can only hear out of one ear with a hearing aid, and her family has to shout at her just to barely communicate.
Apparently you have no idea how bad it really is there. Here in the US we went through the industrial revolution in the 1800s, when they used to have child labor in factories, letting thousands of children get harmed or injured by unsafe machinery, sending children on suicide missions into mine shafts, chimneys, etc.
We learned over a hundred years ago that those labor practices are barbaric and unnecessary to provide a healthy economic condition for our country.
Why shouldn't we expect the countries we purchase products from to treat their workers with a modicum of respect and humanity?
> " They didn't believe in providing ear protection to their workers and the loud machinery caused her permanent hearing loss in both ears that she still suffers from to this day."
My mother lost a segment of her right middle finger, and my grandfather eventually died of hazardous substances breathed in during his work. My father survived a chlorine tank breach by a hair - a low wall was the only thing between him and certain death.
None have regretted working there despite this. This isn't an argument against workplace safety - this is an argument against enforcing non-safety-related labor policies in developing countries where that is their chief advantage, and removal of it will harm economic development. Industrial jobs, shitty and brutal as they may be by our living and working standards, is a crucial part of the economic development of these countries.
Note that the author of the article's chief points are all based on how "bad" life is for these workers, and only one point is even remotely related to safety hazards in the workplace. His complaints range for anything from not being allowed cell phones in the factory to terrible food to hot-bunking in the employee dormitories. These are not at all safety issues, and thus IMHO something we must allow economic development and time to fix.
If the author has some real meat about flagrant safety violations in a factory, I would like to hear it, otherwise I stand by my assessment that this is nothing more than sensationalist reporting.
"My father/mother/uncle lost a limb/eyeball/lung and were happy about it too, so they shouldn't even complain."
That's not what I said, please to be not putting words in my mouth? kthx.
"Sweatshop trinkets are not a requirement for industrialization or lucrative economies."
Straw man - "sweatshop" labor produces a whole lot more than mere trinkets and souvenirs - they are, in this case, producing valuable electronics in great demand elsewhere.
Like I said in my previous post - safety should be utmost, even in developing countries, but what this article brought up is not safety, it's quality of life standards.
You can work people like dogs, make them hot-bunk, and serve them watery gruel, and maintain effective safety measures at the same time. This isn't to say that you should, but rather that we are talking about two distinct and separate issues. This article pecks halfheartedly at one, but fails to address the other (IMHO more important) one.
That's not what I said, please to be not putting words in my mouth? kthx.
You are trying to one-up illumin8 to support your argument that sweatshop labor was good. This is the gist of your argument: Your parents suffered even more and said it was great, so illumin8's argument is invalid.
Straw man - "sweatshop" labor produces a whole lot more than mere trinkets and souvenirs - they are, in this case, producing valuable electronics in great demand elsewhere.
I think we can live without the 4th or 5th shoddily crafted electronic mouse or hand-held gaming device so someone can profit by a couple of cents.
We can live without many things, but that's irrelevant if we still choose to consume them. Perhaps ethically they have no value but they sure have financial value, that's why they're being produced and sold, then bought by us. We give them their income.
Many people choose to consume them because they are manipulated by advertisement and unreasonable societal norms. If the wage of these workers were doubled, no one in the US would notice. Do you really scrutinize $0.20 on a $30.00 mouse?
> We learned over a hundred years ago that those labor practices are barbaric and unnecessary to provide a healthy economic condition for our country.
I really don't think that's the way it worked. I think that a sufficient amount of hard work and suffering in unendurably harsh conditions built up productive capital much faster than humane treatment and safe working conditions could have. Then, this massive advantage we'd built allowed us to expend more resources making work more tolerable, and export the less pleasant parts of building modern civilization abroad.
>> "Security guards search workers' bags and pockets
>> as they leave the factory."
>
> Same in the USA, especially in warehousing/supply
> chain jobs.
You're also forgetting casino workers. The people in casinos that handle money are all required for to have whatever purses/bags they bring to work be transparent (usually plastic). I've seen the same thing for workers at airports too. [ I was sitting at Newark in the middle of the night once and a ton of workers came into the terminal from an employees-only door and all of them had clear plastic purses and backpacks. ]
{edit} I was sitting at the airport waiting to talk to an airline rep about getting on the next plane out. I was caught up in this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6... and missed my connecting flight (since it was cancelled due to the terminal being locked down).
I hear you on the cell phones and even talking part.
But music, man... nothing makes it easier to slog through repetitive tasks like being able to toss on the headphones and block out everything outside my little bubble.
Luckily my work life has progressed past that stage, but in crappy college jobs, yeah...
not being allowed your own little bubble is potentially a safety issue in factories. your fellows on the line need to be able to shout warnings like "hey, don't dance into that machine press!"
Despite what you might think, I'm no Ayn Rand-quoting objectivist ;)
What I do think is that this article makes much ado about nothing - sweatshop labor permitted my parents' generation to pull themselves out of poverty, get educated, and get white collar jobs - in fact my mother and all of her siblings eventually all got white collar, comfortable desk jobs.
What we're looking at is a country in a natural evolutionary state towards wealth - much like the US's tendency to impose democracy on nations with no foundation necessary for its success, it would IMHO be disastrous to attempt to enforce Western standards of work (or hell, enforcing white collar definitions of what is reasonable and fair).
Taiwan has evolved from a cheap-labor, sweatshop labor model to an educated, R&D-centric model. The island has gone from an agrarian backwater to one of the urban jewels of the Pacific. I am glad that this has happened - and yet I'm not convinced it would have gone down that well if well-meaning Western labor activists had their way.
I do think that fundamental worker safety must be ensured - companies certainly have proven that they can't be trusted to do that on their own, but enforcing someone's "right" to use a cell phone while working? Really?
Taiwan is not the counterexample to this article to prove that China needs the sweatshops and they are excusable because the ends justify the means.
First you overestimating the extent to which the sweatshops in Taiwan are the cause of its progress and ignoring what other factors were involved. There are plenty of countries in the world teaming with sweatshops, few are growing into Taiwan 2.0
What are those other factors?
1) It is a smaller country.
2) Taiwan's opposition to China was/is very valuable to and respected by western nations. Is it a coincidence that the country that most antagonizes China is supported by the US and gets a lot of business/help from the US? I know companies that refuse to outsource to China but will to Taiwan in a heartbeat.
3) etc
Second, it doesn't _have to be this way_. There are manufacturers in China in less competitive industries that follow more western practices. The really competitive industries have these sorts of problems (and yes, slave wages and total control of a workers life are problems even if they aren't living in a toxic waste dump). The only way to solve that problem is systematic change because fixing any single factory just puts it out of business. Since systematic change from within China the way it happened in Western countries is not happening due to the lack of free speech and political forces, activists put pressure on western companies to stop outsourcing to these places.
It probably would, decentralizing control and allowing competitive economic regimes to emerge, rather than the counterproductive nepotism rampant there now.
That might be true. As long as they can preserve a free trade area / customs union, pushing authority down to the lowest level possible is probably a good idea.
I think the big question is if sweatshop labour still does do this.
AFAIK most of this work is now done via sub-sub-subcontractors and goes on in special economic zones. Workers are usually employed for the short term and the work may randomly migrate to a SEZ in a different country to take advantage of "tax holidays", periods of no tax for when a company first sets up in a SEZ. There are no permanent factories or permanent jobs. Wages don't rise because it's easy to just go to some other place where people are desperate for work, literally shipping the workshop to the new location.
So what ends up happening is that the workers never work at the same thing for long enough to acquire skills or wage rises and that they don't make enough money for a proper education. And the assembly lines are so ephemeral and set apart from normal society that no infrastructure or know-how ever accumulates in the country.
