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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.'"
MS is probably the most catchy one, but the factory produces and packages hardware for a lot more USA companies too:
KYE factory in China, which manufactures computer mice and webcams for Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Samsung, Best Buy, Foxconn, Acer, Logitech, ASUS and other US companies.
Earlier also Apple products were done by child labor at many factories.
These companies should move their factories to US or EU. But it's cheaper there and this is one of the reasons why. As long as it's cheaper, they don't care about ethics.
I believe all microsoft software is written by the exact same people. ... oh come on, they walked right into that one!
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
Seriously, given that the Chinese are pretty much balls deep in America's backside these days, does anyone care about this anymore? What Walmart-shopping, XBox360 buying American shopper is going to do anything about it? Is the American government (thanks for giving .cn the Most Favored Nation status) going to do anything about it?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I see pictures. I see many pictures. All contain images of smiling, happy workers, joyously engaging in their labor. What is problem?
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
While it sucks that working conditions like these exist, how else can we buy mice for $20?
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2782/4454969320_a34f2800c8.jpg
Photo caption
"Exhausted workers taking a break by The National Labor Committee.
These teenagers work for the KYE factory in China, which manufactures computer mice and webcams for Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Samsung, Best Buy, Foxconn, Acer, Logitech, and other US companies. The factory violates every labor law in China, with grueling, long hours at an exhausting work pace. KYE recruits hundreds of "work study students" 16 and 17 years of age, who work 15-hour shifts, six and seven days a week".
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
"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.
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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?
...I'd love to have earnt 65 cents an hour, scaled up to what the CoL is in my country, in an intense job to earn me quick money when I'm not studying. For me, working 15 hours a day is pretty standard, and I'll do it often providing (i) I enjoy the work; or (ii) it's for a limited amount of time.
I GUARANTEE you those are not MS-brand mice. They also make Louis Vitton purses and Chanel sunglasses in the same factory.
The Asians LOVE America but do not want to pay for the over-priced stuff when they can copy and make it themselves. There's a huge market over there for knock-offs. Do a Google search for Chinese fake products.
Loading...
Caption is misleading.
during work break, most workers, on most offices take a nap. what you are you going to do after you have taken snacks/meals? dance?
I find it so hard to believe that all these entities "will investigate" when these claims are made; are they so oblivious of the facts of employment in the areas in hich they choose to have their products made, or are they just downright lying scum, trying to reduce cost margins and increase sales?
Yes, call me naive, but I cannot believe the bastards when profits, share-holders and bottom-lines get in the way of ethics. We in the technology sector have such a powerful presence that we can force change and improve the lives of hundreds of millions around the planet - we should be doing that as a matter of first instance, not retro-actively.
Todd: I hope it proves as delicious as the farmers that grew them
Now I kind of feel ripped off that I paid $80 for a MS gameing mouse last year. I do however still think that MS makes the best keyboard and mice out there, their the only ones I use. I understand that they are makeing nothing compared to us here in the us, but how does thier wages compare to other factories in china, I highly doubt that anyone would be working there if it was really that bad for the area.
It's not what they're being paid, it's how it's being done. They have laws that mandate paid overtime, but it'd be suicidal to ask for it. At least in the US, you'll survive long enough to make it to court and make your case to an impartial judge.
Unlike the US, China (and many other Third World countries) make it a point to instill a certain fear in the worker's life. That's how they make the hardware so cheaply. That's also why it's not a temporary arrangement, but a permanent way of life.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
A picture doesn't tell me how many hours they've worked, or how old are them. Also, we don't know if the sleeping pics were staged. Investigation? Yes. Jumping to conclusions? No.
Take away their pay and call them 'interns'.
It would be really helpful to put this in perspective. In some parts of India, $1 will pay for cheap accommodation and food for a day. In other parts, it will just about get you a cup of tea. This works out to just under $10/day, which seems a pitiful amount compared to prices where I live, but how does it compare to prices there? Are they able to save enough to go to university after a couple of years, are they barely able to afford food, or is it somewhere in the middle?
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Every time news like this comes out, the Western companies act all shocked. OF COURSE they're working in crappy conditions for low pay - how else do they make products so cheaply?
In summary: "I'm SHOCKED to find gambling going on in this casino!!"
I clicked onto this article from my RSS feed after "window shopping" mice at ebuyer. I was even looking at a Microsoft one; looking at the prices you wouldn't think they were made in sweatshops.
