High Tech Misery In China 876
theodp writes "Think you've got a bad job? Think again. You could be making keyboards for IBM, Microsoft, Dell, Lenovo and HP at Meitai Plastic and Electronics, a Chinese hardware factory. Prompted by the release of High Tech Misery in China by a human-rights group, a self-regulating body set up by tech companies will conduct an audit of working conditions at the factory. In return for take-home pay of 41 cents per hour, workers reportedly sit on hard wooden stools for 12-hour shifts, seven days a week. Overtime is mandatory, with workers being given on average two days off per month. While on the production line, workers are not allowed to raise their hands or heads, are given 1.1 seconds to snap each key into place, and are encouraged to 'actively monitor each other' to see if any company rules are being transgressed. They are also monitored by guards. Workers are fined if they break the rules, locked in the factory for four days per week, and sleep in crowded dormitories. Okay, it's not all bad news — they're hiring."
Well at MY place, (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well at MY place, (Score:4, Interesting)
However, in China I'm sure the benefits are great!
I have to wonder if this story is accurate, though. Maybe it is, but snapping keys into place on keyboards seems like a perfect job for high speed robots. Maybe 41 cents per hour is too cheap to justify robots?
Re:Well at MY place, (Score:4, Insightful)
The robot costs what it does, getting it delivered costs extra, electricity costs extra, having someone who can fix the machine if needed costs extra... And even automated robots need someone to give it parts, etc...
All compared to a few dollars per day per human. I know I wouldn't buy robots there.
Re:Well at MY place, (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked with a co-op students whose parents were slaves in a Chinese factory.
They live at the factory. The foreman decides when they wake up, when they eat, and when they go to the bathroom. The foreman decides when it's time to let them go to bed at the end of the day.
When you were awake and not in the bathroom or the cafeteria, you were on the assembly line.
They made iPods.
Re:Well at MY place, (Score:5, Interesting)
Well... i say they should ask the workers. Im not in favor of almost-slave-labor like it happens in China, but when one thinks of a billion-people country, images of true missery come to mind.
I think it might be the case that the workers would be far worse if they didnt have a job at that sweat shop.
Re:Well at MY place, (Score:5, Informative)
We owe them a lot of money, and at any time they could call that debt in on us, and presumably (if they wanted to and probably could) ship us off to China to work in their factories
Presumably what they own is a ginormous quantity of US Treasury bonds. The way in which they could "call in" that debt is by putting them all out for sale on the market but this would depreciate their value to such an extent they would have to be idiots to actually do it. Sure, it would cause some trouble for the US but chances are it would hurt China about as much - they would rather hang on to them and sell them off gradually so they actually get paid something for them. As for debt the US needs to pay out in $$$ when it comes due, well, it's debt in dollars and the recently politicized Federal Reserve will surely be happy to print however many dollar bills are needed to pay off any debt the govt decides it needs to get rid of (perhaps there would even be an Inflation Czar). To call the US' situation wrt international debt "sweet" is a gross understatement. The difficult part isn't to service their debt, the difficult part is to do it in such a way that the USD remains the international currency of choice afterwards.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's bullshit, the humans can do more important stuff and you get the productivity of both the robots and the humans.
Sure if you want crap jobs not worth shit and stop development ...
But most people like getting more for less and "improving life" (if you see more items as better life.)
Re:Well at MY place, (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, there are about 2 million American workers who work for less than $0.41/hr. Of course, they're all in prison - but why nitpick?
All we have to do to compete in the global economy is imprison the entire country. That way American companies don't have to abide by such provincial concepts as safety regulations, labor laws, retirement and health benefits; and American workers never have to worry about a lack of employment.
Win-Win!
Film at 11... (Score:5, Insightful)
Horrible working conditions in China, film at 11.
Sad that this stuff is so common; let's see if it changes over time as the country develops
Re:Film at 11... (Score:5, Funny)
It's one of the jobs offered to you if you're one of the many people laid off in the US by IBM...
Re:Film at 11... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the meantime, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
There are plenty of good used electronics peripherals on craigslist and ebay.
Re:Film at 11... (Score:5, Insightful)
Buy quality, and buy it once.
Buy crap, buy it new every year.
Re:Film at 11... (Score:5, Funny)
I bought 4 IBM model M keyboards on Ebay 10 years ago, and fully intend to keep using them until I can get a neural implant.