So this ain't your parents' kind of sweatshop. Literally.
(Note that I'm talking about the kind of sweatshops that assemble consumer goods in general here, not specifically the one in the article. I have no specific insight about that one, but this is the general trend - this is where the west gets its clothes and gadgets from.)
At a certain point the host country has to start taking responsibility for whoring its people out. You can be disgruntled with Apple because Chinese workers got hurt making ipods, but the honest truth is that as long as there are people selling cheap labor there will be people buying.
> At a certain point the host country has to start taking responsibility for whoring its people out.
Yes, but this in no way absolves us. You don't have to buy just because someone's offering.
> Apple should under no circumstances be held accountable for China's inability (or unwillingness) to regulate its economy.
In your example, Apple should absolutely be held accountable. If I buy goods I know are stolen, I'm committing a crime. So why shouldn't a company be accountable for buying goods that it knows were made through exploitation?
You don't have to buy, but if you want what they are freely offering quite frankly I don't see where Apple (I'm using Apple as example, I mean Apple et al) is wrong.
Apple should under no circumstances be held accountable for China's inability (or unwillingness) to regulate its economy.
And yes, you absolutely have to regulate both the supply and the demand, it's just WHO has to be doing the regulating. China is no fool: if they regulated their GDP would plummet and their ridiculous 9% year on year growth would finally stop.
So,for example, if a family need money and they sell their young little girl as a prostitute, just to make money, you know, but in a country where the State is not so hard in fighting that behavior, the "buyer" should under no circumstances be held accountable for that Country's inability (or unwillingness) to regulate its economy?
I think your point of view it's too simplistic and auto-absolving.
I think you are missing entirely the value of a cultural and societal system. The alternative to what is currently going on in China isn't a workers' paradise where everyone is happy with a middle class, 40 hour a week job. The alternative is a nation starving (Mao?). I think your view discounts the rubble that China has come out of and the place it is today entirely. I doubt many Chinese feel their parents were better of than they are.
As for prostitution, if the family doesn't need the money to eat and survive that is one thing, and actually based on the economic specifics going on there I don't actually think it's relevant. If they are selling their daughter for hunger/survival, well it really sucks but we with cushy lives forget that survival is actually the most important thing. In that case, sadly, the buyer is supporting the local economy. (hello downvotes...)
No, the alternative is that we stop making excuses for what we're doing and demand that the people who make our junk are paid a living wage. Yes, really.
Year after year stories like this appear, headlined, "OMG, Apple's bad labor practices", ignoring that unlike Martha Stewart et al., this labor news comes from Apple's own audits and public reports.
"sweatshop labor permitted my parents' generation to pull themselves out of poverty, get educated, and get white collar jobs "
That may have been possible in the 1960s, but it's certainly not going to happen for 99% of these workers now. There is way more menial, blue-collar labour to be done than white-collar work, and there are less jobs than there are people already.
sweatshop labor permitted my parents' generation to pull themselves out of poverty, get educated, and get white collar jobs
I think what irritates people is that you say this as though non-sweatshop labor cannot offer this sort of improvement. Lots of countries have the possibility for upward mobility without sweatshop labor.
That is a complete false choice. People work in sweatshops (or any crappy job) because better jobs aren't available.
The relevant question is: 'Will removing the sweatshop be better for the employee?' If you can say why removing the sweatshop will cause a better place of work to appear in it's stead, go ahead.
When I was studying for my first degree (in mechanical engineering) I had to do a one month long internship as a factory worker after my first year (in an EU country). It was truly an eye opener experience, both in terms of understanding how industrial production looks like from below, experiencing the life of a blue collar worker and as a motivation to take my studies seriously (to avoid having to have a job like that) as well.
I think short "slave work" internships for first year students should be more common.
Yes. Some other parts did not give this impression, that's true, but the flippant, sarcastic expression that I quoted didn't help him appear "fair and balanced" in the same sense that someone saying "people get murdered all the time, what's the big deal" wouldn't.
Perhaps the parent quote refers to people not being allowed to shirk overtime which they have already agreed to be there for. In other words, signing up to work four hours overtime, leaving after two and getting your friend to clock you out two hours later.
> Privileged white collars shocked and dismayed that blue collar work can really, really suck. News at 11.
I know you have the entire article in mind when you say this, but your associated excerpt is a direct quotation from one of the factory workers.
> "We (who?) would respect us? We are ordered around and told what to do and what not to do. No one in management has ever asked us about anything. There is no discussion. You feel no respect."
So unless you question the authenticity of that quotation, i think you're being extremely dismissivie of not just the white-collar western observers who wrote and read this article.
Factory work may have given you a life beyond poverty. It may even have worked out for your mother, in the end. That says nothing of how much she suffered while working in those conditions.
> "So unless you question the authenticity of that quotation"
I do not, and I sympathize with the frustration. That being said, this article is alleging some kind of gross, inhuman, deplorable condition in the plant, and attempting to pin this on Microsoft in the process. This quote does nothing to justify this conclusion, and the fact that someone can perceive this kind of dissatisfaction as some sort of harsh indictment on the working conditions shows a complete disconnect between them and the realities of production line work.
Note that I mentioned that blue collar industries in our country are the same - if the author himself had any notion of how factory work goes, he would know that his quote from a frustrated Chinese factory worker proves exactly nothing. If he wants to allege unacceptable conditions by virtue of the fact that managements acts without consultation with line workers, he should rightly level this claim at just about every factory in existence, everywhere.
I have relatives in Taiwan and you are grossly exaggerating the situation to support your argument.
> Okay, my mother worked as a child sweatshop laborer in Taiwan in the 60s, before the country bootstrapped itself out of abject, agrarian poverty, and I take issue with this.
Much of Taiwan was poor because of Japanese occupation. Some were rich because of it. That divide is the sole reason Taiwan seemed poor to you.
My relatives prior to that, had enough land to farm and have a comfortable living. They were able to hire people to help. And from what I heard, that was the middle-class at the time. It is annoying that people look at the poorest farmers who probably had barely-arable land and tilled by hand as proof that all farmers are better off being in a sweat-shop.
When WWII came around, the Japanese began to militarize. They seized some of the best land, and they demanded ALL the rice and other staple crops from every farmer. One of my relatives hid some rice to eat, and was beaten to death when the Japanese found out.
Meanwhile, the Japanese were trying to assimilate Taiwan quickly, so they artificially consolidated economic power into the Taiwanese who hated China: the rich and nobles who fled from the Communist uprising. This redistribution of wealth impacted my relatives for generations, even today.
The outcome? The new upper-class were able to own the natural resources, the capital, and the businesses, while my relatives and many others were left with less land and a decade of lost wealth. Those people lived the life of luxury throughout the 1960's. Tales rebounded of bosses that sat around playing mahjong, harassing female workers, or flying all over the world, while exploited workers worked for their enrichment from 6AM-10PM. However, even this did not last very long.
Many companies already started to relocate their sweatshops to China by the late 60's.
Taiwan did not need sweatshop labor to pull itself out of poverty. That is highly insulting. It was not because of laziness or stupidity that much of Taiwan was so poor. Like you, my parents' brothers and sisters all graduated from college with graduate degrees. They were forced to to waste 4+ years of their life and money, just so they could be of service to the ruling-class.
Meanwhile even today, my college graduated uncle with 15 years of experience is being outranked at a bank by one of the privileged who is fresh from high school. Because businesses pay out workers far less the owners, the gap created by Japan will never be closed.
This is why I am not a gung-ho free-capitalist, but I realize that if I were in their shoes, I would definitely be one.
> "Tales rebounded of bosses that sat around playing mahjong, harassing female workers, or flying all over the world, while exploited workers worked for their enrichment from 6AM-10PM."
