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Photos of Chinese Sweatshop Used By Microsoft
MongooseCN has a follow-up to last week's Chinese Sweatshop story. He says "The image Microsoft doesn't want you to see: Too tired to stay awake. These Chinese workers earn just 34p an hour (about 52 cents in US dollars), work 15-hour shifts, and deal with other abuses to package US-made products."
Welcome to Earth.
The repost you don't want to read.
Don't forget this stuff has happened in every country that has been through an industrial revolution. Thankfully, China is going through theirs in 25 years, when it took us/Great Britain much longer.
But that doesn't change the fact that we should fight against this. Walmart could lead the way, considering the massive volume they require, to manufacturing shop reform.
In China, it is common in many places to take a 30-45 minute nap after lunch, just sitting at your desk/workspace. While I cannot say that this is the case in this picture, it may not be as sinister as you would think at first glance. If there are 6 or 8 people sleeping and there isn't a manager with a cattle prod or whip in the background waking them up so they can get back to working, the conditions might not be *that* bad.
I believe Microsoft might actually have a problem with this. Seriously, why are they working 15 hours when they could as well work 18?
I think the difference here is, while you were doing this:
1) You made 0.52USD in a fraction of an hour
2) You could have quit and found another programming job, most likely within a drivable distance from where you live.
-Will P.
It's the Hobson's Choice that these people have to make - in that it is their only (real) choice for work.
What is going on with those factory bosses that makes them want to whip/kill/etc.?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Nothing to see here.
apparently it's still better than being unemployed or they'd quit.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Apple marketing strategy has looooong hands.
Dear
Is this picture genuine? I'm inclined to think not. Having lived in Shanghai for a while, I can attest to a culture of after lunch naps in China, in an office where software engineers earn many times as much. I was quite surprised the first time I came back to the office after lunch, to find people strewn across their desks, or heads back on chairs. I was looking for our QA Lead one day and thought maybe he was off on holiday. No: he was snoozing on something like a yoga matt under the desk of an empty cubicle at the back of the office.
Really, don't trust the Daily Mail.
Wal-Mart profits too much from their form of slavery to ask for decency(even if it gets rid of those pesky labor unions in the US).
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
why are we pointing fingers at Microsoft?
"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." doesn't Foxconn make shit for Apple?
i think all companies involved should fork over some huge payout between the workers involved
Unless they are being forced to work in this factory as literal slaves, the fact that they're doing it probably means it's the best option available. By all means lean on the factory to improve conditions, but before taking the business elsewhere for the sake of the employees, find out what the employees would do otherwise. Work in an even worse factory? Become prostitutes? Starve?
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
I know we always want to bash Microsoft here at Slashdot, but did the submitter fail to notice Foxconn (Apple's supplier), Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Acer, Logitech and Asus all use this same manufacturing house? How about:
"Photos of Chinese Sweatshop Used By US Tech Companies"
I guess that just doesn't have the same bite? At least it's more accurate.
Eventually the Chinese equivalent of Upton Sinclair will write the Chinese equivalent of The Jungle and everything will magically get better.
Or maybe one day the Chinese people will come together in solidarity to form a national union to ensure better working conditions. No. That'll never work. It's too communistic.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
'This is not nearly enough to support a family. My parents are farmers without jobs. They also do not have pensions.
'I also need to worry about getting married, which requires a lot of money. Therefore, I still push myself to continue working in spite of my exhaustion.
Yes, it is deplorable working conditions, but what other options are there for these poor people? Starvation? Letting their parents and families starve?
As China develops further, we'll see less and less of this. And as pressure is put on Western companies, I hope they'll put pressure on their Chinese contract firms ( KYE Systems factory at Dongguan in this case) to treat their workers better.
As multinationals, many of them based in Asia (this isn't a problem that only American firms have, btw), move to other lower cost countries (Viet Nam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, etc... ) we will continue to see this sort of thing, I'm afraid.
That's something we need to do as consumers, demand better working conditions and better treatment of the environment in the manufacture of our products - even if it costs more.
Will another $5-$20 price increase on your big screen TV really hurt you if these folks get treated better and their drinking water isn't contaminated? Or to clean up their air so it doesn't burn their lungs when they take a breath?
I'm willing to pay more.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
These Chinese workers earn just 34p an hour (about 52 cents in US dollars), work 15 hours shifts
The $.52 is meaningless; how much does an apartment cost? What is the price of food? When I was in Thailand in the USAF in 1974, the average wage was about $1,000/yr, but I rented a bungalow for $30/month (woman included), and could take three girls to a nice restaraunt for a dollar. It cost a nickle to go anywhere.
How many hours a day do American Microsoft programmers work?
It isn't just the Chinese who are being exploited, it's also the Americans whose jobs have been exported to China, and maybe even their American staff.
Free Martian Whores!
Blah Blah Blah, at least they're making money. Why these articles are a dime a dozen, if people are still surprised about it then do something about it.
When I was programming, 16+ hour days were common.. as was sleeping at a desk.
Hey, I was there too, long hours, a cot in the server room, impossible deadlines. Of course I also was getting shares of the company and I could easily have quit and had a normal job and I was not required to live in company housing, was supplied with free booze and other perks, and got to choose my own hours. This is something quite different and more akin to slave labor.