Buy quality, and buy it once.
Buy crap, buy it new every year.
Now, now, let's be fair. You bought quality, and you bought it four times.
Re:Film at 11... (Score:5, Funny)
I bought 4 IBM model M keyboards on Ebay 10 years ago, and fully intend to keep using them until I can get a neural implant.
Neural implants don't click. I went right back to the model M.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't even need craigslist and eBay is dead as a doornail. eBay's new policies make it practically impossible to sell anything without the criminal enterprise known as PayPal. I give that company about 1 year before it files for bankruptcy.
Absolutely true.
I still have the same keyboard I was using in 1995. Still operational and in use on a server. My most recent acquisitions were 2 wi
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Re:Film at 11... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, better working conditions aren't retroactive, and the possibility that things will be better in China in a century or so is of no help to the human beings being fucked over right now.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Those two countries also had nice wars that helped them do it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you figure the massive destruction of war "helped" them do anything? Seems to me they had to waste a lot of resources just to get back to where they started in the first place.
China should, theoretically, be able to pull themselves up even faster than Korea or Japan, if they wanted to, because they're not starting from scratch.
Re:Film at 11... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Unfortunately, better working conditions aren't retroactive, and the possibility that things will be better in China in a century or so is of no help to the human beings being fucked over right now."
They are still doing vastly better than most Chinese through history. This is the price of progress, and considering Chinas condition in 1948 the country has made amazing progress.
We cannot compete with them unless we drop our wages and join economic battle the old-fashioned way. There is nothing we can do they cannot do cheaper.
Re:Film at 11... (Score:4, Interesting)
They are still doing vastly better than most Chinese through history
I'm sorry, I can't agree with this. If you give me a choice between working a rice paddy or being effectively chained to a hard stool with guards and spies, I'd choose the former 10 times out of 10. Advancement this is not.
Re:Film at 11... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd choose the former 10 times out of 10.
I doubt it... these people are making exactly that choice. They were, almost without exception, peasant farmers before. Don't underestimate the drawing power of a full belly... we're still warm-blooded and food is still a primary motivator.
Re:Film at 11... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you give me a choice between working a rice paddy or being effectively chained to a hard stool with guards and spies, I'd choose the former 10 times out of 10.
You seem to believe that a peasant is free to walk away from his rice paddies whenever he wants. To me it is quite obvious that 12 hours of hard labor in the sun, bent over and knee deep in water, are less pleasant than same 12 hours spent sitting on a stool in a room and pushing key caps onto switches, otherwise the workers would not be working at the keyboard shop.
Re:Film at 11... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now while I find it plausible the similar scenario of reform may happen in China, I doubt it will happen soon. What has happened to western nations is not necessarily directly transferable to China. But I do believe things may improve, but clearly China's labour conditions are not sustainable, things will change one way or another.
Re:Film at 11... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, the yuan is artificially low against the dollar. Once the Chinese let their currency float, that salary will start to look a lot better, especially as we start to lose more and more jobs in THIS country (due in no small part to our onerous regulations that drive companies overseas to places like China).
Exactly, it's economically feasible to be humane (Score:5, Insightful)
We would like to think that we ended slavery and nasty labor conditions because we've grown more humane and ethical. The reality is that the wind sail put the galley slave out out commission because it was cheaper to buy and maintain the sails than it is to maintain the slaves. It's cheaper to use machines to use slaves or underpaid workers to mine.
I always laugh at those star trek or scifi shows where some advanced race is using living slaves to work hard labor. It hadn't occurred to the writers that even in the complete absence of ethics, it just makes no sense to use humans to do brute labor.
History repeats it self. (Score:5, Insightful)
It did in the USA, the UK, and every other country that went through a transition from a mostly agricultural to an industrial economy.
And by then, as the cost of labor raises with the working condition, instead of building the same hardware in better conditions, the big companies will relocate their production facilities somewhere else where the cost of producing the parts is even cheaper than everywhere else. Probably in Africa.
Re:History repeats it self. (Score:4, Insightful)
Bingo. So the process, over time, does in fact improve living quality worldwide, because it always creates employment among the poorest on Earth (as they are the ones that are cheapest to employ).
Of course, it also decreases the quality of life in the richer countries by decreasing the amount of employment available in them. This is why I find anti-globalisation protesters so charmingly hilarious - what they are in fact arguing for is to employ fewer poor people and more rich people, which I'm pretty sure isn't what they think they're arguing for.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Film at 11... (Score:5, Funny)
...taking away as it did the only vestige of civilisation in the US.