It sounds like your beef is with the KMT, not the Japanese - it is true that the Japanese occupation enriched (justly or otherwise) a lot of Taiwanese families, but the ones doing the "sitting around" after the occupation ended were primarily KMT bureaucrats.
As a matter of fact, this is something the older generation complains about endlessly. Despite being second-class citizens under Japanese rule, the government ran like clockwork; contrast with post-KMT-takeover Taiwan where the government became unfathomably inept and corrupt. This trend did not even begin to reverse itself until legitimate, sizable political opposition began to form against the KMT.
Side note: Said opposition (the DPP) turned out to be just as corrupt, if not moreso, than the ones they formed to replace. Thankfully years of pressure from a significant opposition party, and several more of even-more-inept DPP rule has created some saner political choices in Taiwan.
> "Taiwan did not need sweatshop labor to pull itself out of poverty."
Then what did it need? Imaginary capital investments in our many fine local delicacies? Become a tourism-driven banana republic? Grow fruit for American mega-conglomerate fruit companies? The industrialization of Taiwan generated the necessary economic lift that, to be fair to the KMT, under sound governmental oversight, resulted in the country we see today.
I think it's incredibly disingenuous to pin the blame for everything on the Japanese - the KMT fucked up just as much as they got right. If you want to talk about government corruption, nepotism, and downright incompetence, the KMT is a far better example than the Japanese.
> "That is highly insulting. It was not because of laziness or stupidity that much of Taiwan was so poor."
I'm not sure what I've said that insinuates this... but that's certainly not what I meant. I'm also not sure how this point relates at all to the necessity of industrial economies for developing nations.
> It sounds like your beef is with the KMT, not the Japanese
The Japanese were the ones who empowered the KMT, and they were the ones who took away the crops. They were so empowered by the Japanese, it took several decades before political opposition could be built against them.
> Then what did it need? Imaginary capital investments in our many fine local delicacies?
It didn't need sweatshops. Taiwan would have recovered by itself with the millions in US aid. Taiwan already had a deluge of capital that was being concentrated and wasted by the Japanese entrenched upper-class.
Sweatshop work was the short term solution for a long term problem. Like I mentioned before, sweatshops quickly disappeared to China as early as the 1960's. How many man-years do you think were wasted in low value trinkets instead of going straight through education and more lucrative industries?
> I'm not sure what I've said that insinuates this.
Most of what you said insinuates this. You claim that sweatshops were necessary to bootstrap Taiwan out of abject agrarian poverty and that all people who were farmers were better off as sweatshop workers.
How did the Japanese empower the KMT? When the Japanese left Taiwan after WW2 the incumbent Chinese government (KMT) took over. How did they actively help the KMT in any way?
> "that was being concentrated and wasted by the Japanese entrenched upper-class."
You mean KMT-entrenched upper-class... I'm still not sure what socioeconomic imbalances in post-war Taiwan have much at all to do with the Japanese. A large portion of the extremely-wealthy Taiwanese are "mainlanders" - people who retreated to the island with the KMT during the final days of the Civil War.
"How many man-years do you think were wasted in low value trinkets instead of going straight through education and more lucrative industries?"
Um, in my parents' case, without sweatshop industries they would never have gone to school. Keep in mind also, we did invest in extremely lucrative industries, including the at-the-time burgeoning electronics manufacturing industry. The expertise in semiconductors developed via production industries helped drive a large portion of the semiconductor explosion later, and was instrumental in transforming Taiwan from a industrial to a knowledge economy. I disagree fundamentally with the claim that mere millions in US aid would have given us a self-sufficient knowledge economy, without any industrial development.
No offense, but I think you've really got a hate-on for the Japanese, because a huge portion of what you seem to have against the Japanese make much more sense when pinned (IMHO rightly) against the KMT. Government corruption and nepotism was limited during Japanese rule, but reached a fever pitch once the KMT arrived on the island in force. The minted upper classes are mostly old-guard KMT families and politically affiliated as such. It seems like you're taking a large portion of Taiwan's socioeconomic ills, rewinding the clock, and trying to insist that the KMT's gross mismanagement thereof is but a symptom of Japanese evil.
How did the Japanese empower the KMT? When the Japanese left Taiwan after WW2 the incumbent Chinese government (KMT) took over. How did they actively help the KMT in any way?
I already explained this. They appropriated land, crops, and positions of power from people like my relatives. When the bulk of the KMT took over shortly after Japan left, they didn't return the land to previous owners. The wealth was never redistributed back.
When you have $1, it is much easier to be taken advantage of than when you have $1000.
Keep in mind also, we did invest in extremely lucrative industries, including the at-the-time burgeoning electronics manufacturing industry. The expertise in semiconductors developed via production industries
Many of those industries were "bootstrapped" by families who had money and never worked in a sweatshop.
No offense, but I think you've really got a hate-on for the Japanese, because a huge portion of what you seem to have against the Japanese make much more sense when pinned (IMHO rightly) against the KMT.
How you manage to completely overlook the Japanese role in this is completely baffling. I give up trying to explain to you the connection which really isn't very difficult to understand.
I recall reading one Brit's assessment of a Nike "sweatshop" in Vietnam. One of the main concerns of the employees was that overtime opportunities be provided.
I'm now considering an out-of-town consulting engagement, and I'd much prefer to work 10+ hours four days a week and have a long weekend with my family. Perhaps these workers are taking this to the extreme -- six months on and six months off?
Your comments are pretty fair and your feelings on what your family went through in '60s Taiwan I take as genuine.
However, it was not only hard work that bootstrapped Taiwan out of poverty. Some part of Taiwan's current comfort is due to moving its most extreme labor and environmental problems to other Asian countries, namely China. So now China and a few others are at the bottom of the supply chain...who do they pass the buck to to lift themselves out of these conditions?
No, I am not saying that. That was an assumption built into the question to which I was replying. Economic growth results in everyone being less exploited over time, and free trade results in people making the trade-offs to gain utility most meaningful in their own local circumstances.
I'm not picking on Taiwan when I say that some aspects of their fortunes are based on passing the buck to the next developing nation. As you point out, this is the well worn path of economic development. I don't ascribe moral value to this or any economic model. This path assumes an inexhaustible supply of developing nations. In the economic models you refer, which nation(s) absorb China's workload? If there is no society left to offload to, the demand side must be reconciled (this now includes China domestic consumption). I don't see the U.S. or China taking this reconciliation well.
Industrial robots are extensively used in the Western world in industrial production. However they are rather expensive and are only worth installing for tasks that don't require any human brain activity, can be done 24/7 (as robots don't require sleep it's more economical to run them 24/7) and not change too often so regular reprogramming is not required.
Also, they're not exactly popular amongst manual labourers as a robot takes away the job of at least 2-3 people and never goes on strike.
1) "they are rather expensive" - They are getting cheaper
2) "for tasks that don't require any human brain activity" - Does taking a rubber gel cap from one place and sticking into the bottom of a mouse assembly really require brain activity? That is what the star factory worker in this article was doing.
3) "they're not exactly popular amongst manual labourers" - If the point of robots is to get rid of manual laborers, then does it really matter when they are upset? Also, remember, there are no unions in China (so this article claims), so the likelihood of a strike is very minor.
you guys are thinking of multi-jointed arms. Simplify! Just make it so that all the things line up within some tolerance as they roll down the line and you're golden.
Also, removing manual labor jobs means that there is an available labor pool for something more productive that the robots CAN'T do. Broken glass fallacy anyone?
They are getting cheaper relative to American workers, not 3rd world workers. I did an automation project last fall, the reason was the risk of the current workers sueing over carpal tunnel syndrome. That was more of a driving factor than the cost of salaries (the robot will be paid off in about 5 years, but still, defending 1 suit is more expensive than a robot). The workers in the US cost about 40k, the workers in the article cost 1.5k. The workers in the article have no hope to sue for anything related to repetitive strain injuries. I doubt robots will be taking over chinese factories for a LONG time except where precision beyond human skill is required.