I'm also quite certain Apple et. al are no better.
Actually, there was a story about lesser abuses at one of Apple's suppliers earlier this year. The difference being, the abuses were discovered by Apple, while Apple was auditing the companies they do business with to make sure they don't pull this kind of crap. That company lost out financially because of breach of contract and is being regularly audited for compliance. (We'll see how well Apple follows through in a few years.)
This abuse was discovered by the press because as near as I can tell, while Microsoft claims to audit suppliers before doing business with them, they've never actually discovered any cases of abuse or fired or censured a supplier. So, while Apple is not perfect and MS may well be average, the evidence to date does indicate that Apple is better about this.
I mean come on, 86 F? Oh NO! Not 12 degrees cooler than body temperature! I've worked on plant floors where the ambient temperature for my 16 hour day was >110 on average, and in some spots >125.
Do I make more money than them? Yes. Do I have more freedom than they likely do? Yes. Is my job less menial? Likely. But 86f? Please.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
Human rights activity? These girls are allowed to sleep during working hours ?! My employer would seriously kick my ass for that.
This reminds me of the time I worked in a Sony TV manufacturing plant for 4 months. No heating or air conditioning, dirty restrooms, 12 hour shift where I'd gladly nap during my 10 and 30 minute breaks. The cafeteria basically only had snacks. Monotonous work. No sitting or resting outside of your breaks. Oh wait, this was in San Diego, California. Guess what, manual labor jobs suck? Congratulations! Of course I'm sure it's worse where OSHA isn't breathing down a company's neck, but is this really news? Did anyone expect Microsoft to *not* have these kinds of places?
What does $0.52/hr mean relative to cost of living? Maybe it's horrific abuse. Maybe it's reasonable. I certainly didn't have much money left after living in those days.
My point is before we all BBQ MS, all the facts are needed.
..don't panic
Come on, the toilets can't be that bad if nobody gets bathroom breaks. Sounds like a win for everyone!
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
Did you have have sick days and vacation?
Health benefits for you and your family?
Regulations for workplace health and safety?
Did you have labour laws to protect you?
Were you allowed to sleep at home? Did you even read the article?
I don't know how old you are, but you have forgotten all the principles for which the citizens who lived before you fought and died. If you're young, you have MUCH to learn because your education has been a failure. If you are old, you have even given up thinking or given up compassion.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
It may surprise many people who don't take naps, but there are in fact a lot of people who do - even in full view of others. /. - shocking to some, normal to others.
Not much different from eating lunch at your desk while checking
Move along.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
This is all meaningless, the factory will get slapped on the wrist, the workers will lose their jobs and microsoft will make a comment about taking such accusations 'seriously' and that they are 'investigating'. The public will be outraged for a month or two before forgetting which large corporation they are supposed to hate this month. Then the news media will go away and at the next contract renewal the whole job will get bid out again.
The reason it is meaningless is because the Chinese system of contract factories will at most simply shift the work to another factory - in China. The lax oversight, weak wages and rampant corruption in the system that allowed this kind of thing to happen in the first place remain. The only way to fix the issue is to stop production in China altogether and shift production to another country. That is the only thing that could possibly get the Chinese government to give a damn. Until companies start to shift work out of China and into a country that isn't inherently corrupt it just a game of whack a mole.
All that being said, the same factory, with the same management, employing the same people could still easily rebid and get the next contract simply by playing around with the paperwork on who owns the factory.
Exactly. It's normal work culture in China. This is nothing but western spin trying to make Microsoft look like the devil.
I mean, I'm not fond of them either, but.... I was going to say they should stop at outright lies but this is journalism after all.
Ezekiel 23:20
All of China is the same, all products from there are made in some sort of sweatshop, or semi slavery condition. These people's backbones are what holds up the China boom. It's all based on cheap labor and no rights-no laws which add costs. England did the same at one time. It's the logical conclusion of a society where everything is measured in money terms. Slaves are the ultimate efficient factory "technology"- intelligent human labor, no cost. The economy, competition, lower costs pressure, demand this. Socialism or capitalism, it's the same, they are societies where production of stuff and money is king, human beings and everything else are at the service of these priorities. We need to get past the capitalism-or-socialism two sides of the same coin, and look to other alternatives, humanism is my favorite, but there are others too.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Common? perhaps, I did them about once a month. 6-7 days a week? no, I don't think so.
In 1945, the minimum wage in the US was ... 40 cents an hour. The minimum wage in the US is currently at $7.25/hour (more in some states) but in terms of actual buying power, that's less than the $0.45/hour. That's inflation (caused by printing and borrowing money) and China doesn't have it.
No, it's not just a matter of napping after work. It is seriously inhumane treatment.
The mostly female workers, aged 18 to 25, work from 7.45am to 10.55pm, sometimes with 1,000 workers crammed into one 105ft by 105ft room.
They are not allowed to talk or listen to music, are forced to eat substandard meals from the factory cafeterias, have no bathroom breaks during their shifts and must clean the toilets as discipline, according to the NLC.
The workers also sleep on site, in factory dormitories, with 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28in-wide plywood boards. They 'shower' with a sponge and a bucket.
And many of the workers, because they are young women, are regularly sexually harassed, the NLC claimed.
The organisation said that one worker was even fined for losing his finger while operating a hole punch press.