Surprise people, but this is what's behind the "Made in China" sticker on all that crap you buy. Think about it next time you throw out your old cellphone, upgrade your comp, or buy an iPad. If there wasn't a demand, there wouldn't be a market.
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I'm not here to pro-Microsoft, but....
65 cents x 15 hours x 24 days (people work 6 days a week there) = US$234 ~= RMB1,614.00
The wage is much more than the average of the workers there. The starting salary of a factory worker is no more than US$100/mth, an experienced worker (>2 yrs exp) might not be able to ask for more than US$200/mth.
Also, from what I've seen in the article, the working environment is MUCH better than any other factories I've ever seen in China.
Still, I agree that the working hours are too long, but I'm sure the workers there are more than willing to work more than you'd ask for, given high-paid.
Factory workers here (UK) are paid 'just enough to live on' too.
Note that in the UK, minimum wage for people aged 16-18 is only £3.57, as opposed to £5.80 for people aged 22 or over. A lot more than $0.65, but not necessarily when you factor in the cost of living difference.
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Can we just please let this one slide and go pick on Apple?
I like my Microsoft mice and keyboards. They're actually pretty decent, don't make me hate them too.
They did currency conversion so I would assume prices would compare to US prices for goods, otherwise the currency conversion would be pointless and a useless figure, right?
Not just Microsoft but every American company that ships manufacturing jobs overseas precisely because they know that people making slave wages put more money in the pockets of stockholders, board members and the CEO. The drive towards maximization of profits is a threat to the future of corporations because it replaces planning with obsession about the "now".
Occasionally stories like this come out, and most of the "sweatshops" look very similar to this. The conditions don't look that bad. They're not working in dirty factories with dangerous equipment. They get paid what is probably a low, but livable, salary. Most of them probably come from the countryside and have no other option for work, unless they want to stay on the farm. Remember the photos from an iPhone that came with some pictures the cute factory girls took of themselves? The factory was maybe a little bit nicer, but it looked extremely similar.
Compared to us in the west, this looks bad. However, a lot of people in the west would take these jobs with no problem if the pay is adjusted to the cost of living... because the conditions are really not that bad!
It's clearly not sustainable to keep these low-paying factory/assembly jobs in China, but for now, it's working out pretty well. We can buy computer peripherals for rather low prices, and in the process pay a little bit of money to poor Chinese kids who don't have the option to keep going to school or get a better job at the moment.
With the cost of living and such over there, that may very well be like getting paid $100/day here. For someone 16-17 years old without any work experience, that isn't all that bad. Of course, I don't know the true cost of living there, but people need to stop using the exchange rates in the wrong way. If the average daily pay for an adult is $1/day but that lets someone live an average standard of living for that country, that isn't really horrible. On the flip side, if the standard of living were to go up, that would be better as well. But still, someone putting together mice and keyboards should NOT make so much that they are considered very wealthy for where they live either. I don't agree with the 15 hour work day stuff, but if the level of pay is acceptable to the people doing the work, then the only thing we can really say is that the working CONDITIONS are what we should be looking at, where there should be good airflow and it should not be too hot or cold.
Even here in the USA, some people would be happy to work for $10/hour, while for other people, they would require much more than that. Just because a wage is too low for YOU does not mean that it is too low for everyone. The cost of living is a big part of that.
...who misses the days when China was Red China, and we weren't doing business with them?
Reading the article, the main thrust of it doesn't seem to be the fact that they're using 16-year-olds, though there is a part about 14-15 year-olds as well. The problem is mostly the way the factory is being run.
The workers – mostly women aged 18 to 25 – work from 7:45 a.m. to 10:55 p.m. They eat horrid meals from the factory cafeterias. They have no bathroom breaks during their shifts, and must clean the toilets as discipline, according to the NLC.
They sleep in factory dormitories, 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28-inch-wide plywood boards. They "shower" with a sponge and a bucket. And many of the workers, because they're young women, are regularly sexually harassed, the NLC alleges.
If it's anything like the other sweatshop accusations for multinational companies (for example, Nike), they're probably making a bit more than the prevailing wage for the area. Even if the owners don't pass on the profits, they have to insure that Microsoft gets their mice on time (they probably lose considerable money, if a shipment is late or of poor quality). That means a need for a more reliable and perhaps skilled workforce and hence, a somewhat higher level of pay.
It is not only about pay: The factory violates every labor law in China,
This is not about having a job you don't like with an ugly uniform and you have to say "Do you want fries with that?" This is about exploiting people by breaking the law. And I can imagine that the Chinese law is perhaps not up to the same standards as the US law, let alone th European law.
