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Microsoft Mice Made in Chinese Youth Sweatshops?
An anonymous reader writes "The National Labor Committee offers an in-depth look into working conditions in Chinese sweatshops producing hardware (mice, etc.) for Microsoft, complete with pictures. Apparently, so called 'work study students,' 16 and 17 years of age, work 15-hour shifts, six and seven days a week, for around 65 cents per hour. Microsoft said it is taking the claims seriously and has 'commenced an investigation.'"
Companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Foxconn, Acer, Logitech and Asus also outsource production to KYE Systems.
And it looks like that's just a sample list, not the complete set. The focus on Microsoft is because the article was in a Seattle newspaper, not due to sole complicity by Microsoft.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Consume less. Buy second hand, upgrade only when you need to, don't buy iToys, enjoy the fresh air, etc.
The American govt doesn't have to do anything. You, OTOH, can.
While it sucks that working conditions like these exist, how else can we buy mice for $20?
"The National Labor Committee offers an in-depth look into working conditions in Chinese sweatshops producing hardware (mice, etc.) for Microsoft, complete with pictures. Apparently, so called 'work study students,' 16 and 17 years of age, work 15-hour shifts, six and seven days a week
It's simply not profitable to have people who aren't afraid of their job and/or their life. Third World countries deliver both fears handily.
Microsoft said it is taking the claims seriously and has 'commenced an investigation.'"
Said investigation will be focused on how they can prevent such things from coming to light in the future. People will be bribed, families will go in/out of favor, etc. No real change will be made outside of moving it to another equally bad of a country/location.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
In my opinion saying they "only" make 66 cent an hour means nothing without a reference. How much can you buy with 66 cent in China?
Take away their pay and call them 'interns'.
The opposite is also true, our consumerist society cares most about cost which is what drives these companies to move to places like China.
Ethical is paying a fair wage to your employees, and budgeting so that your suppliers can do the same.
Given that the factory in question is in blatant violation of existing Chinese labor laws, the suggestion that it be smacked down is hardly couchbound western cultural imperialism...
If our politicians were more beholden to voters and workers and less beholden to multinational corporations, we'd have tarriffs protecting American workers from competing with sweatshops.
1930 called. They want their protectionist economic theory back.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
And in the meantime enjoy a shittier quality of life while making no appreciable difference in the situation.
There are a few inconvenient truths in the world:
1. Nothing you do yourself is going to affect the world large scale. You can convince others of your ideals and act as a group, but in that case your words' affect on others, not your own actions, made any change.
2. People typically act in their own self interest, and they benefit for it.
3. A large group of individuals acting in their own interests will often not enact a course of actions which are in the best interests in the group as a whole. Prime example here can be seen with a large crowd in a theater. If someone yells fire (and there actually is one), then it's in my own best interest the book it. The faster I get out of that situation the better. When every individual acts in this manner though, people can be trampled to death. The overall death toll will be higher, but the odds on survival rest on those who run, not those who calmly exit. Indeed those who walk out (the best for the group if everyone did it) are the most likely to be trampled. You can TRY to take the high road and walk, but the reality is once the crowd is running you're not stopping them, and you're only hurting yourself by not running along with them.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
And this 'fair wage' is rooted where it matters. It's not fair here, no. It _might_ be fair over there (I don't know) - but comparisons using our standard and cost of living is invalid either way.
I'm not saying the current situation is right. I'm saying that the idea of a 'fair wage' is fluid, and our viewpoint is only valid here.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
No, son. Our corporations care more about profits which is what drives these companies to move to places like China.
Surprisingly, you can find companies succeeding at all sorts of industries that we have been told have "moved out of the US" such as textiles, clothing, shoes, even electronics. For the transnationals that are owned by people who have nothing to do with the business itself, succeeding and making a profit is not enough. Employing people is not enough. Getting rich is not enough. Your not "winning" unless your constantly growing, and then growing faster. The drive to show quarterly increases in profit have driven this "dive to the bottom" that is resulting in kids in China working 12-hour shifts to make your WalMart trash.
