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High Tech Misery In China
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."
we have to pay for coffee!
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
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Foreign companies that utilize this type of thing should be hit with heavy penalties. This would also encourage them to check working conditions before signing a contract with a manufacturer.
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?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
And "free traders" say we should just "buck up and compete with" slaves. We are slipping backward into the early 1900's. Factory jobs used to pay better than the sales-clerk jobs that are replacing them, but they won't if your competitor is allowed slave labor.
Table-ized A.I.
What we are seeing here, my friends, is capitalism gone wild.
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.
Okay, so here's the thing.. The rest of the world needs to refuse to do any sort of business with China until business practices are brought in line with at least a minimal respect for human life. It would help Chinese workers because they wouldn't have to endure this kind of shit, and it would help the developed world because our factories wouldn't have to try to compete with stuff produced in this way.
It cost you $2.99. What the heck do you think?
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
They don't automate because it's cheaper to pay someone 41 cents an hour than it is to buy the machine.
I think I'm safe, the IBM keyboard I'm typing this on was made in Thailand.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
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.
Capitalism can only work because it thrives on and creates the poor.
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?
Watch those corners
...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 up.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I read a story that quoted a farm automation expert who said it's probably possible to automate many more fruit-picking activities. However, there's no incentive to invest in such technology if the labor rates are low enough.
This is one of the reasons why the Roman empire didn't spark the industrial revolution: slaves were readily available from conquered lands.
Table-ized A.I.
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.
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.
OK, so we've accounted for not more that .2 percent of the cost of a keyboard. Realistically this is much less because I've seen very few $10 keyboards.
Maybe we should also ask, where does the rest of the money go? I can't think of the last time I paid less than $1 for a keyboard. Even retail apparel margins aren't that good, perhaps some tech executives need to take a look at their cost structures...
Blaming this on the Chinese while still exploiting things is bullshit.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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)
-- the cake is a lie
... We no longer expected a free keyboard with our new PCs? The companies on the list are all major PC manufacturers, so a large number of those keyboards are probably the cheap ones that are provided with new computers. But do we really need a new keyboard with every new PC?
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.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Middlemen add costs. In a supply chain this aggressive, no costs are added without a good reason. What do you suppose the justification for these middlemen is?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
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%
Just letting you know, this is what we're competing with. This is what happened when we let the corporations go overseas after we 'freed trade'. They went to nations that don't have standards, filled with people that don't have standards, who slave away in factories run by people that don't have standards. When you let homegrown companies fly the coop for South American, Eastern European, African, or Asian nations, they're doing it for the starving, squalid, and perpetually eager slave laborers.
If you compete with the third world, be prepared to live in it. America and the rest of the West didn't get to where it is by being 'efficient', we got here by having standards. Westerners demand a certain quality of life that the less civilized people of the world are too timid to so much as ask for, much less fight for. They could learn a lot from us. Some of them already have. The rest will have to continue suffering until they begin demanding more. Until then, exploitative corporations will be all too willing to use them as cheap, disposable industrial machinery to keep the cogs of their uncivilized sub-nations whirling. (And to keep funneling away the surplus wealth of the civilized, Westernized world into the pockets of greedy transnational businessmen!)
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.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
"More than 10 million migrant workers lost their jobs in the third quarter of 2008, after falling demand overseas forced the closure of around 670,000 factories, especially in the coastal regions, the ministry said in an earlier report."
Even if you're not union, it motivates business to keep conditions that are far from slave labor.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
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?
Digital Citizen
"Reform happened because it became economically feasible, thanks to capital investment that increased the productivity of labor."
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.
Well said Sir, I do agree with your statement on good regulation, that does seem to be the issue.
Ironically it was a conservative (Right wing) treasurer that reregulated our banks, and did so very well, protecting them from the excesses that ruined the US banks.
I cannot relate the regulations/deregulation that are used in the US, only see the results of them, and compare that with the end result of reregulation in Aust.
I understand the reasoning that went into the Fannie/Freddy thing originally (To help the disadvantaged buy their own home), but it seems the execution was poor.
When faced with the same concept we gave first homebuyers a subsidy to assist them in buying their first home. This has worked quite well for us.
Of course in "stuff you I'm alright" attitude that pervades postings here, you would all jump up and down and complain about contributing to the welfare of your poorer fellows. I am always stunned by the selfishness shown by financially comfortable Americans towards the poor ones.
Thats why you have such a violent society, you can have less crime, in direct proportion to the ammount of welfare you pay the poor.
If you want an example, see the ongoing disaster that is Health care in the US, where dying people are discharged from hospital because thay cant pay their bills, and insurance accountants get to decide what treatment you get!
Social justice works in a lot of countries, as does wealth redistribution, nothing fanciful about it. Have you noticed yet that in your country the trickle down theory does not work, all that happens is the rich get richer.
Well, I have seen quite lot of these "concerns", and the short answer is "Yes".
There are labor workers working like slaves in China, as described in the article. And the number of these workers and companies are huge. It is bad. I agree on that.
Don't look at China using the US eye please:
From our (Chinese's) perspective to see it, the positive side is not only "they are hiring", it means more for China. Those labor workers are mainly from the very poor village (farms), very few of them are from the cities. In China, the population from the poor village is still high, much higher than you can imagine (maybe 30% of all 1.4B). They can't earn a living if just working in the farm, they can't raise their kids or support their parents if just working in the farm. Those companies provide them the job, though with very touch condition.
Let me do the math for you:
41 cents per hour means 0.41x12x6x4 = 118 $ = 826 RMB / month. this is the net pay (take-home pay after tax, insurance,..). (this example is a bit low. More often I heard is about over 1000RMB / month.) anyway, you know the value of that in China? It means 800 $ in the US. With that, you can not have a perfect life, you can not afford a car, but you definitely can live (even in big city like Beijing). Furthermore, if they bring the money back to their village, the value is much much more (in some village, 10 US cents is good for a one day expense. i am serious. It is China, don't look at China using the US eye please.) . So this is related to the currency value. 41 cents/hour looks very very low in US. but remember, it's different in China, Its value is more in China, and much much more in the poor village.
Some idiot:
I really don't like that some western "journlist" ignores the big currency conversion (1$=7RMB) when they are talking about this bad companies and 41 cnets/hour. While, on the other hand, they look so closely on the conversion rate, complain the conversion rate is too high and should be 1$=2RMB. This is idiot to me. they don't really know about China, they just want to make anything in China negative.
Reality:
From my once a year trip back to China, I can see clearly the life of the peasants from those villages is improving a lot year by year. The main main reason is not China cuting tax for them, is not China running a stimulas package for them. The reason is they, by themsleves, go the city to work in those "IT" compaines. They should (i agree) earn more and the pay that they deserve is much less. But this is the start, they have started to earn much more money. They have started imporving their life a lot. Those companies are bad, but they are providing oppoturnities.
Talking about China development:
I am not saying those companies are doing the good thing. They are in guilty. China is still in the middle of development, not everything is perfect, especially we are lacking a lot of rules and laws. There are bad companies taking this as an advantage and making huge dirty profit from the poor labor worker. but from my perspective, it is a step of the development. We can not make all the companies to be good ones. There are bad ones existing. But those bad companies are also helping China and helping those poor people to improve their lives, although the companies should improve their lives much better (by providing better pay to them). I believe China is working very hard on making the regulation better to make the poor labor workers earn more and more, and make the whole system more healthy.
Anyway, this is just from my (a native Chinese's) perspective. You (western people) may not understand it, but i want you know what I think.
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...