You misspelled "civilization".
Re:Film at 11... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sad that this stuff is so common; let's see if it changes over time as the country develops
I'm not sure how big that chance is, as long as union protest run the risk of being overrun with tanks. Let's face it, one of the reasons we've got it better is because workers have the right to vote and the freedom to unionise.
A dictatorship may call itself socialist, but as long as the common worker has no power or freedom, the people in power have no incentive to do anything for them.
Re:Film at 11... (Score:4, Interesting)
Throughout the Industrial Revolution unionization in the US was repressed (sometimes violently) by those in power. Police and National Guard troops were called in on several occasions to break unions.
Just because people have rights, doesn't mean that corrupt officials will recognize them.
Re:Film at 11... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sad that this stuff is so common; let's see if it changes over time as the country develops
Unfortunately, capitalism seems to have some characteristics of a pyramid scheme, and latecomers to the party don't seem to have much chance.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Compare the lifestyle of a US citizen from the '40s and one from today, then a Chinese worker from the '40s to today, and you'll see the Chinese worker has made a heck of a lot more progress.
Playing catch-up is in many ways easier than maintaining your lead.
Re:Film at 11... (Score:4, Insightful)
Every country that has established exploitative labour has never just changed as the country 'er' the minority rich and greedy developed. It has always resulted in extreme violence and in modern times armed conflict. Trade laws need to be implemented that so that a tax is placed upon goods that are produced under conditions that are illegal in the country for whom the goods are intended, you can not have free trade without fair trade.
The reality is the only way to allow conditions to improve peacefully in countries like China is to force the issue via legislation, either pay for better, less polluted and safer conditions, equal to what is mandated in your own country and the conditions under which you and your industries are forced to compete or, pay the tax equivalent.
Fines... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fines... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you want pointless tech gadgets so much you don't care about the consequences of purchasing it?
Re:Fines... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Fines... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fines... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod up. I'll believe the argument everything will cost magnitudes more once I can buy my sweatshop $2 NBA Baller Official Nike's for anything less than $100. They use Chinese sweatshops to increase profit not to lower consumer costs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Seeing as 111.1 seconds to put a 101 key keyboard together has a labor cost of just 1.2 cents and will sell for anywhere from $3-$100 depending on the brand, model, and store it is sold in the labor cost is a tiny piece of the price.
You could easily pay the same workers $7 per hour and the labor cost per keyboard would only go up by about 20.4 cents a unit. I would be willing to pay an extra quarter for a keyboard knowing the work was done in humane conditions and the guy making them got a 1700% raise.
Re:Fines... (Score:5, Interesting)
You could easily pay the same workers $7 per hour and the labor cost per keyboard would only go up by about 20.4 cents a unit.
That's fine, if you're only giving a raise to the assembler. But there's the guy who makes the keys, the guy who makes the frame, the guy who runs the machine printing the letters on the keys, the guy who attaches the cord, the guy who attaches the USB connector to the cord, the guy who puts the keyboard into the box, the guy who takes the box and puts in on a pallet, the guy who runs the forklift to move the pallet, the guy who drives the truck, the crane operator who loads the ship, and the thousands of others farther up the supply chain who manufacture the raw materials to make the keyboard.
When you pay all of them at least $7 per hour, that's where the order of magnitude price increases will come from. Look at the big picture and see how unrealistic that is.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a dishonest argument. The price breakdown of the $10 item must be around $8 onshore (from product management and engineering to warehousing and retail), $1 for shipping and $1 for slave labour and parts.
First, I cannot imagine that onshore blue collar work could not produce the item for $10 or less, considering the white collar counterpart cost $8. Economically, this is still a valid reason for offshoring, as your competition has a retail price per item of $10, while you'll be around $20 and bankrup
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Fair Trade for coffee [wikipedia.org]
10% of a dim bulb (Score:5, Interesting)
Concerning orders of magnitude, it wouldn't hurt if some of the posts to slashdot were an order of magnitude less stupid.
TFA states these workers are being paid 41 cents/hour to work 84 hour weeks. Let's pay them 82 cents/hour to work 42 hour weeks. This will require twice as many workers, working shifts half as long, and double the labour cost for each keyboard.