Honestly, every Walmart could close tomorrow and people's lives would go on as before. Stores would open and sell stuff. People would make stuff. Life would go on. But predatory capitalism, where Capital precedes Labor instead of the other way around, is going to make things a lot worse for a lot of people. The best part, is they can sell it as "making life better".
You are welcome on my lawn.
Well, Apple gets away with charging an absurd markup for basically no reason, you would think they could get away with ensuring good wages for all their suppliers employees.
You are may be correct in stating that they choose to work in those conditions. And although the conditions may be abhorrent to a citizen of a developed western country it may be the norm in China.
That doesn't mean I am comfortable with supporting those practices.
When people go off about 'what the market will bear' they seem to only factor in the financial cost of producing an individual widget and not the cost of Goodwill, Public Perception etc. that also factors in.
Look at the apartheid boycott's. Damage to companies based on their labor practices was very real and help bring about social change within a country. Even though the practice was the norm in the region.
Given that the factory in question is in blatant violation of existing Chinese labor laws
Is it? I'm sure the well-bribed, local officials would say otherwise. And their word is really how it is determined whether law is broken or not. That's how it goes in a nation of men not of laws.
In China (and everywhere else I believe), it is not illegal on its own to arrange 15-hour shifts. However, this can be carried out only in the presence of the employees' consent, and the "extra hours" (ones beyond the usual 8 hr) must be paid with extra wages (at least 2x on weekdays and 3x on holidays).
I can tell you that those girls and boys are more than willing to work the extra hours, but they're usually poorly educated and don't know their rights.
Also, in China it's not illegal to employ a 16- or 17-yr old if it can be proved that it is absolutely necessary for supporting the employee's family, AND the job does not involve risky operations e.g. ones w/ toxic matter, radiation, or working high above the ground.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
That wasn't true two generations ago, and I remember it clearly, as do a lot of other folks on this board who are early boomers or older. The USA made just about everything people here bought, and they bought everything that was made, and the currency shifted around internally a lot more than it does now, acting as an economic force multiplier inside our own 50 state/nation "free trade common market", and not near as much went to imports from outside of those 50 states. And we had a robust middle class that actually owned things, instead of being in debt for everything beyond the ability to pay, and you only needed one normal blue collar level income to support a family, etc. We had ten year house notes, 12 month car loans, and medical insurance was way cheap.
Now what has changed is Cxx salaries went from around 10-40 times what a line worker made, to now..who knows, thousands? What does Balmer or any of these other transnational CEOs-and all their legions of sub bosses- make compared to the wage of these Chinese factory line workers? I'm not going to bother to look it up, but I bet it is more than 40 times, a LOT more. We also didn't have near as much wall street mass wealth skimming going on, and the propaganda shilling to engage in global wage arbitrage or "globalism" hadn't started yet (much).
As to people here not wanting to do the work, any time a factory announces hiring they have thousands of applications for hundreds of jobs generally speaking. As to ag work and construction etc "no one wants to do it so they have to import workers", another fairy tale. And I know I have read here *many* times that in white collar IT work they game the system to get insourced cheaper labor as well, come up with background credentials needed that are physically impossible for anyone to have achieved, then use that as "proof" they need more H1Bs and so on. Musta read hundreds of those anecdotals here over the years now.
These fatcats goal is to break the back of the middle class, to steal their wealth, full stop, so they can have their global two class society, especially in the US where the middle class got so big and strong. They are feudalists at heart. Between outsourcing and insourcing, they are succeeding. If their schemes worked for the nation as a whole, like those liars claim, then we wouldn't have an economic "crisis" like is going on. That proves their lies completely.
Last year, because of their corruption and takeover of government, they granted over a million green cards (that's just the legal insourcing, who knows how many million more off the books insourced people showed up to keep driving wages down), right in the middle of a mass unemployment situation with a lowballed 10% unemployment rate, and if you add in real part time workers and people finally off unemployment insurance, it is 17%, which is in the middle of "great depression" era numbers.