So if you break that law it must be really, really bad.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It is still cheaper to use manual labor then robotics to manufacture products like this. I thought robotics were supposed to make products cheaper to manufacture. Ah, it may be the cost of replacement parts. ;)
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
You do a currency conversion when you travel, too. Ever been to South America? Eastern Europe? The average American can live like a king. In some places on the globe you can get a hotel room and three meals a day for less than $5. Seriously, what are you smoking? Even within the U.S. prices vary wildly. I rent in New York for $1,250. My sister pays $400 for a place of similar size in Utah. Are you suggesting that if I just do the appropriate "currency conversion," i can save $850 a month?
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
No wonder mice are the only useful thing with a Microsoft branding!
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Here's a short article about federal prison time for selling counterfeit purses and the like.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
nonsense. The working hours are long, but it's hardly a "sweatshop." It's a decent living wage in China under (judging by the photos) very reasonable conditions in comparison to alternatives.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Get over it. We decided during the Tienanmen Square debacle that China can pretty much do what they want. Stop bitching because no one, absolutely NO one is going to call China on it with any kind of success. Any "compliance" on their part would simply be a diplomatic bone tossed to the world while they continued to do business as usual.
if you adjust for GDP per capita nationally (i.e. equalize the prices of goods, services, and labor to a reductive but nominal extent), these Chinese workers are making the equivalent of about $9.00 per hour. This is not slave labor wages for a Chinese citizen. It's not investment banker territory, but there are a lot of U.S. workers that would like to make $9.00 per hour and that probably wouldn't object to working 15 hours at that rate in a clean, relatively risk-free environment.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
But how do you define a 'fair wage'?
Do I look at what other businesses are paying? Do I look at the cost of living? Is it where I have people agree to come work for me(IE mutual agreement)?
Is it still a fair wage if I pay my workers so much that I end up bankrupt/closing down because I can't compete?
You can raise a family quite well in my area for $40k/year. In other sections of the country, you would have a hard time supporting a single individual on $40k. In other countries, for $40k a year you could have almost a mansion and servents to clean it.
My house cost $15k. My parents house, which is not that much larger, cost over $150k. Makes a bit of difference.
I don't read AC A human right
65 cents * 8 hours a day = 520 U.S. cents = 35.4941537 Chinese yuan
I've been reading around that a meal will cost you around 5 yuan so it seems like they're making money like you say.
Watch the stocks go boom....
It's a good thing you didn't choose Logitech due to ethical concerns. Because according to TFA, they outsource production to the exact same company, KYE Systems.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
...and witness roughly the same treatment and disregard. Yes, it's dangerous enough as-is(even for the more saintly of mining companies), but they're quite like China.
It's in the US and shows how the pay isn't the problem. It shows that the problem is that it is a captive audience (their labor pool) with very few alternatives.
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No, they don't do a cost of living adjustment. No newspaper does. Because the lowball wages always look more impressive without adjustment. Not to mention the fact that you'd have to determine what part of the U.S. to compare to. The cost of living difference between New York or San Fran vs. living on the outskirts of a middling to large city in the Midwest is substantial.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Do we have to keep pretending to be surprised every time evidence of this sort sort of a abuse is reported or published? Isn't it a fact of life that these companies are exploiting cheap labour & couldn't care less as long as we can all have cheap crap toys for half nothing? The tech industry, the textile industry, it's all built on exploitation. There's no other way we could be getting these products at the prices we do unless the labour costs were approximately 0. On top of which, these industries & their practices are as damaging to the environment as they are to the humans involved. We are all guilty here unless we demand something be done about it & that would mean stopping our mindless consumption of cheap junk.
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Given that a small lunch in the U.S. would run you around $5 (more in large cities, but you get the idea), we could establish a cost of living conversion (as opposed to a straight currency conversion), of about $1=1 yuan. So they are making about $4.50 an hour in terms of buying power. That's below the *old* minimum wage in the U.S., and the old minimum wage in the U.S. wasn't sufficient to support yourself. Which is of course why they work 15 or 16 hour shifts 6 or 7 days a weak; they're essentially doing two jobs worth of work to get as much buying power as someone working a close to minimum wage job for 40 hours a week has in the U.S.
So no, it's not as bad as the 65 cents/hour would have you believe. But it's still exploitative.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
which decade are you taking about? you don't have a fucking clue. 1$ can barely buy you food for a day, let alone accommodation.
Well, that explains why my mouse Smells Like Teen Spirit.