100 key keyboard at 1.1s per key is 110s, which is under 2 minutes. Original labour cost is 1.3 cents/keyboard. Under the relatively humane proposal, this doubles to 2.6 cents per keyboard.
It would take six intermediaries between China and the U.S market to each mark-up this additional labour by 100% for the humane labour practise to add $1 to the cost of a keyboard landed to the consumer.
I've heard a rumour that Walmart doesn't have six intermediaries in their supply chain, and those they do have rarely get away with 100% markups.
This has nothing to do with the economics of production. It has a lot more to do with Chinese society having pockets of corruption where everyone with the power to put a stop to this turns a blind eye to enslavement conditions, and powerful corporations turning a blind eye to the greater powers in China not doing much about this.
Even Detroit would have difficulty coming up with a way to make a $10 keyboard cost $100. $40/hour with a production rate of two keyboards per hour and markups galore?
I once heard that decimation has come to mean either 90% attrition or 10% attrition. Contrary to popular opinion and Walmart shopping tendencies, it's not actually true that an "order of magnitude" is 10%
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry, It's hard to post intelligently under these conditions.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The working conditions do stink (and should be improved), but I agree with you that simply telling us the wage (OMG! 41c/hour!!) without telling us how much it buys locally is simply there to enrage people who don't think. Obviously it must be a decent amount of money locally if people are willing to put up with the working conditions.
I need practical sources of good places to shop. (Score:5, Insightful)
I prioritize the safety and health of humans above getting a $5 keyboard on NewEgg.com. I don't share your heartlessness which places profit above humanity. As a detail, it costs surprisingly little to make sure humans have a decent living, health care, potable water, food security, a safe place to live, and other things these keyboard assembly workers lack.
My problem with paying more is that I have no reasonable assurance that the additional money will get to the workers. I don't trust "trickle down" economics but I'm willing to pay more for the products and services I use so that workers get better treatment. If I said to any distributor or manufacturer to charge me more they might do it. But I think they'll keep everything as it is and then pocket the additional money. Not one penny of my money would go toward improving the plight of abused workers anywhere along the chain that gets me my keyboards.
To me, this is the hard part of an ethical sell on the public. Everyone has a pretty good idea of what a safe working environment is (it's why so many are appalled at the conditions described in TFA), and there's lots of people around the world who can go into well-researched detail to explain more on that (such as Charles Kernaghan's exemplary work; see "The Corporation" for more of his work. It's one of the best movies on this and its relationship to the larger picture of the problem with a system based on satisfying profit-seekers at all costs). As a result, when I watch what the corporate media doesn't want me to read or see, I get lots of talk about what to avoid.
But I don't know of a simple, practical, efficient guide for the consumer looking for computer parts. I need to buy a few USB compatible-with-everything keyboards I can plug in and use without any additional software. Furthermore, I need to have a reasonable understanding that these keyboards were manufactured and shipped without abuse to the workers. Where do I get these?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, because if it were a Chinese firm doing this, that would make it okay.
It it was a Chinese firm doing this, it wouldn't be any of my business, since I live in the USA.
I mean, unless you want us to go over there and invade to enforce our morality. We're good at that.
Compared to doing what? (Score:5, Insightful)
In return for take-home pay of 41 cents per hour, workers reportedly sit on hard wooden stools for 12-hour shifts, seven days a week. Overtime is mandatory, with workers being given on average two days off per month.
The alternatives being what?
Substinence farming or starving?
Re:Compared to doing what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Make it easier to consume locally. Stop rigging the currency to be export-pushing.
Re:Compared to doing what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop rigging the currency to be export-pushing.
The United States has been pushing the Chinese government to do just that for years now. In fact, that was why Clinton opened up trade relations with China in the first place, as a carrot to encourage monetary and social policy changes (which has failed completely btw). Good luck convincing the thugs in charge of the Chinese Politburo to give up their fat profits made on the backs of their pool of slave labour. Whenever foreigners criticise them they respond with something like, "you must learn to respect our ways" and if one of their own citizens criticises them then they are thrown in prison and forgotten (indefinite detention, its not just a GITMO thing).
Re:Compared to doing what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Compared to doing what? (Score:5, Informative)
Dunno about where this factory is, but everywhere I've been in China, 41 cents (3 yuan) doesn't buy you much...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd say you'd need six of those to feed you, your wife, and the one child you're allowed.