Right - the point being that in the West (and even more so, Japan), eventually the population gets rich enough that it's cheaper to run robots than to just hire bottom-level wage earners.
I include Vietnam in the current status of China. Robots would be cool. Although I have a high degree of respect for people that can make things in factories...it would be a shame to lose this skill set to robots.
Keep in mind that China is already in competition with places like Vietnam. China puts its own provinces in competition with each other in much the same way that states and municipalities in the U.S. compete for a new car factory, data, or distribution center. If China seriously ratchets up its labor protections, buyers will move elsewhere...to an extent...China still outguns everyone on population.
"Although I have a high degree of respect for people that can make things in factories...it would be a shame to lose this skill set to robots."
Broadly speaking, "making things in factories" is not a skill. "Being able to set up efficient factory lines" is, but having robots instead of humans is just another variable in a long list of variables.
I say "broadly speaking" because I'm sure there are exceptions, but I am also sure they are exceptions.
Recently, I read an article about how soccer balls, most of which are made in a certain town in Pakistan, were no longer sewn by children, thanks to pressure from Adidas and other international firms. The children now work making bricks. There was a quote in the article from a local decrying this as a mistake, saying that the children were learning a trade to support them for life, by making soccer balls.
But, last I checked, China, Pakistan, et. al. have a massive unemployment problem. Now, there's two ways to solve this -- the first is to make more jobs, the approach we see here. The other would be to reduce the size of the labor pool through enforcement of child labor laws, limitations on number of hours worked per week, mandatory and free schooling through age 18, social security programs to encourage the elderly to retire, etc.
These reforms happened in the US and Europe a century ago, when most people were objectively poorer than the people in these articles -- no television, electricity, cell phones, etc. Depressingly, I have to speculate that there is a fundamental break in expectations in the national zeitgeist of these countries that allows things to get this bad.
> The other would be to reduce the size of the labor pool through enforcement of child labor laws, limitations on number of hours worked per week, mandatory and free schooling through age 18, social security programs to encourage the elderly to retire, etc.
>Okay, my mother worked as a child sweatshop laborer in Taiwan in the 60s, before the country bootstrapped itself out of abject, agrarian poverty, and I take issue with this. It's a straw man; her family was extremely poor, but not in danger of starvation. Without sweatshop labor she wouldn't have starved to death, but she also wouldn't have been able to go to school, get educated, get employed in a white collar job, and eventually move abroad.
Anecdotes do not data make, but knee-jerk emotional reactions and weasel words don't help anyone.
Well thats leaps and bounds from what the article is portraying, in China university costs are around 15000 RMB / year minimum, a person working in such a factory would have to work for a whole year and save everything just to be able to afford one year in university. Furthermore, you would have to pass the national university entrance exam, which is very competitive. Finding jobs a white collar job as a university grad is now hard, as grads are a dime a dozen. And to go abroad you will have to be a top notch student, or have substantial capital - an even more preposterous proposition.
many are doing this only as a means to something else - education, rescuing family from poverty, etc
Well this is the crux right here, we can't put something like this is context without good data.
Do these workers actually make a living wage? What is the cost of living in this part of the world, and most importantly, do any workers actually escape poverty over time?
Things like these can be measured, and we should demand more from any news source.
I happen to disagree with your point of view, but it's meaningless if all we have is conjecture based on personal experience.
Edit: If your personal experience is actually from that level of poverty in that particular part of the world, then please, by all means, tell us what it's like.
Well we are talking about a pretty complex situation in another part of the world with different culture, government and social values. My point is equating it with the labor in the US(or other first world countries) isn't justified without proof, is that really too much to ask for?
Your analogy is incorrect. For every point of view there is a personal anecdote, and while personal anecdotes can be revealing, they hardly count as a substitute for rigorous data.
It's not that much different from many high schools it sounds. Or a minimum wager job. No talking, cellphones or listening to music while in class unless your on your break. Many schools confiscate cell phones on sight. Bag searches, body searches, locker searches, drug tests and metal detectors are typical in many schools. And you got to follow teachers orders or your marks (wages) are docked. They'll tolerate you being a bit of an ass if your productive though. Hell when I was a gas station attendant & hot dog cart worker working alone, I had to avoid washroom breaks altogether/as much as possible, and make them quick!
Also, you live in shared rooms / dorms at boarding schools too.
My mother (1941 born), went to work 15 years old to sustain her mother and two siblings. She worked 16 hour workdays, 10 hour factory job and the rest working on a farm for shelter and food. She worked hard up to her 60's, never complaining about anything being too hard. She raised three kids and still accomplished a lot.
Her generation had it even harder than these kids (many of their peers do!), while enduring hunger and scarcity.
Looking on today's spoiled western civilization - I really can't help but to feel that we have it too well. I mean - leisure really ain't something humanity has been built for.
I predict that this Chinese generation will, ultimately prove as more satisfied and fulfilled than the one in 50 years.
And 1941 was vastly removed from 1841. People were writing these EXACT same articles in western countries in the mid 19th century. Other people argued against them with exactly the same argument you just made, along with many others just like the ones in these threads. Nobody in countries that have long since passed this part of their history would say we would have been better off if not for those damn sweatshop busting muckrackers.
>I mean - leisure really ain't something humanity has been built for.
Actually, it's thought that pre-agricultural humans had quite a bit of leisure time. It was agriculture and civilization that forced people to work longer hours.
I'm actually rather disconcerted by this comment. The arguments presented use relativistic reasoning to justify the conditions in factories in China, i.e., "regardless of the dehumanizing conditions in the factory now, ultimately we are redeeming the lives of these people who would otherwise be trapped in poverty-stricken lives as farmers."
This argument fails on a number of grounds, the least of which is that we may or may not be improving there lives by hiring them to work 85 hour work weeks factories that lack any air conditioning. Perhaps some of these people were starving as farmers, perhaps many of them weren't. Do you have sources that point to the extent of the improvement that factory life is bringing?
Furthermore, do you know that this really is the road to improvement for this generation? You talk as if these factories really are gifts from generous westerners, as if these companies should feel justified, if not proud, that they are transforming and saving the lives of these workers. I recently heard a podcast on Radio West titled, "The Cost of a Two Dollar T-shirt." In it, the author took a non-sensationalist approach that the t-shirt factories in Cambodia really were humane, they were even air conditioned. However, he mentioned that these people still lived in shanty towns and barely made enough money after 60 hours of week to afford food. He also mentioned that their 33 cents an hour wages were lagging behind inflation, and, in fact, these workers were becoming, relatively speaking, poorer and poorer as the years went on. So, no, I disagree with your claim that any factory job + time = helping raise another country out of poverty.
Lastly, you provide no justification for why the conditions need to be so bad. You seem to be saying that, since these workers were previously living in worse conditions and since we're improving that life, it's justified to either treat them inhumanely or exploit them. Their lives have been improved ergo they either have no right to complain or we have no responsibility or motive to do any better. There is no high road in your argument, only defensive argumentation and justification of labor practices that are well below what they should humanly be.
In the article I linked above, the author mentioned that the labor costs of making a t-shirt for a major corporation (Gap, Nike, Walmart, etc.) only made up 4% of the total cost of the product. If that's the case or even close to the case with the Microsoft factory mentioned in the original article, then going even so far as doubling the worker's wages would have a minimal impact on the bottom line of the product. At the very least, fat could be trimmed from the other 96-ish% of the cost of making the product to make room to improve the factory conditions.
