Slashdot Mirror
Avoiding Sweatshop PC Components?
Jimmy asks: "Is there such a thing as a guilt-free PC or components? From what I've been reading, third world sweatshops are contracting just as much assembly work to the big-name hardware suppliers as the unscrupulous clothing/fashion industry. I'd love to have a PC which wasn't made off of the back of some underage girl working for pennies an hour. What about it? When is our new-groove techie conscience going to kick in?" Such concern is commendable, but it's not like Dell, Gateway or any other manufacturere advertise this fact in their Press Packets. How does one go about finding out such information and when you do, instead of just boycotting, why not go public?
Yes the pay stinks compared to here, but how else
do you think they will raise their standard of living?
Do you believe these countries can just magically raise their minimum wage to something on par with the US or Europe?
Face it, the only way the third world will improve its standard of living is in incremental steps. As people better their lot they will demand more political say (and have more economic power to do so)
It sucks, but that is reality......
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
From what I've heard about maquiladoras and free-trade zones, you'll probably have a hard time getting good information. And when you do get it, you'll have a hard time keeping it current.
The shops work on contract, with the product changing every few months. Overall, the clothing shops stick with clothing, and the electronics assemblers sticking w/ their area, but when orders fall off, or some semblance of human-rights monitoring gets started up, the shop will fold, and the owner will look for greener pastures. A new industry will open up under the old roof pretty quickly.
Worse still, I read recently about someone having developed a manufacturing facility that fits in a cargo container. Now the whole factory can pick up and head for where the wages are cheapest.
At current component price levels, it should be easy to pick out the ones that didn't come from sweatshops. They are the ones that'll cost almost an order of magnitude more than other similar components. Like it or not, large parts of our western affluence is built on their backs. It is only getting more difficult to find products that don't include that kind of exploitation in their production channel.
I'm willing to pay for good information.
In a related story, the IRS has recently ruled that the cost of Windows upgrades can NOT be deducted as a gambling loss.
==========foo fighter==========
Do not mistake understanding for realization,
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Unless your a child who has been sold by their parents, and they chain you to the sewing machine... But they had a choice to be born right?
Oh yea, they didnt.
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
I should give a disclaimer before I start. I spent 7 years kicking around China (including some time as a technical writer for a mainboard manufacturer in Taiwan). I hold well-meaning missionaries with fat bellies going in to "fix" developing countries in utter, complete disdain.
Most of the assembly for PC components is highly automated. I have seen people hand-solder SMT components... These were exploited senior engineers in the Taipei design center. These poor souls were so tired after working 10 hours a day that they could barely drag themselves to their new Toyotas and Nissans to go off to their houses in the suburbs of Taipei.
The rest is all done using SMT machinery. There's a tech monitoring the line for trouble, and there are people doing QC and stuffing boxes at the end of the line. It's pretty boring, but it's light work. Remember as well that the quality demands for electronics are considerably higher than for clothing. You can't train someone just off the farm to run an SMT line.
Making silicon chips is generally a pretty nasty business. You get exposed to lots of fun chemicals, many of which are known carcinogens. The silicon fabs have largely moved overseas for a reason. They're bad neighbors, and bad PR.
On the issue of sweatshops in general, I am largely in agreement with another poster. Labor unions, education, and time solve all problems. If any of you have grandparents old enough to remember when the world's largest developing economy was the United States, ask them about pay and working conditions.
In a complex, cross-dependent society, a lot of hands make everything you touch. Some of them are well-paid, skilled laborers, some have jobs you wouldn't want in a million years. If this bugs your conscience, do the right thing. Sell your gas-guzzling automobile, get out of San Francisco, or New York, or Seattle, or wherever you are now, move to Montana, and unplug. Create your own sustainable economy and be guilt-free.
I'm not sure what the problem is with sweatshops...
for the people running them, they get cheap labor, and can make a decent amount of money
for the people buying from them, they get cheap assembly, and can use pass the savings on to consumers who are unwilling to pay higher costs
for those working in the them, it gives them* a way to earn much needed money (if they didn't need it that much, would they work at thsoe rates?)
*them or those who control them anyhjow
this is a side effect of a market economy, if there is a way to produce something cheaper, it woill be done.
the only way to solve the 'problem' is to develop cheaper alternatives for production, and more appealing options for the workers
of course, as soon as we get all third world nations are up to wage, safty, etc levels of today's united states, other forms of explotation will be considered horribly unethical (and probably called sweatshops as a metaphor)
....
Need a Catering Connection
. . . but if the machine has a big Swoosh on the side of the box, or if the wallpaper is a picture of Kathy Lee Gifford, steer clear.
Another proud carrier of the $rtbl flag
Do you have any evidence to support this equation?
Table-ized A.I.
I tend to think that a bad opportunity is better than no opportunity.