Relevant reading on the work culture. Take with a grain of salt of course, it is anecdotal.
Ezekiel 23:20
Reminds me of this North Korean propaganda film I saw some while back, which was a story about a South Korean girl who had to sell her eyes to save her dad (from what, I can't quite remember, but does it matter?).
Not everything is what it is made out to be.
I've been a programmer all my career and I've never been idiot enough to work 16 hour days. The most I'll do is
10 then I'll call it quits. The more long hours you do the more long hours most bosses will expect of you. The old
phrase "start as you mean to continue" is very apt here.
I'm also quite certain Apple et. al are no better.
I'm not sure. Maybe it's all hogwash, but Apple appears to take the working conditions of its suppliers' employees pretty seriously. You can read about it here: http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/ .
sometimes I forget I can use other HTML markup besides the basics.
I didnt read your post, but found it very fascinating!
With all respect for the effort made here, I have seen Chinese students overwork themselves with 16+ hrs days, 100% voluntarily, at a Dutch university... including sleeping on the table in front of the keyboard, and getting less than 3 hrs of sleep per night. There was no company behind them, no armed guards. Perhaps just their parents at 10000 km distance who demanded results.
We really have to distinguish between human rights and culture... and no, our Western culture is not necessarily superior.
Obviously, Microsoft, being a company, can be as good or as bad as they want. Stay within the laws of the country where you employ people and you're fine.
Similarly, its customers can demand a certain quality of life for the people who make the products they buy. You pay for the product that you want to buy... including all the sustainability issues (and work falls under sustainability in its broadest definition).
Those are all valid reasons to demand an improvement of the situation of those sleeping Chinese women.
Just don't demand it from your superior Western point of view.
I agree but you made a mistake, china is not communist country, they may call themselves communist but they aren't. China used to be communist country, now it isn't. China nowadays is just a plain totalitarian government. And in addition china is very capitalistic, just as western countries were in early industrial period before industrial revolution. The real communism's major goal should be "build utopia", just like in Star Trek. I know that this is possible, in 1968, before soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, czechoslovakian politicians were very active in human rights issues(it was called "socialism with human face"(direct translation)), but their effort was stopped the moment when Warsaw pact armies invaded our country. So true enemies of freedom and personal prosperity are monstrous power-hungry, imperialistic countries such as china or soviet union. In USA, I have no Idea about government but I know that companies with large amounts of money are enemies of your freedom because they simply don't care, and if you try to sue them, you fail because they have more lawyers.
And 52 cents isn't so bad, that's like a brand new Coca Cola every spirit-crushing hour.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
In Ohio, the minimum wage is $7.30. This means that someone working 40 hours/week would earn roughly $14,600 a year. Our GDP per capita is about $48,000, so someone earning minimum wage is getting about 30% of the average. In china, GDP per capita is $3,266. Someone earning 50 cents/hour, working 40 hours a week, earns $1,000 US a year. Hey, look at that, right about 30%. So, these factory workers are basically earning the equivalent minimum wage in china (*if* scaling based on GDP is appropriate). This is to say nothing about actual cost of living, or the actual working conditions, but dollar for dollar if we expect someone in the US to work for $7.30 an hour when the average is much higher, we should have no problem expecting someone in China to work for $.50 an hour considering what everyone else makes.
The workers also sleep on site, in factory dormitories, with 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28in-wide plywood boards. They 'shower' with a sponge and a bucket.
Why is this different than any other company that has it's goods made in China. Maybe the OP and the articles author should watch the movie Manufactured Landscapes they would realize that this is pretty much the status quo for all factories in China no matter how big or small and what kind of goods they make. Hell even kitchen appliances are made in conditions like these so it's not just the tech sector that is to blame or one specific company.
Take two paragraphs from it:
For as little as 34p an hour, the men and women work six or seven days a week, making computer mice and web cams for the American multinational computer company.
It was the militaristic management and sleep deprivation that affected the worker most. 'I know I can choose not to work overtime, but if I don't work overtime then I am stuck with only 770 Chinese yuan (£72.77p) per month in basic wages,' the worker said.
If the basic wage is £72.77 a month and they earn £0.34 an hour that gives a working week of just under 50 hours which doesn't seem like slavery to me. It also puts them at a comparable income to a chambermaid or baker, which makes sense since it's working the line at a factory.
If they are working 15 hours a day, 6 days a week at £0.34 that's £132.60 per month. That puts them at a comparable income to an accountant, which is insane amounts of money for working the line at a factory.
Chinese incomes taken from: http://www.worldsalaries.org/china.shtml (and using the "770 Chinese yuan=£72.77p" conversion rate from the paragraph quoted above).
that the majority are from uncaring scumbags defending these working conditions. Not sure why, but I just expected differently from the slashdot crowd.
Why would Microsoft use photos of a Chinese sweatshop? And what would they use them for?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Well, the problem is that the FA is from the Daily Mail, which makes Fox look like respectable journalism.
Oh, come on! They're too busy working in horrible conditions to attack us.
rewriting history since 2109
I'm mostly pissed that the guy making the mice is getting paid $0.52/hr but I have to pay $16 plus shipping to get one?!! I'm OUTRAGED! I don't think this would be such a big deal if the greedy corporations actually passed down some of the savings to us.