Not only could most corporations afford to improve the wages of these workers, but what is lost by improving the conditions? Wouldn't workers who are sweating for an entire 16 hour shift be happier and more productive if the management spent more money on air conditioning? Even if find proof that happier workers aren't always more productive and perhaps sweatshop conditions really induce more productivity, there needs to be a line, a line of basic worker's rights, that prevents the downward price pressures from a competitive market from creating deplorable working conditions for anyone.
Your arguments seem to suggest that everyone goes through these deplorable factory conditions before they move onto a better life. Not only do they not NEED to go through these conditions, as ultimately someone has the power to change and improve the conditions of the factory, but these workers are not necessarily guaranteed that life will improve afterwards. Perhaps these working conditions become de facto and the workers don't make enough money to earn an education or gain the economic mobility to choose better working conditions. The system could just as easily become entrenched, leaving a class of workers trapped in poor working conditions for generations.
At the base of your arguments, I think it's frightening to ever use relativistic arguments to justify inhumane treatment. Take slavery in early American history: "Well, slaves used to live in malaria-ridden Africa in mud dwellings, and now at least they get a stable source of food and, most of the time, a wood shelter over their head." Deplorable conditions always need to be addressed and justified in present and absolute terms. Inhumane treatment is inhumane treatment, and active steps should always be taken to improve such conditions. The improvements should not be left up to the "benevolent" forces of time or ignored because the conditions are a (slight) improvement over previous conditions. If you're going to offer a poor farmer a job, you don't have the right to offer him a job with any such conditions that you choose.
Sure, I'll grant you that the article was sensationalist (maybe the photographs were taken without needing to be "smuggled out", etc), and I don't think any cause can be constructively advanced when such arguments are used. However, the majority of your arguments are morally objectionable and logically unsound.
"Lastly, you provide no justification for why the conditions need to be so bad."
I suppose that is the interesting question. I don't have an answer, and I don't want to defend the bad conditions. Just some thoughts for the sake of discussion:
- Maybe if money was invested in better work conditions, other factories with worse work conditions would be cheaper and get all the business. If that is the case, it might actually work to go for "green labels" on clothes, so that only factories with good working conditions get business (not sure if such labels exist yet or how feasible they would be).
- Still I think it has to be considered why people still work in these bad conditions. I don't think it is simply lack of unions. I am not in a union, yet working conditions for software developers seem fair. I assume that is because software developers are still in high demand. If workers were rare, I don't think companies could get away with treating them badly (unless they could enslave them, which the state should prevent).
1) If the farmers were so happy and not starving, why did they CHOOSE to work in the factories?
2) As a nation, actually, I think the argument that everyone must go through those conditions is quite right. Children worked in sweatshops in downtown Manhattan < 100 years ago (actually still do if you look hard enough). I don't think he's justifying the conditions, I think he's simply saying "the trend is up not down," and that's really important.
China is in no way a communist country. What is was before can be left to the opinions of those that experienced it. What it is now is most certainly not communist by any definition I know.
China is very uneven in its protections. Wal-Mart attempted to preclude unions when it opened in China, much like it has managed to fight them in the U.S. Somewhere between citizens and government, it was decided Wal-Mart could not do this; Wal-Mart was clearly told that unionizing was protected by the China constitution. Of course, this is a grand exception to the standard that the boss controls the game more than government rules do and government regulation is highly uneven.
Although I'm comfortably ensconced in the USA working in my own business, I've done my share of physical work, starting at the age of 14. It could be tiring and nasty but I went home with pride and money. I'm not doing that kind of work now but my point is it was a good start.
I'll tell you precisely what provokes outrage in me: the use of physical violence or the threat of physical violence. Example: "When I tried to quit this disgusting, dangerous, demeaning, and exhausting job, the manager struck me in the face and locked me in a room until I apologized." Example: "When I mentioned that I might quit this horrible job, the manager said that there was nowhere to hide, and his people would find me and make me sorry."
Now that is the kind of thing that really outrages me. But consider this: "I was raised on a farm and came to work at this factory and I hate every minute of it, but I'm still working here because I'd rather do that than go back to the farm or wander the streets homeless."
That does not outrage me. It saddens me, yes. I'm very sorry that this individual at this time in her life only has such poor and few choices. However, I must allow her that choice. The worst thing I could do is use the threat of violence in the other direction, as in: "If you try to work in a factory for 80 cents an hour, I will physically restrain both you and the factory manager." The only thing I would accomplish by that, apart from violating my own code of conduct, is to limit the options of this individual, consigning her back to the farm or streets.
The very best thing I could do is compete in the labor market, creating new opportunities and offering higher wages and better conditions. Although I am not a factory manager, that is always my aim. For many years in my business it was just my partner and I doing all the work. But I'm proud to say that in recent years we have been contracting with others to do some of that work, and it is feeding families.
In conclusion I would say that the armchair outragers should first do no harm, and then ideally do more good.
I feel that some of the pictures are taken out of context and portray an inaccurate image. In Asia, it's common for schools and workplaces to allow students and workers to put their heads down for naps in the middle of the day. The article uses an image of workers seemingly "collapsed" on the work bench as the first picture to depict harsh working conditions, which is misleading.
NEWS BULLETIN - North Americans benefit from trade practices that reap the rewards in taking advantage of other countries less protected workers. YUP.
For those of you that are complaining about how the article is merely story spinning to target Microsoft, I think you're de-sensitized.
Comparing the worst places to work in North America to the average place to work in China may make yourself feel better, but it's just dishonest thinking. If an American wanted to buy a Computer Mouse would you not think it easier and cheaper to buy one locally? Of course not, because there's too many other countries with unprotected workers to take advantage of that make it cheaper for US..... doesn't this basic concept lend any understanding that there's something wrong here? It does to me. If the treatment norm were that same as you're own country then the product cost would go up.
The playing field isn't level and that's ok, but that doesn't mean we should feel good about taking advantage of them. I know, I know - we're helping them right? Give me a break. There are ways to help them while not taking advantage of them.
Don't buy from countries that don't meet the treatment norms your own country has. It raises the bar for them, and they will to get our business. Meanwhile it's not like Americans couldn't use the work. Yes product costs go up, but so do local jobs increase and quite frankly maybe inflation is the cost of being ethical, maybe North Americans should be a little less wealthy and little more honest.
We are rich because they are poor. The horror of the problem is only ever counterbalanced for me when other people recognize the macro-feudal nature of our economy.
China might not have unions but they do have child labor laws and if those aren't doing the trick I don't know how a union would. It's a market with a poor, easily exploitable labor pool desperate for work (they have double digit unemployment in the rural areas and the nation's average salary is under $6,000 a year).
So I can't see how a union would help unskilled workers when the factory could easily fire the whole factory and have it full again within a week
Its my understanding China's constitution does protect unions. China is a nation of many provinces, each differing in their respect to national rules. Even within wealthy, better regulated provinces like Shanghai, behavior is highly uneven. I have seen cases where unions and other labor laws (maternity rights is a huge one) were heavily weighed in favor of the laborer. Its still not enough.
14 and 15 year olds should not be working in sweatshops. what the hell is wrong with the people defending this? this isn't the pampered western worker vs the average 3rd world worker, this is kids being forced to go without sleep and effectively without a life for pennies. fuck that. i know most people will argue something like "they are probably lucky to get it." it's still bad for them, and trying to justify the bad conditions with arguments like 'its expected of them' really exposes a true lack of empathy for one's fellow man and some pretty selfish reasoning.
I can understand your sentiment (Im sure I once shared it too). However please bear in mind this is a huge culture clash problem. Extended visits to the region will throw things in a new light (like it did for myself).
Now, clearly, conditions definitely are a problem in many places. However the general theory of working at 14/15 is more of a cultural thing and not an issue.