Not that bad in the sense that you would work there or not that bad in the sense that you're okay with others doing the dirty work as long as you can lie to yourself and believe this is ethical?
How about this. Copy Morgan Spurlock and spend 30 days working for a sweatshop that works you 15 hour shifts six times a week and live off the $.60 an hour they give you and then tell me it's "not that bad."
I would rather be a cotton-picking slave than a factory slave-wage. At least real slaves were owned by people who had a vested interest in keeping them alive and healthy. The factories work these people until they're used up or injured and then toss them out with nothing. Yeah, that's not bad.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
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.
If the chinese are stupid and ready to work for anything, have weak laws that don't protect employees, fuck around with the workers.. why should WE care- that's China's problem, and they are crying to the WRONG people. 15 hours a day- Isn't that the way software/game development is done as well? Either accept reality or quit whining.
On your first point, I think he was trying to say that the mouse shouldn't cost $80 with labor that cheap, he probably figures there was a huge profit margin on it. Which is possible, I guess.
On 2 - I've used many brands, I personally think MS stuff is 'average to good'. You pay a bit of a premium to have a good expectation of a product that meets your standards.
3&4 - well, from my paying attention, the situations for Chinese workers are improving on average, but China will have to finish working it's way through the excess labor pool from subsidence farmers before conditions really start improving. IE workers will have to gain a bit of 'rarity'.
I don't read AC A human right
Yeah, you should buy a $40 mouse, with the difference of $20 going to the companies' profits.
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Isn't a Microsoft Mouse still just a Logitech one with a different sticker?
I don't think we can really blame or praise Microsoft either way here.
Even without having to change currency, the cost of living in the USA alone varies by nearly an order of magnitude depending on where you're at.
Currency exchange rates are what you can buy/sell currencies for. Consider that in the USA, you have to pay shipping and local wages that are higher than if the product is left in China.
You can look at the 'Big Mac' price index, but Big Macs are considered a premium food product over in China - thus it's more expensive.
Look at what you can buy the 'typical' lunch for instead. Remember to get out of the tourist areas.
I don't read AC A human right
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Take off every 'sig' for great justice.
It's a shame American kids don't have this kind of work ethic.
I'm not an expert, but I play one on slashdot.
Yes fair wage is fluid depending on the cost of living. No, that does not mean our viewpoint is only valid here. The former being the valid principle of economic relativity, and the latter the disgusting principle of absolute moral relativity, previously used to justify segregation, discrimination and slavery. Certain morals may be different, but to claim that they all are up for debate is dangerous.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
This is the result of consumers being unwilling to pay more for products. Everyone wants everything cheap which means it can't be manufactured domestically. Although, what I find really infuriating are the companies charging a huge premium for their products but still manufacturing them under these conditions, Nike, Coach and the like come to mind.
That said, a living wage is very different in China and the developing world than it is in developed nations. And I guarantee you those workers don't necessarily have a problem with the conditions. Although, admittedly they don't have much to compare it to considering most factories in China are like this. And while foreign companies are taking advantage of the low cost these kinds of conditions afford them they're not the cause. Chinese companies would be doing this regardless of whether or not they were manufacturing foreign goods. In fact, chances are good that the conditions and pay are better at companies making foreign products. Most importantly, what would be the alternative? Most of these people, especially those outside of major cities wouldn't even have a job if it weren't for these factories. Anywhere new factories open people flock to the region for work. And as factories close down and move there are big migrations of people.
I also find some of those claims made in the store misleading. They show photos of workers taking a nap implying that they're utterly exhausted and will take any chance they can to sleep. Having been in Asia I can assure you that employees at all levels routinely take naps at work, especially during the lunch break. This goes for factory and office workers. In some offices they'll even facilitate that by turning down the lights. As for claims of sexual harassment, I believe it happens, but it certainly isn't unique to factories by any stretch of the imagination.
I'm not making excuses here and it does bother me immensely the extent to which American companies have outsourced. But there are a lot of factories responsible for this. It was unquestioningly gotten more expensive to run a business in the US. There are taxes, insurance and countless other expenses. Workers keep demanding more and more. Consumers are unwilling to pay more for products.
And too many American companies haven't responded properly to the changing economy. They continue trying to compete on price which is a guaranteed road to failure because someone else can always do it more cheaply. They ruin their reputations with crap products. The nations currently manufacturing those goods are ambitious and will eventually use the expertise they've gained to make their own products. Hell, they're even outsourcing R&D nowadays. Unfortunately, it seems to be a race to the bottom. But again, ultimately, it's just as much the fault of consumers and the government as it is of the corporations.