As those people work 12 hours a day, they'd still have 24.60RMB left. Actually enough for some variance in the diet, provided their rent doesn't exceed, say, 500RMB per month.
I'm
Re:Compared to doing what? (Score:4, Informative)
I would say subsistence farming is much better than 41 cents/hour in a factory.
Re:Compared to doing what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say subsistence farming is much better than 41 cents/hour in a factory.
Well, either the subsistence-farmers-turned-factory-workers disagree with you or they are unable to get any arable land for subsistence farming ...
Re:Compared to doing what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Traditionally, the first move to create a "capitalistic" economy is to take away the posibility of subsistence farming. It has happened in the west too. If you allow me to bring Marx here, this is part of the "primitive accumulation of capital"...
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Re:Compared to doing what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not everyone makes the decision, take for instance whole communities relocated by lake created by the three-gorges dam. Many of them were moved to areas so they could be factory workers. They did just fine (and were happier) living off the land.
Re:Compared to doing what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Say it all you want, but the people who actually have to make that decision seem to have come to a different conclusion.
Yes, the people who decided to incarcerate people and force them to labor as slaves for the profit of the government definitely came to a different conclusion. Slave Labor is good for the government, so it must be good for the people!
A lot of the consumer goods that you can buy at the dollar store or the Wal-Mart are made with straight up slave labor, not even the feel-good two-days-off-a-month forty-four cents a day kind of slavery either. The prison camp for your beliefs or just being inconvenient to society kind of slavery. But honestly, isn't it all slavery?
Re:Compared to doing what? (Score:5, Insightful)
How quaint. You seem to have an odd notion that the people who work 12-hour shifts in horrible factories get to make meaningful decisions about their career paths. Never mind that if you're a subsistence farmer, the Chinese government can seize your land at any time. Or suddenly decide, "Hey, you guys, you're not farmers any more." And if you were born to parents who work in sweatshops...what are you going to do, go out and buy a dozen acres on $0.41/hour?
Re:Compared to doing what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say subsistence farming is much better than 41 cents/hour in a factory.
Let them decide, they prefer to work apparently.
Also keep in mind every country has gone through an industrial revolution.
Western Industrial Revolution had the same horrors: Children working in factories 12 hours a day? Check. Children getting so tired they fall into machinery and die? Check. Grownups working 12 hours/day, 7 days/week? Check.
The thing about China is theirs is going to be over and done with in about 25 years for a total of 35; as opposed to hanging around for 75-100 and morphing into a second industrial revolution.
You forget to realize that even these conditions are far better than any Chinese would otherwise see. Running, clean water? Dependable food? Shelter to sleep in? They don't get that when they're farming 12 hours a day making barely enough food to survive on.
The other thing-- in the last 20 years, "extreme poverty" has shrunk from 40% globally to 20%*. That's not your humanitarian aid at work, that's American consumption fueling fewer deaths due to water poisoning, hunger, etc. in third world countries/regions. Why would you take that away from them? Until just recently (with the onset of this recession) Chinese were STILL taking trains to the cities to find a new life, new work, and new pay. That's in spite of all these "horrible work conditions" (by our standards, that we erroneously think nobody would want to work under) all over the place. They're welcome to quit their job and return to farming, but I think you miss how bad they have it farming.
This knowledge should cause us to stop and consider what we'd be doing before we start taxing trade with the Chinese.
*Go check out "The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for Us All" by Robyn Meredith. She covers all sorts of things like this and provides sound sources to back them up-- IIRC, there were about 30 pages at the back of this book with nothing but footnotes/sources for statistics like this one.
Re:Compared to doing what? (Score:5, Informative)
You need to realize that the improvement of working conditions in the West in the 19th and early 20th centuries wasn't some sort of natural outgrowth of industrialism. It came about because the people in those societies became appalled at the conditions and government stepped in and forced companies to improve these conditions. The 40 hour work week wasn't created by some natural economic change of events...it came about because the government forced it on companies.
You forgot... (Score:3, Interesting)
...street begging, prostitution, et cetera.
Sadly, it's true that these sweatship jobs are often a good option compared to what else is available in those countries.
It is most definitely a high violation by Western standards, true. But, do we really need to psuh to Westenr standards? And can we?