Yes, because of the pesky labor unions in the US, I can see a mouse needing to cost $16 if made here because some high-school dropout is entitled and thinks he should get $25/hr for putting self-adhesive feet on mice. But if you saving money on labor, how about the customer saves money too?
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
Most chinese factories work like this: You're hired at what seems like a good wage for eight hours. Only then you find out you are given quotas that you can't complete unless you work 80 or 90 hours a week, with unpaid overtime. In some slave labor camps, you are paid room and board and then given your wages at the end of a year contract, and they only need to find three infractions under the law to kick you out of your dormitory and not pay you a dime.
And if you're wondering why your wages are less than what your parents made, adjusted for purchasing power, then you are ignoring the answer. I do not want to compete with someone willing to work for $100 a month in such deplorable conditions, whose environment looks like this.
I'd rather have less stuff.
The scam of externalizing real costs to the next generation is worse than giving them a national deficit, because it could take hundreds of years to undo the damage, and much more money than we thought we saved.
Yes, why blame Microsoft? The root cause of these working conditions falls squarely on the Chinese government and Chinese culture.
$0.52/hour is probably way under-paid, but what I really want to know is what their standard of living is compared to someone doing the same work under "acceptable" working conditions in China.
For comparison:
In rural Indiana, you can do the same work for a lot less than in the heart of New York City for a lower-class better-than-poverty standard of living. That doesn't mean the Indiana residents are underpaid.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
As I understand it, during the 19th century industrial revolution in the US, or England, workers took the job voluntarily, and the workers could quite whenever they wanted. The factory jobs were often considered better than farm life. But, in China, the government tells you where you will work, and what you will be paid.
Also, this is not the 19th century.
This exact same article has already been on /. (http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/04/15/1214248/Microsoft-Mice-Made-in-Chinese-Youth-Sweatshops)
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I hate Microsoft as much as any other UNIX geezer (possibly *more* than JWZ) but TFA is representative of the manufacturing industry as a whole, not just Microsoft. You could paste the logo of any Megacorp in the banner of that article and it would still ring true. The problem is, people want their fancy phones, iP(oa)ds, laptops, netbooks, gizmos and gadgets and that creates a market. Cheap labor is vital to the bottom line of any manufacturer and these pics could just as easily be the Kitchen-Aid assembly line as they could be the Micro$oft assembly line. Wake up.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
I was going to say they should stop at outright lies but this is journalism after all.
I miss the old days when journalists stuck to incredibly biased deception and left the outright lies to the professionals in politics...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
In NYC there is a sweatshop tour in Chinatown, a historical building that's like 100 years old. At one point the guide points to the smoke from the current shops. Slavery, people trafficking, semi-forced labor, exist practically everywhere in prostitution, manufacturing, home labor, fashion, many industries, yes, still. I have spoken to immigrants involved in nyc and sao paulo many times, in fact there are thousands of clothing sweatshops not far from here. The choice of place to work is generally based on fear, ignorance, false information, etc there are generally much better options available, but they don't see it, fear blinds people. The sweatshops-masters simply seek out people who can be pressured, conned, threatened, etc but, somehow, won't leave. Some will actually resort to locking doors and putting in high walls and guards, but it generally apparently isn't the most effective method, trickery and lies work better. In fact many companies, armies, managers, use similar techniques to gather lots of cheap, dedicated, qualified labor. Pressure, threats, lies, false promises, legal trickery, indebting, contracts. Soldiers and salesmen are the victims and perpetrators of the same grand scheme, generally to the advantage of a few insane maniacs, ignorant also. Full Metal Jacket sort of illustrated that. The UN and many institutions have anti-slavery campaigns to this day. I heard slavery in fact is growing.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Those conditions reflect what much of factory life was in the U.S. in the late 1800s and early 1900s. While some might immediately decry China for being so far behind the times, we must remember that such conditions followed the affect of the Industrial Revolution and the mass migration of people from rural communities to cities where they sought work after leaving an agrarian lifestyle. Instead of viewing China as "behind the times", we should acknowledge that they stayed locked in an older way of life for a longer period of time, and now are experiencing massive growth that parallels that we experienced over the past hundred years.
In other words, China is going through the same growth process that we experienced in the U.S., but it's happening on a compressed timeline. I believe that internal and external pressures, including the rapid growth of their internal consumer markets and the massive numbers of people affected by comparably "substandard" wages, will cause China to address labor issues and working conditions sooner rather than later. Some companies, like Wal-Mart (like them or not) are influencing the realm of Chinese manufacturers by exporting Western ideas and expectations for quality, and the Chinese are smart enough to realize that a healthy, well-motivated workforce is better (in the long run) for attaining to such high standards.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Yeah, no corporation has a duty to make sure they aren't supporting slave labor. So, give MS a pass. They couldn't have possibly known, as they wouldn't have actually looked. The profit was too attractive to look deeply.
Now MS can have their cake and eat it too: Oh, we didn't know anything like this existed as we didn't bother to look. We'll investigate this now that someone has investigated it and made it public.
More self-serving bs from MS.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
No corporation will champion human rights. Corporations only care about profits and market share. The only actual humans they give a damn about are their stockholders.
Free Martian Whores!
The /. summary refers to "US-made products" - in a factory in China? Really? Somehow, I doubt that, especially if you actually RTFA.