65 cents * 8 hours a day =
Only 8 hrs? You didn't even RTFS.
As above, $10/day can go a long way in some parts of China, but don't try it in Shanghai.
If you are working 15 hrs/ day, you don't have any time to spend it anyway.
Anyway, the problem is not wages, it is working hours and conditions. The laws are enough, but not enforced.
Did anyone notice the wierd shape of the lane on that basketball court? It's a trapezoid.
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Depends where you are. The $1 figure I was given by a friend who did a project working in rural India three years ago. $1/day was more than the income of most of the people he was working with, but they grew a lot of their own food. In a big city, it would certainly buy you much less.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I don't know specifically about China (but given the socialist background, I could imagine the labour laws there might surprise some Americans), but many developing countries do in theory have just as high standards in their Labour laws as Western countries, the real problem is enforcement, and the fact that corruption favours rich corporations over poor individuals.
"15-hour shifts, six and seven days a week, for around 65 cents per hour"
That's about 4.6 Yuan per hour. Accord to wikianswers, that means you'd have to work about two hours to afford 1 quart of milk. WA also mentions the cost of bread being around $2.50, which - assuming somebody didn't use a $ to mean Yuan - is about 17 Yuan... over 2 days work?
I'm sure this varies somewhat by region, and rice is likely more common than bread, but if anyone from China could perhaps confirm a base price?
So how fair does that seem so far?
If people are working 15h days constantly, and napping at work, that's probably because they need to do so to get by or try to get ahead in life. IMHO, at a fair wage they should hopefully be able to work 8-10h days, and/or have 1-2 days off instead of 0-1.
I wonder how hard it would be to visit some of these factories (and where exactly they are). If I had the opportunity I'd love to drop in and share a little wealth with the workers. A few thousand bucks CAD or USD would probably go a decent distance.
"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."
Microsoft decided to increase the work shift to 20 hour days, and lower the pay to 45 cents per hour, they said they appreciated the National Labor Committee's, bringing this to their attention and apologized for the gross oversight.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
You arent skeptical of the "every labor law" claim?
Really? You arent at all skeptical?
"His name was James Damore."
On the other hand, if you want to talk about exploitative, the US is borrowing money to finance its extravagant lifestyle that will have to be paid back by people yet unborn.
At least it's clean, everyone got uniform, even a cap. Mechanical transportation belt. I think it might even be air conditioned.
0.65 (wage/hr) * 16 (hrs) * 26 (days) translates to CNY 2000 a month.
As a matter of fact - the average undergraduate student earns only CNY 4000 in Shanghai. (Granted - ones from top tier college could earn more)
And if you stay in the village, maybe you just earn CNY 2000 a YEAR! Still you need to work 16 hours a day. (Unlike US where China does not have agricultural subsidiary I guess)
I would say, electronics assembling is quite a decent job - compare to farming!
That sounds like a rational argument based in fundamental economic principles.
But here's where that argument breaks down.
There is no labor market.
The goods can cross borders. The laborers are stuck where they are. Why else do you think those teenagers are "willing" to "choose" this life?
To make it crystal clear: it is only because men with guns will stop them from making most of the choices they would prefer.
Imagine if those children had the same freedom to come to the US or EU that their plastic products do, instead of being essentially imprisoned. There would be massive labor shortages in areas with oppressive regimes and backwards social and economic policies.
This is the genius of the "free trade" meme. It is no more "free" than Fox News is "fair and balanced." Manufacturers can shop the laws of the world for the most oppressive governments and the worst labor conditions imaginable. Of course they must do this, to lower their costs and be competitive. You cannot even blame Microsoft or HP for this - they are only doing what they must, based on the particular rules we have in place.
So, the governments of the world compete in a race to the bottom. Their laborers are kept safely under control by national borders, immigration policy, and ultimately, xenophobia.
I don't know why we have a nostalgic love of 19th century neo-feudal manufacturing economies - they were terrible for everyone, even the rich. But apparently that's the new hotness.
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Chinese Worker .60 hr
US worker 17.00 hr + massive govt regulations covering insurance, fines, benefits etc
The future looks pretty darn clear to me, if you reside in the US and are in the manufacturing sector you had better start looking for a new job fast.
I worked in a small city in China last year (Shaoxing - a leading textile manufacturing area south of Shanghai)
Exchange rate with USD is 6.8 at the moment.