I don't think it's correct to dictate society rules such as "thou must not work under 16" just because we happened to stop that practice several years back. I find it a bit sadistic that we wish to dictate that sentiment to others...
Of course us then exploiting that work environment is a whole other problem.
Additionally; what's the solution? Stop all these kids working? What are they going to do? Really, seriously? Increased wages would be good - that is certainly something we should encourage.
Heh, see there is the cultural differences right there.
An industrial job has little stigma in some parts of the world. Indeed in certain situations it is a big step up from the jobs your parents do. For some those wages are the "better" job (again, not ideal, but you have to consider that as the context).
It's not an ideal situation, certainly, and it should be a moral imperative to offer those less well off chances at the same comforts we enjoy. But I dislike the idea of judging the situation based on the rules of our society, that's all.
I agree that we shouldn't judge other cultures based on the standards of our own culture. However, I somehow doubt that kids working 15 hours a day actually prefer that to having more free time. Nobody would work those hours unless they actually had to. And that is the problem. The fact that those kids have to work under these conditions, instead of going to school, hanging out with their friends and so on. Perhaps some of them would actually like to get an education, to work as an engineer, or a scientist, or something else - but they don't even get that chance, they're stuck working on that assembly line.
> Nobody would work those hours unless they actually had to
Patio11 will tell you the hours Japanese salarymen have to work to get anywhere. Same sort of situation; but it's not kids so it's fine ;)
If they don't work there what do they do - how do they go to (or afford) school? For the most part this is not a "job for life". There is a career path of sorts and, eventually, you work your way up.
This is partly what I mean by stigma: why is school the "better" option. (I can't argue with the hanging out with friends thing :))
I'm sure many would like to have an education; that's the problem to fix - how to offer it to them!
I'm not necessarily condoning this as a good situation but it fucks me off when people like the GP make very broad, judging statements with no context or experience of the culture and situation.
EDIT: I will say that while I have met several people that work in these places they were all older work-study types. So they were at schools, just working like stink in holidays/downtime. Hell; I did that working on my Aunts farm (voluntarily) doing 14 hour days :) (yes, I realise I had a choice there; not trying to compare too deeply)
I have no idea if there are these very young people working there (though I was told there were) or to what extent / why they are forced to be there.
Industrial jobs don't have a stigma in the US to a lot of people either. But in the US a manufacturing job means you work 40 hours a week and get a living wage. There is nothing like this in the US. A job like this is not comparable and is definitely something to want to avoid.
That doesn't really make sense. They probably live in a very poor region of China. If they weren't doing factory work they would probably be doing agricultural work to try and get money to help out their family. There's no "education" route for those in this situation.
Quite right. But don't you see that as a problem? Shouldn't kids in China have equal opportunities as their American and European counterparts? Shouldn't they be allowed to get an education instead of working on an assembly line or in the field?
Basically, not scoring high enough on the most important test almost automatically slots you into not going to university and having to work in a factory. The U.S. is different because post-secondary or college education is almost accessible for everyone.
No people like you are bad for these people. People take the best job they can get, because you know what -- it makes their life better. Yeah working hard sucks, but you know what being in poverty sucks more. China is poor, to reach the standard of living found in the west (generated over decades if not centuries) they have to make up a lot of that effort. Technology/Productivity improvements significantly reduce the level of effort required, but eventually work needs to be done.
They can build cities, cars, etc -- but they need natural resource imports, so they must trade with the rest of the world. For some things it makes sense to purchase from the outside market, cheaper to purchase than make themselves, so once again they need to make something that the outside values. It's the most efficient use of their time.
As for possible inhumane treatment in the form of employer abuse, etc that of course is wrong and a different matter than just working hard.
I have empathy toward them and their harsh circumstances, but the thing I recognize is that the alternatives are mostly WORSE. In opinion writing, one of the key rules is that it's useless to simply complain about something — we have to offer a workable alternative. Failure to do this is one of the reasons why Bush's Iraq War was considered such a failure: He had a hugely successful plan to topple Saddam, but he didn't know where to go from there and lots of people suffered for it.
So I feel for people in bad conditions, but it's also important to have perspective about how bad "bad" can be.
Do the apprentices work 15 hour shifts 6-7 days a week? If so, I believe that is unhealthy, both mentally and physically, for anyone but especially a person whose body is growing and needs more rest than an older person.
For the post-WWII generations 12 hours 6 days a week should have been the absolute maximum. 8-10 hours 6 days a week (with the 6th day less hours) should have been more normal.
Whenever I see a sensational news like this about China I wonder if the journalist is sincerely stupid or purposely evil. The picture for showing "exhausted workers" is a joke: there is a tradition to have a nap after lunch in China so in many businesses the hour after lunch is basically off hours. The place my parents worked for have 2-3 hours of lunch break so everybody can go home and have a nap. In bigger cities where people can't go home, people find convenient places for the nap: on the desk, or "under" the desk, and all conference rooms are closed for the same purpose as well. Heck I am still keeping that habit and have a small futon by my desk now (glad I have my own office).
The "sweatshop" is also a joke for westerners. In more developed cities in China, workers are free to change their employers just like in the west, and it has been in that way for a couple of decades. Those factories don't offer what we called "hu kou", so the employer has no power to slave the workers except higher pay.
The photo of the worker's dorm room is funny as well. I went to a good university in China (about 14 years ago) and that's how my university dorm looks like. It is difficult for westerners to live in that situation but using that photo as a proof that workers are slaved is misleading.
How do people who are appalled by this not contribute to it without exiting the world of technology altogether? I can't imagine the factories for Apple or Dell are any better...
Is there a "no-sweatshop" watchdog organization for tech that says what equipment is manufactured in better conditions?
how effective do you think such an organization could be?
For example, the first job I worked at the age of 14-15 was below 'minimum wage' in my area and thus could be called an 'illegal sweatshop' but realistically, considering my background and options (I had no immediate financial need to work; this was my 'foot in the door') it was just some kid getting some experience.
The thing is, I didn't go to school. (I mean, I went to highschool, but that's little more than babysitting. I didn't go to college) If you want to get a job that requires a degree without having that degree, you need to do that job for a smaller company that is paying you way below market rates before you can do that job at market rates. It's the way it works, and it worked out fine for me. I ended up making more than anyone I grew up with.
I'm not saying that my situation compares with that of the Chineese teens; I'm just saying, you need to be careful to define sweatshop in a way that would protect those who need protecting, without getting in the way of those who don't. My stepmother made me quit my first job after she found out that not only were they paying me under the table, they didn't have workman's comp. I was being "exploited." I mean, I was being exploited. But it was a hugely positive experience with me. The shady computer repair place sold me discounted used computer parts for years to come, and I was able to get a (legal, minimum wage, with school credit) job at one of the local county offices that was a customer of the shady computer repair place the next summer, so it all worked out okay in the end, but without getting that foot in the door, who knows how long it would have taken my career to take off?
I'm not saying yours isn't a worthy goal, just... you need to be careful with it.
I'd pay more for equipment that was stamped with some Humane Threshold level, like food passes an organic or biodynamic level.
It should be easier as PDAs and mobile devices obtain barcode or QR scanners: scan an item at a shop, then see if it is approved. You don't need manufacturer cooperation, who would only participate if there was a mass boycott of their goods, which won't happen so long as prices are so low. But once consumers start checking on their own, they might opt-in.
The defensiveness of some of these comments is unsettling. Inhumane conditions are inhumane no matter where they are, and no matter what the situation is in the society; it is never right to do to one's workers what this article is describing, not even if there's a lot of competition for their jobs.