Modding "-1, Troll" is not a proper response if you disagree with me. Try reason.
You make a nice point, but I think you are stretching a bit.
:p), so there is a glaring discrepancy there.
Minimum wages in the USA are almost exclusively for unskilled labor. Programming is certainly a skilled labor (Yes, even for MS employees, people
Also, I think you need to include other forms of income here as well. What does the ratio look like when you include benefits?
-Will P.
That's a pretty big if.
As for actual cost of living... my university, NUS, doles out out-of-country subsistence allowances (for when a student/staff goes abroad) based on a per-country estimated cost of expenditures (excluding accommodation) per month. The circular estimates this at S$450 for US and S$300 for China.
No idea how they calculate this, but it was pretty accurate for me. It was S$265 for the Philippines (where I live), roughly translating to Php 8745, which was close to our minimum wage. For Singapore it was S$480, which is close to my current monthly expenditures if I don't splurge on anything.
Given that 1.5 : 1 ratio for US : China, $7.30/hour in the US is roughly equivalent to $4.87/hour in China.
If we use this (admittedly not firmly grounded) calculations, $.52/hour is not enough, even for China.
Pet peeve: Profane people propagating perfunctory pedantry.
First is the cost of an xbox, or whatever, a major part of our overall expenses? I think I am fairly typical, and my biggest expenses - by far - have been: income tax, mortgage, health care, education, and retirement. Lowering the cost of computer mice, or toaster overs, does very little, if anything, to lower my overall cost of living.
Does lowering the cost of labor even lower our cost of goods? In the 1980s, when auto manufacturing was shifted from US workers making $15 to hour, to offshore workers making $0.35 an hour, did the cost of cars go down significantly?
Offshoring labor certainly causes inhumane worker conditions, and causes high unemployment in the west. But I don't see where offshoring labor is helping the average US citizen at all.
So why don't we stop buying goods that manufactured offshored? For one thing, we often have no choice, and we don't even know. For example, is an all-Americans Dell computer really made in the USA?
For another thing, I think it has to do with a lack of solidarity. If I personally stopped buying goods made offshore, it would not amount to anything. If several million people made an organized effort, that might get somebody's attention.
I worked as a teacher in China a couple years ago and was only paid $350 US a month, plus housing, and still managed to save money. So, that is not exactly slave labor wages by Chinese economy standards at $0.50 x 15 hours a day = $7.5 a day. That is something like $180 US a month. The working hours suck by western standards, but that is fairly normal working hours in China.
Also I don't buy that photo. When I was teaching at the University, I would go in to a room and there would be like 50 students all sleeping between classes. It is not unusual for Chinese workers to catch a catnap on breaks, because they work long hours.
Living in Chile
According to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
The GDP in US dollars per capita of China is $3,566.
The GDP in US dollars per capita of the US is 46,584.
Simple math, using the $.52 per hour estimate from the "article" shows that the Chinese workers are making approximately: (.52 * 46584)/3566 = $6.79 per hour equivalent to US dollars. That isn't real bad. Plus, if you read the original article, you will find that the job also provides free food and board for their workers. Every two hours they get a 10 minute nap. They get 1.5 hour lunch breaks. In China this is a cushy job. It certainly isn't "slave labor" as some people are claiming.
I'm all for the worker and believe the people should stand up and push the laws to legalize unions so they can get better working conditions. But where are the pictures that Microsoft doesn't want us to see?? Is it that one picture where people are sleeping on the job? These pictures just don't do the cause any justice. Especially when I've recently seen highly paid people sleeping on the job http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2010/01/22/ttc-napper-under-investigation.aspx
The cost of living is highly dependent upon the standard of living. Those with a lower standard of living spend less money and it filters down through the whole system. So maybe you can buy a meal for $1 rather than $5, but everyone who lives there doesn't have running water. If you gave every body running water, the cost of living would go up. If you gave everyone the luxuries that Americans enjoy, it would cost as least as much as in the US.
You can't compare cost of living without comparing standard of living for the average person.
Sometimes I think people from "1st world" countries can't really understand what it is like to live without the opulence they are used to. Even people making minimum wage mostly have running water (hot and cold!), heat in their apartments (many even have AC!), sufficient clothes, and enough food so that they can actually have a choice whether or not to be obese. Most even have a few ridiculous luxury items like refrigerators, TVs, washing machines and cars (even if they aren't new).
Look at the people working in a factory in the US. Most of them are fat, right? Look at people working in a factory in China. ALL of them are thin. Trust me, food is the last "luxury" that you give up. This means that Chinese factory workers are living at a standard of living FAR below what most Americans would deem acceptable -- regardless of the "cost of living".
A few weeks slashdot posted the story about "Chinese Reactions To Google Leaving China."
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/26/0147222/Chinese-Reactions-To-Google-Leaving-China
A lot of posters insisted that the Chinese liked their government, and wouldn't have it any other way.
This is a little hard for me to understand. Do Chinese really believe that these brutally inhumane conditions are superior to western culture?
No, it's not just a matter of napping after work. It is seriously inhumane treatment.
The mostly female workers, aged 18 to 25, work from 7.45am to 10.55pm, sometimes with 1,000 workers crammed into one 105ft by 105ft room.