TFA did point out that these people are being paid even less than what *Chinese* labor law requires. That at least needs tob e fixed
Trouble is, these placed would probably clean house tem[porarily when inspectors show
Regulation (Score:3, Insightful)
What we are seeing here, my friends, is capitalism gone wild.
No, totalitarianism gone wild (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you're seeing totalitarianism gone wild. All of the shitty labor in China is backstopped by the government and its willingness to create political prisoners.
What really sucked about the Olympics wasn't the smog or anything else, it was the media broadcasting the fake news that China is just another free country. And the west sucked it down.
Wrong, it is the capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Blaming this on the Chinese while still exploiting things is bullshit.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Then he and Larry Flynt couldn't lobby the Chinese government that their keyboard companies were just too big to fail...
Re:Regulation (Score:5, Interesting)
perhaps I am rambling already, but this hits close to home for me. When I was a guitar playing, electronics geeking, jr. high student I found out that one of the worlds biggest audio electronics manufacturers had its headquarters about 10 miles away. As soon as I turned 18 and qualified to work there I started to chase it a little bit. Soon I was testing digital audio electronics and making more money than I had thought possible (for my age and experience I mean). My job was exciting (at least to me) and I could afford to live in a small apartment with one of my best friends from the factory. Everything was going great.
Well the company went after some major buyouts and a few of the new products flopped. 9/11 happened and people stopped purchasing entertainment related items like the recording equipment we were making. The company was de-listed from the nasdaq and things started to go downhill. There had been several competitors with production facilities nearby. Soon we were the only one. They had all moved to contract manufacturing in china. Our company faced the decision to either do the same or collapse completely. To the stockholders it was a no-brainer. They moved the production to china putting us all out of work.
I had been making about 150 dollars a day, for the first four ten hour shifts of the week, and if I worked friday and or saturday it was $225. I was told the man who gets my job in china will make the equivalent of 150 dollars a month, for working 14+ hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week, living in some shitty dorms. I remember my hands aching from the job, and people were always needing surgery on their wrists, and that was with 40 to 60 hour weeks, I can't imagine the schedule in china. If they can't do the job though, there are people lined up around the block to take their place.
well some years have passed now, and it has been wild. I figured I had a career in electronics manufacturing, but there are really no factories in this area anymore. There used to be hundreds. I had to move back with my parents or be homeless, and I had to come up with a new career path. It has taken years to get qualified in some other type of work that is actually stable, its not nearly as much fun, but my bills are finally paid again.
As for the company, the quality of the product went to shit, people quit buying, they are a very small company now. Very few of the original people still survive there. Even the china production is very small now.
The dilemma for me is when I am out buying tools for my latest job, or when I am buying electronics, I picture whats going on in china and it makes me sick. But I go to the store and look around, and I no longer have the choice to buy from a country that respects the workers a little bit. Even if there were lots of American, Canadian, British, etc, keyboards around, I doubt I could afford them with my paycheck from the new career... so the house of cards continues to crumble.
Exactly two ways to avoid this stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Government regulation (and enforcement) setting minimum working conditions.
2) Enthusiastic uptake of some kind of "no humans were exploited in the making of this product" sticker, in the free market.
I've found it heartwarming at work that the younger staff are all hugely in favour of "fair trade" products that purportedly don't exploit poor farmers and farm labourers, mostly as applied to coffee and sugar products. The aggressively seek them out and we have people coming from floors around to our "fair trade only" coffee station. We older folks are "for" this stuff as long as you stick it under our noses, shame us a bit, and it doesn't cost *much* more.
Which it doesn't, of course - that's the pathetic thing about these stories - the conditions in that factory, as opposed to conditions that might not pass muster here but at least wouldn't *disgust* you, are probably scraping $2 off the cost of the $60 "MS Egronomic 4000" keyboard that you could only pry from my cold, dead (non-RSI'd) fingers. I'd be happy to pay $65 if it came with such a sticker...the other $3 paying for the checking and enforcement of the rules from the sticker-issuing NGO.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Government regulation (and enforcement) setting minimum working conditions.
2) Enthusiastic uptake of some kind of "no humans were exploited in the making of this product" sticker, in the free marke
I've found it heartwarming at work that the younger staff are all hugely in favour of "fair trade" products that purportedly don't exploit poor farmers and farm labourers, mostly as applied to coffee and sugar products.
Agricultural products cannot be considered in the same way that manufacturing or assembling jobs can.