This is the kind of thing that explains why the United States is not lassiez-faire capitalist anymore; and it emphasizes that we should forswear our addiction to shopping cheap, in favor of buying what is produced in a morally licit fashion, and genuinely punishing corporate leaders over whom the US has jurisdiction and who knowingly go along with this kind of thing. I don't mean sanctions directed at the corporation: I mean punishing the individuals who sign off on or turn a blind eye to this, and I think that a crucial part of any such punishment, in addition to a long prison sentence, is the confiscation of the individual's personal fortune -- since this kind of person (well, almost always "this kind of man") sees money as score, and his objective is to die with a score high enough to leave his initials on the game's attract screen.
I want to emphasize here that this is not partisan United States issue, either. I am a serious Catholic; I vote Republican and like the Tea Party movement; and I know that this kind of thing is wrong, and that you don't have to be a Green, "pro-choice," or a gun-control advocate to recognize it as such.
Pray tell, what is it exactly about the conditions described in the article that is "inhumane"? I don't see anywhere that people are being forced to work more than 8 hours, on the contrary it clearly states that overtime is optional. Most of the points that are made in the article are standard practice in factories here in Western Europe, like timed bathroom breaks, can't use phones while working etc.
The photos are misleading too, at least the ones with the people sleeping on the assembly line. While unusual in the West, in my (admittedly limited) experience with Asia (and China in particular) it is much more normal and culturally accepted to take a quick nap during breaks, while waiting for a train/bus, .. anywhere where there are a few spare minutes. This article makes it seem like these people are whipped to work until they literally fall asleep on the assembly line.
I'm not saying that there are no cases of abuse of factory workers; I'm pretty sure there are, and I in no way want to defend those. I live in an area where there were documented instances of people being whipped if they didn't cut coal fast enough, as little as 150 years ago, and that is a black spot in our history. However if this article describes the worst factory they could find, and if the situation that is described is the worst possible description of reality, it seems to me that capitalism has given these people something that they could only have wished for 50 years ago.
Your comment about taking a quick nap is really insightful. I have a little experience with this. From my parents, I acquired the habit of taking small naps. Riding as passenger in a car puts me instantly to sleep (luckily, the same does not apply to driving). I also do this as a general thing--my sleep is more polyphasic and irregular than most people I know. I may be awake at virtually any point in the 24-hour cycle, but not necessarily at the same points each day. Overall, I find that I get about the same amount of sleep, but the odd hours allow me more concentration on work.
Overtime here is not mandatory, but employers have an obligation to pay a wage suitable to their employees' dignity as fellow human beings -- not necessarily their country's minimum wage; and from the article, it does not sound like 770 RMB/month -- nor even 1500 RMB/month -- are at this level. (Also note the manipulative use of fines and wage witholdings, which no one has commented on as yet on HN.)
These problems, plus 30-40 hours of overtime per week, a frantic pace of work, and no concern for workplace injuries or avoiding sexual harassment (an overused concept in the West, but the idea of keeping managers from exploiting female subordinates is sound), do not add up to acceptable working conditions.
I'm ignoring the article's pro-union orientation (unions are no cure-all, especially since union bosses are easily corrupted); and I'm aware of the cultural habit of taking naps during breaks. I'm also not going to talk about air conditioning, since it was only invented 60-odd years ago; nor will I comment on bucket sponge baths; and I'm sticking to RMB here, since expressing RMB as USD (especially USD at the nominal rate of exchange) is misleading at best.
Is some of this standard practice in the United States? Yes. (I'm not familiar with practices in Western Europe.) Do wrong actions become right because citizens of one's own country are doing them too? No.
First, I never said that actions that are wrong become right because we do them. What I'm saying is that they are perfectly fine for us (or were fine for us in the period we transitioned to a capitalist system), and I do not see why they wouldn't be for these workers (I'm talking about the no phone, keeping finger nails short, searches while leaving factory etc, not the sexual intimidation - see below).
Secondly, I can't comment on how much money the guy from the article is making or how much purchasing power that represents. However it does seem that he needs to support not only himself, but also his parents, plus save up for a bride price, a practice itself instigated by years of dysfunctional demographic control policies. I would estimate that only the top 20 or so percentiles of youth in their 20's in the West make enough money to support themselves, their parents AND save up for a significant expense. (I'm not very familiar with the current marriage market in China but I've read that in some areas prices of $5000 are being paid. That would represent several years worth of (average) salary. How many people in their 20's in the West do YOU know who can save up 150k in a few years?) So all in all the elevated need for income seems to come from externalities. While unfortunate for this worker, and I sympathize with his hardships, I think no reasonable person will argue that he should be paid according to his 'need' (use of vocabulary of a certain flawed economic system intentional)
Again, I'm not saying that because 'we' (Westerners) have something that that makes it right; but again in this case, it seems like this guy faces the same challenge that many young people in the West face, and while many of us like to complain (myself included), I would not argue that this is imposing 'inhumane conditions' upon us.
Then, about the work safety regulations - fining people for getting hurt is not right. The article does seem though like they had to go out of the way to find an example of such an instance. On top of that, not only the worker was fined, also the management, and the worker was re-hired. Still no excuse for unsafe working conditions, but again if this is the worst example they could find, I'd say they're doing quite OK. We can't really tell from the article if it's really unsafe, and I have a hunch the author would've let us know if he knew just one more way to make it seem like a horrible factory.
Lastly, the sexual harassment. For this, too, there is no excuse; on the other hand, it's quite easy for something to be labeled 'sexual harassment' nowadays. The article only says "Some security guards sexually harass the young women, often using very provocative language." which seems to suggest that in the most extreme cases, they use "very provocative language". Again without details this is hard to judge but it hardly seems to be the daily gang rape that the rest of the article suggests it is.
(Let me be clear, for the record, that no form of sexual harassment, in any place or form, is ever OK. However there are gradations of sexual harassment and my point is that from what we can tell from the article, the worst that happens is in the same class of behavior as mild picking on a colleague - not acceptable, but not the worst either, in the broad moral spectrum).
So in closing (at last...), my original point still stands. If the facts in the article (of which there are few, in between all the rhetoric) are correct, and if these facts are interpreted in context, even when contrasted with so-called 'advanced nations', there seems to be very little that is out of the ordinary (if not up for some improvement, as is the case anywhere), and certainly not as "dehumanizing" or exploitative as the author wants to make us believe.
First of all, this news article has no facts but full of crap opinions. It is very romantic to have the freedom to say what is right and what is wrong, except you don't personally "live" in the situation and it is not your right to decide what is right for others.
<<<no matter what the situation is in the society; it is never right to do to one's workers what this article is describing, not even if there's a lot of competition for their jobs.>>>
Are you saying people are better off being hungry than working hard for food?
If an individual decides to be highly competitive by working crazy hours, is that considered bad? Will her colleagues complain to the labor department? A capitalist country's inhabitants, who belong to a system driven only by output and profit, complaining about labor practices, is the biggest oxymoron. Surely, the Chinese industries tactics are understandable?
In order for the Chinese manufacturing industry to be competitive, they indulge in such practices. If you want to remain competitive, one way is to cut costs or increase production, the way they do or by way of technological innovation. Or create high quality products, that consumers would want to buy, instead of the cheap {quality, cost} ones made in China.
The opponents of outsourcing are surely barking up the wrong tree. The Chinese workers surely have a choice of not working there. Agreed, that if they choose to work, life is pretty much miserable. But what if they choose not to work there. Do they go back to their non-existent farms, or to the streets? If such labor laws are enforced, the obvious impact is that oursourcing would move elsewhere. There will always be some country willing to take it up, and not to mention the people who would welcome a respite from their poverty.
The Chinese industry has decided to stay competitive. The people are probably between the devil or the deep sea, and it's all about choosing the better path, which in this case, simply is working 15 hours a day.