They are not allowed to talk or listen to music, are forced to eat substandard meals from the factory cafeterias, have no bathroom breaks during their shifts and must clean the toilets as discipline, according to the NLC.
My wife works for the British NHS - the following is a comparison.
She is regularly rostered in for 12.5 hour shifts, but is required to stay until the patient she is handling has been dealt with - if she takes on an A&E case 30 minutes before she is scheduled to finish, that case can take up to 4 hours to conclude, and she is not allowed to leave until then. She is still required to turn up for the next shift on time.
She is not allowed to take extended breaks, short comfort breaks are all she is permitted and any meals she takes are routinely interrupted - the longest she has had to eat a meal in the past 6 months is 20 minutes uninterrupted.
She is regularly pressured by the Trust to declare that she has not worked past her legal limit, even though they both know that she was rostered on to work way past that limit.
She has to pay money to a private, non-government body to be able to practice in the UK - she cannot practice without GMC membership.
She cannot become GMC qualified without being trained by the government - there is no alternative to the government workplace for doctors in the UK.
She does not get to plan her holidays, she gets told when she is on holiday, sometimes without any notice (she was told she was on holiday last week on the friday before).
And she gets paid less than the night security staff.
Oh, and shes responsible for the lives of her patients during all of this - any mistakes she makes and that's potentially her livelihood out of the window. Tiredness and overwork is not an excuse, but neither is refusing to work the NHS roster.
My point? The western world has its own little sweat shops and no one gives a damn.
You raise a valid argument, but I think you also need to consider lifestyle. I don't have any qualms with feeding somebody in the 3rd world as opposed to allowing somebody in the US to buy a 3rd car. However, it seems like these wages don't even allow a basic standard of living.
The fact that many in China are much worse off doesn't change the fact that those working in these factories don't have even the most basic amenities.
Products built under these conditions ought to be tariffed. No, they don't need to pay for every employee to have half an acre with four bedrooms and two cars. However, three meals a day with basic nutrition with at least 8 hours of sleep and 15 minute breaks every four hours are not an unreasonable standard to require. That would probably cost Microsoft all of 0.1 cents per mouse or something like that.
Every country has income disparity - that will never change. However, even the unemployed (and likely the homeless) in the US live in better conditions than those in these factories.
It's not the work culture that allows these conditions per se. It's the corruptions and graft of the Chinese political system that allows rich factory owners to suppress workers from organizing. Wages in manufacturing roughly match inflation.
I work as in automotive sales, and i was telling my manager about this story. He replied, sounds like they need to put more hours in and come to work to work. He recomends they watch some joe verde and that might improve the workplace morale. Also they shouldn't be huddled up like that, as everyone knows nothing good happens in the huddle!
Considering a Beer is 0.25c in China, 0.34c / hr is the equivalent to $5.44 USD (($4.00 / 0.25 ) * 0.34).
Also the dollar in China is controlled by the Govt. to keep it less than 1st World Nations (unbalanced) so that Trade stays with China.
So why would a Chinese worker work for pennies? It's far and away above what they would get in Rural farming communities.
Would you rather be helped by an uncaring person or killed by a caring person? It surprises me how some person care only about the emotional state, not whether someone does good or not. Maybe it's because it's a lot easier for people to feel rather than do.
...This is to say nothing about actual cost of living, or the actual working conditions...
And there is where you hit the nail on the head. Because if you are also to scale down to equivalent number of hours worked per week, I think you'd find it's far less than 30%.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
If someone goes from your University to China, they most likely go to Beijing or Shanghai. The cost of living varies a lot within China. And judging by the fact that the allowance for Singapore is higher than the US, that subsistence allowance must have to cover accommodation as well as other living expenses, which in Beijing and Shanghai will make up the bulk of your expenses.
Maybe because the media likes to lie and spin these things to seem worse than they are? Maybe because using loaded language, such as referring to this job as a "prison", even though the workers *choose* to work there, is ugly and underhanded? Maybe because, without context, this kind of outrage is largely meaningless? Maybe because the article notably *doesn't* mention: cost of living, wage relative to other jobs in the area, surveys of worker satisfaction, etc?
I could go on, but I think I've made my point. I mean, christ, this is the Daily Mail we're talking about here, a tabloid of the worst sort. You'll forgive me if I take any reports they make with an *extremely* large grain of salt.
where are you getting the $4.00 from?
If that's what you're using as what you pay for a beer, let me tell you, that's a bit much. Domestics sell here at ~2.25-3.00 a bottle/can
in keeping with your theory, ((2.25/.25)*.34)= $3.06
Dunno about you, but i couldn't make a living off of 24 dollars a day.
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
While I am not happy to see anyone working in conditions like this, but unfortunately, the fact is these factory conditions is really an improvement over the alternatives for many of them, else they would have left long ago. Their alternative might be simple poverty, farming back home in the biggest drought in many years. China has a population of over a billion and many of them are still very very poor.
Also, keep in mind we are not talking about prison factory here, we are talking about a working population that has over 2 decades of experience in going out to cities of their choice to find work in factories. These workers have families and friends, and you bet they kept in contact with cellphones and exchange notes. If there is any better place to go, they would at most stay for the rest of year, return home for Chinese New Year (very important for them) and go elsewhere next year.