So 0.65USD x 6.8 x 9hr/day = about ¥40 a day. Times 6 days a week is about ¥950 per month, which is typical.
Typical income for a local office worker is ¥1500 to ¥2000 per month, ¥800-1200 for a migrant or factory worker.
Compare that to a relative of mine who owns an export business in the city, he makes around $20000 per month (USD and 4 zeros) after deducting office wages, expenses, and bribes -- which are partially offset by the 13% tax return he gets as subsidy for his branch of export.
He's still a small player compared to the larger business owners in the city.
Some numbers on the cost of living (relevant as of february of this year):
Average apartment (the minimum quality that a city local would tolerate) - ¥1000
Shitty apartment (the min quality that a migrant worker would tolerate - bare concrete, at least 5 to a bathroom)- ¥500
Domestic rice - ¥4/kg bulk
Imported oatmeal - a little under ¥30/kg packaged
Domestic oatmeal - under ¥20/kg packaged
Cabbage - ¥1.5 per half kilo (1.1lbs)
Bokchoy - ¥3 per half kilo
Tomatoes - ¥3.5 per half kilo
Eggs - ¥3.5 per half kilo
Pork - ¥6 to ¥18 per half kilo depending on cut
KFC (the most popular fast food) - ¥6 per piece of fried chicken, ¥15 for sandwich combo meal with small drink and fries
Chinese-style fast food meal (cafeteria style food that office people get during lunch) - ¥12 for a hygienic place (maybe pass inspection if in the USA), ¥6 for a place that at least wipes the tables, ¥1.50 for rice and cabbage.
You typically have to buy your own health insurance, and even then a hospital checkup would cost ¥40 to ¥100.
City buses are ¥1, or ¥0.8 if you buy a pass.
Cheap cell phone plan is about ¥100/month
As ratios of monthly income, it's apparent that comfortable wages for the average citizen have a long way to go.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Of course it's a useless figure. It's useless for many different reasons. First, when it comes to them purchasing services they are not paying Americans but their own kinsmen whom also work for a fraction of an American wage. When they purchase rent, food, or in general any domestically produced commodity intended for the local market they are purchasing it at prices in balance with the household budget of their average citizen not America's.
The comparisons are as equally ridiculous as comparing the price of American goods and services today with those of 10, 20, 50, 100 years ago. In the 1920's using your average annual salary of $1236 you could get a car for $300 but can you really compare it to a car of today? Likewise with that $1236 salary you could purchase a four room house in Wisconsin for $3000 or rent a two bedroom flat in New York for $40/month but would they even remotely compare to a modern one? Recall that the Rural electrification act wasn't going to happen for another 16 years.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
While it's nothing to write home about, these factories also provide room and board which should be factored into the compensation they are receiving.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
So, they work 15hr days, 6-7 days a week? And they're 16? And they're students?
So what, school is only about 4 hours or so, leaving them 4 hours to sleep, eat, etc? Or is the suggestion that this is school for them?
For anyone truly interested in the behind the scene workings and higher level motivations for companies to do these sorts of things I highly encourage reading John Perkins second book "The Secret History of the American Empire", and maybe even his first book "Economic Hit Men". It really does a good job explaining this and how often even in places that are technically following the laws, they often use so many legal loopholes that it still amounts to slave labor, doing things like subtracting uniform costs or even everyday business costs from the laborers paychecks. To put it mildly, many of our beloved US companies (and other major allies) are raping and pillaging third world countries in every legal way they can figure out.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
I do agree child labor is a bad thing, especially when the working condition/pay is abusive, however I'm wondering what is the solution to this? Usually what happen is the public learns Microsoft/Wall-Mart/Nike/etc. is selling goods that have at some point been manufactured by children. The company will apologize, say it did not knew and promise it won't happen again and either change their sub-contractor or ensure no child work for them anymore. How does that help the children? They had a job where they were earning some money, probably not a lot, but still. I suppose this money was not used to pay luxury items, but to support their family in buying necessary goods like food/cloth/rent. Now, since working children is unacceptable in our westerns societies, they lost that job. And we're like : "Look we made theses kids life so much better now." I don't see how that makes their life better. That being said, what would be a good and plausible (read economically feasible) solution to the problem of child labor? (Sorry for my english, I know it's bad)
Mathieu Pagé
15 year olds are not children.
I thought we were capitalists... Fuck human rights...
Put every child to work... who gives a fuck. There is massive profits to be made using slave labor.
BTW that was the motto of every American / Multi National Corporation the past 20 years.