Agricultural products are not nearly as mobile as manufacturing, which can easily be moved to a cheaper country at the drop of a hat. Companies are already leaving Asia and taking their manufacturing to Eastern Europe because labor costs and regulation are at even lower levels.
And despite what you say, consumer study after consumer study unwaveringly shows that consumers are incredibly price conscious. Thoug
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we need a trade embargo (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:we need a trade embargo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:we need a trade embargo (Score:4, Insightful)
its not even about about inability to repay china loans.
what has us by the balls is that we've GIVEN AWAY our manufacturing. manuf, today, IS FREEDOM. but we forgot that and so we suffer since we are no longer independant.
a huge great nation like the US once MADE things. I go thru old electronics 'junk stores' and find many really old things that say MADE IN USA on them. the quality is still there to see and in fact, many people seek out the older US-made parts and devices.
but we gave that way. we can't build things in the US anymore. we are DEPENDANT on china. we are stuck.
I wonder if obama sees this? bush certainly didn't - he didn't lift a single finger to detach us from the stranglehold of china. if anything, we created MORE sweatheart deals with chinese manuf's over the last 8 years.
formula for fixing the econ: rebuild our local manufacturing of electronic parts (goodbye chinese 'bad electrolytic capacitors'!), put americans back to work and regain some self respect in this country. stop throwing money at rich bankers, making them even richer. stop throwing money at the entertainment 'industry'. REBUILD AMERICAN MANUFACTURING. its the only way to break free of chinese economics.
once the US leaves china (if that could ever happen) you'd see a whole bunch of changes happen in china. they'd have to!
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I don't know why this myth continues to persist. We, in the USA, manufacture a whole ton of crap. In fact, we're still tops in the world [industryweek.com] for manufacturing output!
No surprises here (Score:4, Insightful)
We wouldn't be in the mess we're in without it.
Call me a troll or flame me, but there has to be a better way than chasing the profit...
Sustainability perhaps?
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Rubbish ... you could easily double these people's wages and it would add less then $1 to the total cost of your PC. Would you really stop buying if they did that?
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China is capitalist? Since when? They have factories and capital, but control over the means of productions is still largely in the hands of the government.
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Re:No surprises here (Score:5, Interesting)
Deregulation is fine if you are willing to accept a very unstable economy. We had lassiez-faire prior to the 1930's, and along with that 7 depressions in a 50 year period, including the Great Depression and the Long Depression. Not to mention the Great Panic that led to the creation of the Federal Reserve.
You might get faster growth that way, but at a big price. You also get massive social upheavals and personal misery because of the instability. You also get accumulation of wealth that is so concentrated in the hands of the few that the it threatens governmental institutions. For example look at the ugly incident in 1933 where a group of bankers conspired to conduct a coup d'etat during the FDR administration, and replace the US Government with a fascist regime, or the problems TR had with business trusts.
If we flash forward to the current economic situation it is pretty clear that the proximate cause was the relaxation of reserve requirements for investment banks by the SEC in 2004. This freed up hundreds of billions for mortgage backed securities that an unwitting and unregulated rating industry categorized as 'AAA' when in fact they were 'C' grade. The money that went into these securities went to fund subprime and alt-a mortgages, and ultimately inflated the housing market to the bursting point. The head of the Treasury, Paulson argued for removal of reserve requirements and self-regulation of the financial industry when he was head of Goldman Sachs. It is ironic that he had to deal with this outcome from the other side 8 years later.
Capitalism works well and I am not advocating abolishment of it. however there must be restraints on some of the outcomes; left unfettered it does provide an optimum or fair outcome to all who live in such a system, nor does it provide for a stable or peaceful society. An economicist would say that entities in such a system do not consider external consequences when making descisions; sort of an extended view of the prisoner's dilemma problem.
Re:No surprises here (Score:5, Informative)
How incredibly naive you are.
The Austarlian banks have weathered the crisis without great trouble, no bailouts needed so far. Why? Because they were reregulated in the 90's, not allowed to make up silly investment viehicles that lead to disaster.
Hate to bring reality to your shiny libertarian ideals, but as you should well know reality has a liberal bias.
Good regulation would have prevented the problem as it did in Australia. No ammount of rationalization and false analogies you make will change that.
Honestly, I cannot believe you really think reducing regulation would magically fix the banking crisis. Like the bankers will suddenly become honest.
Jeezus!