However, the problem with many countries is either corrupt political systems and/or a mindset that the government should project you from everything.
(Sure, the U.S. has corruption, but not near as much as many countries.)
Table-ized A.I.
Here's what a smart missionary would do : bring in a few iOpeners and introduce all these sweatshop workers to eBay =) In just one week they'll have earned more than their yearly salary =)
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Unions did not just appear in this country.
On the contrary there was ALOT of violence perpetrated to keep unions from forming.
Go back and check the history books.
It always takes brave people willing to sacrifice to make change, and this is how it will be done if the third world is to improve.
That said, if I was working in one of those sweat shops, and they fired me because the american consumer felt bad I worked too hard, it would really piss me off....
These people are fighting to make enough $$$ to survive and feed their children. If you want to make a REAL difference, find an organization trying to start unions over there and support them. That is IMO a much more realistic solution, and one more likely to create results.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
I think an interesting point on sweatshop labor is this: 30-40 years ago, India, Taiwan, and South Korea were all at roughly the same economic status (e.g. very low per capita income, low per capita GDP, etc.). India rejected sweatshops as a means of economic development. Taiwan and South Korea accepted them as a necessary evil. India is still a developing nation. Taiwan and South Korea are rivalling Japan to be the richest country in East Asia. There are few sweatshops in Taiwan and South Korea.
The problem isn't sweatshops; it's poverty. Sweatshops are a mere manifestation of that poverty. Think about it for a moment: if the people in say, Bangladesh weren't in poverty, would they work in sweatshops?
What is the most certain cure for poverty? wealth creation (wealth being liquid assets). The biggest asset of a developing country is the manual labor of its citizens. The country does not have huge amounts of wealth (otherwise, it's not a developing nation), and it doesn't tend to have a high education level, because education is expensive.
What a sweatshop does is, for a very low initial cost, convert that labor into cash. Thus, a middle class gradually starts to appear and grow, eventually reaching a size where education and non-manual jobs become a possibility. As this happens, labor costs go up, forcing sweatshops elsewhere.
I will admit that in absolute terms, they do choose it--however, you are forgetting to ask what their alternative is. Their alternative is to die of starvation. This is much like totalitarianism: "Work or die" is the main motivational lever.
There is no way for these people to escape their circumstances within the system; they cannot afford transport, they cannot afford anything but the meagre crumbs they work so hard for every day. It is the same old situation capitalism has always created. There is nothing they can do about the wages; if they strike or attempt to organise, they will be put down by the government, as has happened in Mexico many times; if they in some way succeed, all the factories will just pack up and move to another country. Treaties like FTAA and NAFTA prevent these countries from making labour laws in the first place, so even if the governments suddenly turned benevolent, no such luck.
So you may say "But wait, they have another choice! They can grow their own food!" Well I've got news for you: plenty of people do, they're called peasants, and they live miserably too. Dependent on the climate, they starve when there's a drought, and since most land is owned by rich landowners, they only have tiny plots on which to desperately try to make enough food to survive--why do you think so many peasants leave this for the hellhole of a factory?
So basically these people have three choices: be a starving peasant, be a suffering worker, or die.
The only other choice, of course, is revolution. Or doing something, anything, to hurt the corporations that are causing this intentionally to save money for themselves. One thing we can do, even if it's small, is to boycott them. It's sure as hell better than rewarding them for violating human rights and claiming it was "voluntary" on the part of the workers!
What's your point here - that the worst excesses of a market economy aren't a problem, because markets are a place of business only, where ethics don't factor in?
The poster of this Ask Slashdot clearly feels differently - he wants his involvement in the economy to be in a manner that promotes human rights rather than trampling them.
Concerning your last paragraph:
of course, as soon as we get all third world nations are up to wage, safty, etc levels of today's united states, other forms of explotation will be considered horribly unethical (and probably called sweatshops as a metaphor)
Do you mean that it's pointless to fight against what is wrong, since there will always be something else that is wrong? This self-satisfied pseudo-analysis might satisfy you, but not everyone has divorced their actions from their beliefs.
I could go on - the sentence "of course, as soon as we get all third world nations are up to wage" is a goldmine as well ("we" have implemented systems that perpetuate sweatshops - it's utterly incorrect to assume that "we" can or will change them), but what's the point? Ignorance about how one's purchases can dehumanise workers may be excusable, but pride in willful ignorance is disgusting.
Vive la consumerism.
We probably would invade but......
;-)
your population is the wrong color.
(No I am not racist, but our foreign policy
seems to be)
That and IMO we pretty much control the parts of your infrastructure that matter to us. I.E. echelon.
Oh yeah and you don't have alot of natural resources we need
On the bright side, just petition to become a state and I'm sure we would do it. (Plus we'd pass out lots of cool guns!! HEH HEH)
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
No!!!! Please, anywhere but Montana, we have enough loonies up here already (myself included.).