Enjoy our shit economy in the US with high health insurance rates, no jobs.... and most of all, your overpriced microsoft / Logitech mice.
The wealthy elite always wanted Slavery...
Unless and until we make slave ownership by proxy just as illegal as direct ownership, you are correct. The same unethical corporations that happily benefit from near slave labor will create a dizzying mesh of ownership and under the table deals to sell you a supposed "fair-labor mouse" made by the very same slaves but costing $40 instead of $20. There may be honest companies actually making $40 mice with fair labor, but they will be drowned in the noise and killed off by other unfair business practices.
That's why it's well past time for governments to clamp down on the lying unethical weasels. That should start with actual enforcement of much stronger truth in advertising laws.
From one of pictures in the article:
"These teenagers work for the KYE factory in China, which manufactures computer mice and webcams for Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Samsung, Best Buy, Foxconn, Acer, Logitech, and other US companies"
This proves what I keep saying. Now a days there is no difference, with brand you are buying. It's made by the same people (under pay kids in this case).
Same sloppy lavor and quality standards.
Sad..
BSD licensed software can't be stolen....
I'd think the sexual harassment, the "horrid" meals from the cafeterias (no offsite lunch or bring your own food option), the requirement that they buy their own mattresses and bedding, and the lack of bathroom breaks during 12+ hour shifts might counteract the marginal benefit derived from "free" access to cramped dormitories.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Why is it that these companies profit wildly from the oppressive work from these sweatshops, then when they are caught red-handed profiting act all shocked and claim they're going to look into it? Greed. They've known all along. If not, then they truly are as stupid as a rock and blind as a marble.
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".
wouldn't it be less embarrassing if companies just gave it a check to all their chinese sweatshops when these kind of news appear? They could at least make sure that secrecy isn't compromised.
To be fair, most of the borrowing isn't even financing *our* extravagant lifestyle. We've got a trade deficit of about $750 billion (which is made far worse by China's currency policies, which, not coincidentally, are also providing us with a customer for our debt). With outsourcing, some of that trade deficit is coming back to the U.S. through the corporations engaging in outsourcing; the products produced by U.S. corporations overseas and sold to buyers in other countries don't show on the trade deficit balance sheets, but we're taking a cut of every sale from a Chinese subsidiary to a Parisian shopper. Resolving the China currency issue would not eliminate the deficit, but the effects of the outsourced labor would resolve it for all intents and purposes.
That's all our "extravagant lifestyle" accounts for. Much of the rest is spending on projects that don't directly improve our lifestyle. Our two wars cost $100 billion a year. The cost of maintaining our other overseas bases (effectively removing the burden of defense from the host country) is another cost we pay that doesn't directly benefit us. We're overpaying for health care because we're one of the only countries that doesn't impose cost controls on drugs and medical devices; because of that, we effectively subsidize every other country's health care by massively overpaying for our own. Again, we pay the cost, other countries derive the benefit.
And of course, you're conflating government debt with private debt. As noted, government debt is largely not a product of lifestyle, private debt is. Private debt isn't hereditary, so the unborn aren't responsible. If you believe the foreign expenditures run up by the U.S. government produce worthwhile long term results (arguable, but hear me out), then the unborn are paying for benefits they receive. If you disagree, then yes, it's a waste, but it still has nothing to do with extravagant lifestyles.
That said, U.S. lifestyles are extravagant relatively speaking, and the negative externalities (pollution, cultural "imperialism", for lack of a less inflammatory word) are hard to justify. The solution to the government debt and the extravagant lifestyles could easily be the same thing. Raise the federal gas tax (at least $1 a gallon). Raise the income tax rate at the highest brackets, or create new brackets that target those who are benefiting obscenely from the government's support (e.g. 50% of income over 5 million, 60% over 10 million, 70% over 25 million, 80% over 50 million). A hedge fund manager pulled down over four billion last year (yes, billion with a 'B'). And being primarily capital gains taxes, he likely paid about 15-20% in taxes. If we taxed that to compensate for the fact that that income was only possible due to government aid, then we'd have an extra 2 billion or so in the bank. The top 25 hedge fund managers earned an *average* of a billion dollars a piece, so from 25 people who directly profited from the government bank bailouts, we'd recover 15 billion more than we actually did. Add a moderate VAT (10%) on all goods sold. It's win-win; either the extravagant lifestyles become less extravagant, or the government gets funding to pay down its own debt. People on the low and middle end of the spectrum pay a little more, people at the high end, who benefit the most from government support (after all, even for those who didn't directly benefit from a government bailout, but earn in the multi-million range are earning enough that a society without law and order would lead to them being robbed by small armies at gunpoint).