Re:No surprises here (Score:4, Insightful)
You simply ignore the fact that it works almost everywhere else neatly dont you? I guess you dont like the facts interfering with your faith.
We re regulated, and our banks survived without a dollar from the taxpayer so far. How is it working out for the US- $100 billion so far!
Yeh I can see how well that works.
Libertarians are as delusional as the religious.
Flat tax system, you must be joking.
The only people whom benefit from a flat tax system are the rich.
Re:No surprises here (Score:5, Insightful)
"Capitalism can only work because it thrives on and creates the poor."
Capitalism works great most of the time, but can easily be abused to bring about situations like this. We hear about the fraction of a percent of abusive companies because it's news that sells. We don't hear so much about the greater than 99% of capitalist companies and individuals that provide good, sustainable products and services (for whatever reason).
Seriously, do you think that anybody gives even a tiny little rat's ass that I created a small company's data entry and reporting infrastructure for a reasonable price and included full source code so they wouldn't be locked into me as a sole service provider? Does that sound like news that people will care to spend time or money knowing?
The various news media have long since relied on sensationalism to make money. If you base your world view on what you hear/read from media outlets, it's almost impossible to view the world as anything other than corrupt and beyond redemption. There's a whole other world that doesn't get reported.
Re:No surprises here (Score:4, Insightful)
There were no "poor" before capitalism? That's news. A thriving middle class is in fact a recent phenomenon, arising at the same time as capitalism.
No we wouldn't... In the same way that there wouldn't be plane crashes if there weren't any airplanes.
You're not a troll at all, you're just willfully ignorant, yet outspoken. Sort of the opposite end of the spectrum of Fox News.
By all means, explain your system that works any better than the current system.
"If there's a new way, I'll be the first in line...but it better work this time." -Megadeth
A different side of the story (Score:5, Informative)
$.02 per keyboard (Score:4, Interesting)
This explains why... (Score:4, Insightful)
my 'original' microsoft natural keyboard (bought in 1994, still working just perfectly) cost me $250 or so from what I remember, and the latest natural keyboard 4000 I bought for the office was only $60...
The 'original' says it's made in Mexico, I wonder when the production was moved... I also don't see why keyboards have to be so cheap, it's not like you change it every day: I can totally see myself using this keyboard for another 15 years easily (assuming that in 15 years I can find a ps/2-whatever converter, that is my only worry)
What if... (Score:5, Interesting)
After all, a large fraction of all the new PCs purchased today are purchased to replace existing systems; which themselves had keyboards before. And being as keyboards themselves have not changed dramatically in the past 10 years (or more), there is a good chance that the consumer could have just used the keyboard from their old system on their new one.
The throw-away mentality towards consumer electronics is likely a major culprit in the development of these sweatshops.
Rant your way... (Score:4, Insightful)
These kinds of comments that go along the line "we must stop this" and so on are so ignorant of other people's reality that get to the point of being disgusting.
Believe it or not, people in countries other that yours are not stupid nor masochistic. And tend to choose what they believe it's best for them, no matter how different that may be from YOUR personal choices.
The reality is that yes, working conditions are miserable. But they are not slaves. They may choose not to work in those factories. It is just that the alternatives are so bad (starving to death, for one... yes, that may seem incredible for you that feel STARVING after going 2 hours without a snack, but people DO starve to DEATH)that working in those conditions is actually acceptable!
And what is your solution? Penalize the asses out of the companies that operate this way, so that it becomes unfeasable to maintain operation in those countries, condemning the locals to a fate they had chosen not to have because YOUR WELL FED ASS decided what is best for THEM!
The sheer arrogance is unbelievable...
Re:Damn it.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It cost you $2.99. What the heck do you think?
Re:Damn it.. (Score:5, Interesting)
To be honest, I thought they had machines that pop keys on and assemble these things - but I suppose over there people are cheaper than machines.
Re:Damn it.. (Score:5, Funny)
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However, there's no incentive to invest in such technology if the labor rates are low enough.
IMHO, that's one of the key reasons in favor of a minimum wage - not because minimum wage helps workers directly (some workers do get paid more but others are out of a job) but because it forces technology to be developed that makes the work more efficient. A worker can be paid a lot more in an economy where pushing a couple buttons makes an entire cell phone than in an economy where a day of banging rocks together results in a few sharp pieces of rock to cut the skin off dead animals.