"A capitalist country's inhabitants, who belong to a system driven only by output and profit,"
You seem to be confused about "capitalism". In a capitalist system, workers are in a market as well and negotiate wages with the employers. Aggregate market behavior emerges from the individual behavior of who works for what. Individual employers may make "take it or leave it" offers, but they are embedded in a larger market and if enough people don't "take it", they have to raise their offer. Complaining about labor practices isn't weird, it's a bargaining chip.
It's the totalitarian systems where complaining about labor practices makes no "sense". They work under a de facto oligarchy or even flat-out monopoly in terms of where they can work, and when you have that, you no longer have capitalism. Hint: If you don't see a market, you're not talking about capitalism.
Is a phase like this required for developing nations to pass through? Specifically, large developing nations? Or could it be skipped, or at least have its negative human effects mitigated?
good point. Some nations were able to pass through in peace, but in other places it generated an unimaginable blood shed. I totally believe in market economies, but you have to make sure human beings are not abused.
Shocking. This is what used to be called "the unacceptable face of capitalism". It is this sort of unregulated industrial production which in western countries led to the labour movements and improvements in working conditions and health and safety standards throughout the 20th century.
The internet provides an excellent means by which to expose malpractice. Hopefully Microsoft will put pressure on their suppliers to ensure that workers aren't being mistreated. Make no mistake about it, if working practices like these were to exist today in a western country like the UK the company would be facing very significant fines and compensation claims.
They are not prisoners for the simple reason that they can quit at any time.
If they choose to stay at the job it means it's because they want to - by definition they want the money more than they want to leave the job, otherwise they'd leave.
If anyone wants to go there and provide better opportunities to lure these workers away from Microsoft, they are free to do so. There is a market for labor just as with any other product. But until then, Microsoft is offering these people the best job at the best wage available to them, so we have no grounds to criticize.
When they quit they are fined 15 days wages. Because they rarely leave the compound they don't have the chance to foster opportunities outside the factory.
"best country to work" have you heard of France? I think they have a maximum 30 hour work week. :O
Although I guess this depends on your definition of "best" ;)
What are the other differences? I'll take 5 extra hours a week for keeping a much larger part of my pay after taxes and avoiding the unemployment they have.
And I'm not a conservative at all, I'm one pushing for higher taxes when necessary, but even I think that hours at work is a terrible way to measure happiness at work. I had a 40 hour a week job and I hated it, now I have a 50 hour a week job and love it.
I'm sick of seeing the right-wing's tired old, sacred myth that "American's pay less taxes." It's total BS. While this isn't targeted directly at the poster, since you seem pretty open to figuring out the truth, but the hint of this myth is there.
Why is it that everyone who trots out this myth feels like they can ignore the "non-tax" taxes of FICA(social security & medicare)?
If you add in what you pay to FICA(social security & medicaid), and also add in the out of pocket expenses you bear for your own health care, now the average American's
tax burden is not only almost identical to most of Europe, but is probably a tiny bit higher. Around ~50% or so.
The US federal gov't sure as hell benefits by having half the voting population(Republicans) believe this myth. It's just deceptive accounting semantics—make everyone pay something, but don't call it a "tax", voila, now you can claim to have far lower taxes than any other G8 nations!
But it's a lie.
I think most Americans are plain fools when it comes to taxes. No wonder the gov't is able to spend $0.53 of every tax dollar on war and killing poor, non-white human beings, and NOT have riots in the streets, or their greatest existential fear: a mass scale tax "protest" movement. And don't even get me started on how stupid everyone is for the annual tax season "refund" rigmarole. What kind of idiots(other than our insolvent banks) give the Federal gov't an interest free micro-loan over a year?
So, hypothetically, wage parity might be achieved by Chinese workers making 5 - 7x more than they do now, whilst American worker would make 5 - 7x less.
Obviously prices in the US for healthcare, food and housing need to come down somewhat.
I think what we see is a (hopefully temporary) situation where there are people so poor that they are willing to work cheaper than machines. Because Americans are not going to go back to doing that work, it's not really a situation where Chinese labour is competing against American labour. the Chinese labour is competing against American /machines/
Chinese labor is competing and slaughtering the US machines.
There was a story on feats of Chinese manufacturing on YC not long ago, showing a guy sewing Chumby covers in 4 seconds flat. No machine could do that.
If you go look at HobbyCity, there are 30 gram brushless motors that are efficient, and can suck down 9 amps. Great for powering foamies, and most likely built and wound by hand. Cost $9 and up.
It's hard to conceive of an America that could perform such feats. It's been and gone.
I don't know if wage pressures will push wages up in China, but I do know there are a lot of qualified people unemployed, and plenty of unemployed unqualified people, and a government that needs to steer away from a housing and stocks bubble.
I'm not expecting this to be temporary, much as I wish life for the Chinese workers could improve.
Disclaimer: Typed on an iMac (Made in China), Mitsumi/Apple Bluetooth Keyboard (Made in China), MS Mouse (Made in China).
"Chinese labor is competing and slaughtering the US machines."
Sure, on the things that humans do better than robots, like sewing chumbies. My understanding is that china imports a whole lot of manufactured parts (computer chips, etc..) does the final assembly step (the one where humans can compete with machines) and exports the result. Some people say that much of our trade imbalance with china should be re-assigned to other countries that sell the chips to china, where they are assembled into a final product and sold to the US.
For example, I'm typing this on a Lenovo brand thinkpad; It was Assembled in China by a Chinese company.
But, the CPU is made by intel (and nearly all Intel fabs are in the first world, many of them in the US.) and the ram and SSD is made in Korea. The LCD was also made in Korea. I haven't taken apart the battery assembly (which was assembled in china) but it would not surprise me at all if the Lithium Ion cells and the controller chips were made in Japan. It seems to me, then, that most of what I paid for my Lenovo was not actually being paid to China; China was just the cheapest place to aggregate and assemble all the components.
As time goes on, there will be more and more things a machine can do better than a human can; that is why I don't think it's a problem for the US that china has dramatically lower prices for rote labour. You can't get a high school student to hand-craft a microchip, no matter how hard you work them.
The other thing about China is that there is a huge gap between unskilled work and skilled work. Much larger than here. I mean, here, there is maybe a 10x-20x (give or take) difference between the hourly rates of our lowest-skilled workers and our highest skilled workers (I mean, if you discount managers.) In China, this difference is much greater; The very skilled workers are paid at almost 1/3-1/2 global parity. I'm helping a Chinese friend set up a hosting company in China, and he tells me that he's going to need to pay close to the equivalent of USD$40K a year for a good software engineer. (I mean, someone with a masters or better.) I mean, that's a lot less than US rates, but it's not pennies. Hell, It's slightly more than I paid myself last year.
Off topic:
Interesting that all the stories so far talk about mothers in sweatshops. Not single one here mentions a father.
Were they working in the fields while women in the sweatshops?
What sucks is that when human workers are interchangeably minimally skilled commodities, management has no incentive to create a more humanized work environment: it causes no variation in output.
Is this supposed to be surprising? Globalized manufacturing is a zero-sum race to the bottom where only share-holders win. Everybody else becomes slaves when "contracting out to the lowest bidder" means "hiring the cruelest whipmaster".
It's is definitely not a zero-sum game. I can demonstrate this by destroying some value, if you'd like. (Demonstrating that the the sum can go up is a bit more difficult, since you need to actually do something worthwhile.)
The average income per person is $6,600, but still 10% of China's population, mostly rural people, live on less than $1 a day. (There are some very rich people in the cities bringing the mean up) The people working in these factories are mostly rural youth, not well educated, doing the best to provide for their families and earn more than what they can doing small scale farming.
I'm not convinced that how our western eyes view things is the same as how locals view this. Even taking home $.50 an hour like the article says means $2000 a year. If you used to be making a dollar a day, this factory job is much better than a dead end job as a farmer. Just keep that in mind.