In fact, this year, just after Chinese New Year, there has been a shortage of factory workers in Southern China precisely because the workers are no longer that poor, and the 2nd generation workers are no longer as eager to work in factories any more, plus they earn more working in service industry (waitress, sales, etc, but may be open to young females only). So not that many returned to factories after new year causing the shortage.
Oliver.
Step 1. Start glorious workers revolution to fight against the exploitation of workers by evil Capitalism.
Step 2. Create Communist Government led my Mao which staves millions of people and brings all of the people under the gloriouis control of Communist Party.
Step 3. Use the country's glorious human resources to make products that can be sold cheaply on the international markets. Pay the workers next to nothing and essentially make them into Communist wage slaves.
Step 4. ???????
Step 5. Profit like nobody else's business.
Communism is for the workers, Yeah right...
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Why blame Microsoft? You MUST be new here.
"But this one goes to 11!"
There is more to it than naps, a lot more.
The mostly female workers, aged 18 to 25, work from 7.45am to 10.55pm, sometimes with 1,000 workers crammed into one 105ft by 105ft room.
They are not allowed to talk or listen to music, are forced to eat substandard meals from the factory cafeterias, have no bathroom breaks during their shifts and must clean the toilets as discipline, according to the NLC.
The workers also sleep on site, in factory dormitories, with 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28in-wide plywood boards. They 'shower' with a sponge and a bucket.
And many of the workers, because they are young women, are regularly sexually harassed, the NLC claimed.
The organisation said that one worker was even fined for losing his finger while operating a hole punch press.
They don't even get to listen to iPods that are made next store in another sweatshop!
"But this one goes to 11!"
The mostly female workers, aged 18 to 25, work from 7.45am to 10.55pm, sometimes with 1,000 workers crammed into one 105ft by 105ft room.
They are not allowed to talk or listen to music, are forced to eat substandard meals from the factory cafeterias, have no bathroom breaks during their shifts and must clean the toilets as discipline, according to the NLC.
The workers also sleep on site, in factory dormitories, with 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28in-wide plywood boards. They 'shower' with a sponge and a bucket.
And many of the workers, because they are young women, are regularly sexually harassed, the NLC claimed.
The organisation said that one worker was even fined for losing his finger while operating a hole punch press.
Seems like a flood of MS shills keep posting about "nothing wrong with giving the workers a little nap, it's almost luxurious." Yeah, okay, try working 15 hour shifts, back to back, without decent sleep, in hot sweatshop, without adequate opportunity to even bath or take bathroom breaks, not the mention sexual harassment. Then come back and tell us about how it's all a luxurious vacation.
The mostly female workers, aged 18 to 25, work from 7.45am to 10.55pm, sometimes with 1,000 workers crammed into one 105ft by 105ft room.
They are not allowed to talk or listen to music, are forced to eat substandard meals from the factory cafeterias, have no bathroom breaks during their shifts and must clean the toilets as discipline, according to the NLC.
The workers also sleep on site, in factory dormitories, with 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28in-wide plywood boards. They 'shower' with a sponge and a bucket.
And many of the workers, because they are young women, are regularly sexually harassed, the NLC claimed.
The organisation said that one worker was even fined for losing his finger while operating a hole punch press.
Similarly, consumers will also not champion human rights when they have to pay more for their electronic toys.
Wow, a K5-er swooping in to Slashdot to call everyone with an opposing view a "scumbag". I am shocked, shocked I say!
I name thee, "Troll".
And if she quits, she can find something else to do, or you will support her as necessary. There's a fairly large difference between the UK and China. In China, these people would have absolutely nothing instead of just a tiny bit more than nothing.
Your analysis rests on GDP per capita, as if that's how much workers mak, but it's not. GDP per capita might be $48,000 in the US, but it's not shared evenly by everyone. The median personal income is only about $32,100. Chinese median personal income is hard to find cited, but in 2003 urban median household income was about $900. In 2007, the US median household income was about $50,000. The American median is about 56x the Chinese urban median (rural China's large and poor population would make the difference even bigger, but they're not competing with Americans for factory jobs).
The GDP per capita is an average that includes all the money made by the few richest. All the profits on labor taken by corporations and investors. In America that disparity is pretty large, but in China it's larger.
--
make install -not war
As a Chinese myself, what I can tell all the people in western countries, this is the TRUTH of China. People struggle for life, even work in a low wages, bad working conditions (not this case, Microsoft won't allow the Mice got dirt). If you know nothing about China, this is just a glimpse of the "worse capitalize communist" in the world. Human right is nothing, laws can be interpreted according to the government. Except Hong Kong and Macau Special Administration Zone have different kind of law. The only worry is I'm too honest to say all these truth.
Hong Kong - International Joke Center (after 1997-06-30)
Hmm, that's not true, the Apple thing was uncovered by the press well over a year ago, with initial reports on Apple's suppliers using poor labour practices as far back as 2006. See this article for example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5312074.stm
It's only this year that they finally owned up to child labour abuses by factories used to develop their products, and they stated the children involved were 15 years old.
In contrast, the "children" in the Microsoft case were apparently 17 years old, but seeing as you can work full time at 16 in places like the UK I struggle to see that as child labour.
I'd argue that Apple case was in fact worse, simply because they knew about bad working practices for longer, and because the children in their child labour case, really were children.