Outsourcing and insourcing, the double whammy plan to marginalize and destroy the middle class here so they can have their globalist master/serf society, with one percent owning everything eventually. That's what is going on.
note that these people are in the age range where in most of the western world you have some but not all of the rights and responsibilities of an adult.
According to http://www.dol.gov/compliance/guide/childlbr.htm "Minors age 16 and 17 may perform any job not declared hazardous by the Secretary, and are not subject to restrictions on hours ". So these people are old enough that if they were US citizens they could work in the US. In the UK things are similar but slightly more complex (mainly that things are defined in terms of school years rather than actual age).
I'm not saying there aren't problems here but it's not exactly "child labour" in the conventional sense of the term.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
A 15 hour day is evidence of a non-fair wage.
We are essentially using them as slaves or batteries.
They have no time to live as humans.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Labor costs are about 15%.
So for your $10 mouse, giving them decent 10 hour days would cost you about an extra 50 cents.
Hmmm. 50 cents extra for a mouse, or work children like slaves.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
To your point that just because $x is not enough to live on in one place doesn't mean that it's not enough anywhere - I agree. However, given the rest of the information about conditions, it's an easy conclusion to draw that the wage is, in fact, not 'fair'. Economic relativity should not be used to justify moral relativism.
As a consumer of Chinese (and other developing nations') labor, it is on my conscience whether I support these practices by spending my fair wages on stuff assembled by people who get treated like livestock. I had no idea that it was cheaper to employ a person to stick the feet on a mouse than to have a machine do it. If the overall treatment (including wages) of employees was fair, would an automated assembly line be more cost effective?
Take off every 'sig' for great justice.
Nothing you do yourself is going to affect the world large scale.
Shouldn't this be followed with, "So you might as well kill yourself now"?
Recall the story of the boy who threw stranded animals from the sand into the sea. "You'll never save them all!" shouts the old cynic. "No, but I saved this one," he replies.
Also, people are better in the long run at following by example than following the words of hypocrites. This works starting with the most basic family unit, the family.
How is this different from pretty much everything else manufactured in Southeast Asia? Everything you buy that is made in China is made by people who are treated a little better than slaves. The companies provide rooms at the factories for their employees, with 6 people per room, communal bathroom, and no kitchen facilities. The employees are charged rent for the rooms, even if they don't stay in the rooms.
Remember this the next time you are at Walmart, buying crap that has been made in China. It is cheap because the people who made it are being exploited.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
It's not tinfoil hat, it is observing human nature. Once you have fatcats that are already mutil millionaires/billionaires, and they can easily buy anything they want, multiples, there's only one lust left, and that is dominance over other humans, a feudalistic outlook. That's what they want, that's how they live now, their policies support it, and it isn't accidental at all.
And it shows in the article, only evil people who want that sort of power treat employees that way, and the same mindset goes upstream from there. And at the tippy top, there you have people who regard endless wars as just profits central. If there is no legitimate war, by golly they will manufacture one, and they don't care a whit about bloodshed and pain and suffering. How evile can you get before it is acknowledged that it is in fact evil? How is that not a plan when they go way out of their way to do such things?
And that why all these fatcats love china and are building it up, while they try to destroy the US with our unique background of the sovereign individual with the government being subservient. They hate that, they like the older ways better with aristocrats in charge of everything and owning everything. The US middle class that got built up by the 60s was the antithesis to that, so it had to go, so they started making it go away. China is their posterboy dream society and nation, 1% corrupt controllers, and everyone else as serfs, and if you have enough money, you can do anything you want. Anything. Ya, once in awhile they might pop some minor fatcat, who possibly embarrassed them or didn't pay enough bribes upstream, etc...like in ancient times the Romans would chuck some fatcat to the lions for sport. They are evil, that's their nature. You don't get to the "top" like that without being psychopathic in some way.
Feudalism and the aristocracy never went away, they just changed clothing and titles around a little and come up with phony "elections", but it's the same old crap, just with new shiny tech around it. That's why I have been calling this trend to this sort of world and society as "technofeudalism".