Tax rates like these aren't growth killers; we had worse under Eisenhower (90-91% on income over $400,000) and the 50s were boom years. And they'd easily enable us to eliminate the federal deficit (and indirectly reduce the trade deficit, since the VAT would reduce spending on frivolous purchases). Hell, if we replaced the existing health care system with a system like Britain's NHS, the reduced cost of health care in the aggregate would free up money to compensate
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I know it's popular to bash Microsoft on Slashdot, but why don't we just title this "The Walmart Effect: American products made in Chinese sweatshops because Americans have become too damn cheap to pay for quality products produced by skilled labor under good working conditions."
In a poor country not having a job/money is a death sentence (unless you have family members to take care of you). Family is much more important as they are your safety net. There is no welfare. There is no social security. There are no homeless shelters. There is just starvation and death.
His claim holds even if they're "only" breaking a few, or one. They're still exploiting people by breaking the law. So, your try at skepticism is nitpicking.
Virg
So fuck honesty? Lets dramatize everything with exaggerations? Think of the children that your line of thinking will hurt.
"His name was James Damore."
I am typing this on a made in america IBM type M made in 1990. I bet it outlives the mice being made in that factory.
I am not saying china always produces crap, but anyone working 15 hour days produces crap.
Sir I take that GUARANTEE and want my money back. MS simply buys mice from China and gets their brand put on it. In the best case scenario they get their own designs made there (I'd put good money on MS just buying a third party design, maybe USian, maybe Japanese, might even be Chinese). Now That factory would produce non branded mice as well, probably of the same design (regaurdless of ownership). Now I will explain the grey market to you. I could, if I were certifiably retarded have bought a "US only" Iphone 2G in Bangkok in October of 2007 at the MBK building, they were everywhere (they wanted 45,000 Baht for them, over A$1,500). How? Well you see when You order 10,000 Icraps from a Chinese factory, the factory makes 11,000 Icraps, fulfils your order for 10,000 Icraps and sells the rest on the open market for fun and profit. These go to markets in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok and even as far as the Middle East.
These are essentially not copies, rather they are the real thing not made under license. Same design, same internal components, same casing, even the same box and manual. This is the grey market, called grey because it isn't illegal (black) and it isn't quite legit (white). This market is permitted in most of Asia. The same thing would be happening with MS mice, I have no doubt at a market in HK I could get a "Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse" without an MS logo.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
to complain about sweatshops, but to the people working in them it's a difference between life and death. No, i'm not saying it's right, but i didn't invent the current economic system either. Blame jp morgan and edison and the old world bankers for that. If you want to close the sweatshops, what alternatives would you propose ? Forcing companies to open up factories in europe and america where they can have the same work done for ten times the cost maybe ? As if that's gonna happen. Get your heads out of your wouldbe-shouldbe asses and get real. Supply and demand is a law almost as unbreakable as gravity. If you can't fix it at that level, don't waste your energy
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
"15-hour shifts, six and seven days a week, for around 65 cents per hour. Microsoft said it" ... would follow all "the rules and laws in China." They're not like those the-new-generation, idealistic, principled hippies in Mountain View.
I wasn't the one dramatizing "everything" with exaggerations. That was the National Labor Committee, as quoted by houghi, and now you. I said that his claim that they're exploiting workers by breaking the law is valid even without his exaggeration, and therefore your calling out was nitpicking.
Virg
Sure, if it gets ultra bad wherever they are at some time, even with their tame armed lackey protectors, official badged or private, they go to their other mansion in nation x,y or z. They are internationalists, not particularly loyal to any nation or people, they just don't care, psychopathic. Other humans to them are *prey animals", they go to where the human hunting and exploitation is the easiest, and they have the most "legal" protection, as in, the local warlord/governmental goofball/some authority figure is in their pocket, etc. And that's what helos and business jets are for, just in case they need to flee someplace else. "Laws" mostly apply to serfs and slaves after all.
Don't know if you'll read this but oh well...
I wasn't conflating public and private debt, the "Extravagant lifestyle" was a reference to those wars, foreign bases and all sorts of other junk the government pays for which it shouldn't be. We can't afford a government this big and that's the extravagant part of it.
I wouldn't look to the UK either. The pound has dropped 25% against the dollar over the past couple of years and that's even with the dollar having some nasty problems itself.