That's not to absolve the others of blame, but the GP was right, Apple is at least as bad, if not more so, but realistically I'd argue ALL of these tech companies know full well the conditions the Chinese workers making their products have to work in, they just all only ever give a shit and "investigate" when the media decides it's time to milk that same tired old story for a few more sales again.
I'd argue the only real solution is for these companies home governments to start penalising companies over it. Ideally it's a problem China themselves would sort out, but the Chinese government doesn't exactly rate human rights as a high priority sadly. Let's face it though- this is why outsourcing is such a big fad amongst large companies nowadays, because it's just a legalised method of gaining access to sweatshop manufacturing, something that is often banned in their home countries because it tends to breach inconvniences like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
You miss the point - my wife works for a government run and mandated system that is little more than a sweat shop itself. But people turn a blind eye because its what is required to become a doctor in the UK.
I also didn't tell you about the contracts - if you apply to become a Training GP in the UK, you can no longer apply for any other NHS position until your application for GP is rejected. If you are accepted as a GP, you have to accept the position within 48 hours of being offered it - except its not a job offer, its an offer of a training position which can start either in August or February, be at one of a dozen hospitals in the area and one of several dozen practices in the area, and pay scales can vary significantly. You don't know any of these things but you are forced to make a decision.
Before you get to the offer, you have to get to the interview - the interviews for GP are held on the same day nationally, but no hospitals budget for their lowest grade doctors going to the interview, so you have to fight to take the day off. My wife was initially told 'no', and it wasn't until the tuesday before that she beat a concession out of them - they would allow her to have one shift off.
The problem is, she was on nights for that period - they were going to allow her to take one shift off, but she had to work the other one. So she could either take the night before off, or the night after off - taking the night after off means she couldn't attend the interview at all (her night shifts finish at 8.30am, the interview started at 9am and was a 2 hour drive away). But taking the night before off meant that she would have zero rest time before her night shift - and remember, its up to her to maintain patient safety, its her license and her job.
Yes she could quit, but then we have $100,000 of tuition debt to clear...
its ok for microsoft to employ a sweatshop, because the slaves in there consented to being exploited ...
Yep. Just like it's ok for the UFC to employ gladiators, because the "slaves" there consented to being exploited. Now you're getting it!
Of course, your wording is a bit strange, but I'm sure that with another year of ESL classes you'll be able to speak and write just like a native!
What glaring discrepancy are you talking about.
Those Chinese workers having a nap are packaging mice and joysticks into plastic containers ... they are hardly "programmers".
Right, because there is only one factory in China, and only one line of work that is available to all people.
Sigh.
Hmm, that's not true, the Apple thing was uncovered by the press well over a year ago, with initial reports on Apple's suppliers using poor labour practices as far back as 2006. See this article for example:
In 2006 there were two separate instances of human rights violations at Apple suppliers. One turned out to be pretty much genuine and one was just too much overtime work. In response to this, Apple began a process of more strictly auditing their suppliers.
It's only this year that they finally owned up to child labour abuses by factories used to develop their products, and they stated the children involved were 15 years old.
Apple didn't "own up to" those abuses, they were discovered by one of Apple's now routine audits. The company had been falsifying the records sent to Apple, but because of the 2006 incidents, Apple now routinely sends representatives to double check. No one made any allegation about that factory or the other two Apple found to be in noncompliance, until Apple themselves discovered the problems.
In contrast, the "children" in the Microsoft case were apparently 17 years old, but seeing as you can work full time at 16 in places like the UK I struggle to see that as child labour.
In the UK children are limited in the hours they can put in. These people were working more than even the law in China allows.
I'd argue that Apple case was in fact worse, simply because they knew about bad working practices for longer, and because the children in their child labour case, really were children.
No, Apple found out about specific plants and acted to fix the problem. MS has been one of the top 5 US tech companies listed as promoting human rights violations in China for the last 8 years. In fact, a report came out earlier this year urging people not to buy from them because of the repeated abuses.
That's not to absolve the others of blame, but the GP was right, Apple is at least as bad...
Apple has taken action. They are regularly auditing plants. They absolved contracts and financially punished other plants. That is exactly what we want them to be doing. Microsoft on the other hand, does nothing. When was the last time you heard about an MS audit of their manufacturing partners and them requiring changes? MS relies on public outrage not being strong enough so they ignore the problem.
I'd argue the only real solution is for these companies home governments to start penalising companies over it.
Or, magical unicorns could solve the problem. Get real. We're talking about what we as consumers and voters can actually do, and that includes not buying anything from companies that don't work diligently to stop abuses within their foreign supply chains. You're just being lazy and trying to pass the buck.
Let's face it though- this is why outsourcing is such a big fad amongst large companies nowadays, because it's just a legalised method of gaining access to sweatshop manufacturing, something that is often banned in their home countries because it tends to breach inconvniences like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
It doesn't have to be sweatshops. For only a small increase you can gain access to reasonably paid labor in markets where cost of living is much, much less. Companies will do that if we as consumers make them by refusing to put up with this freedom hating, human exploitation. You attempt to equivocate and lay the blame elsewhere but you have the power to buy from companies that are doing something and who are investigating and stopping human rights abuses. Do you care enough about human suffering to do it?
My kingdom for mod points right about now. I'm a registered nurse in the UK NHS, and your post is a shining example of the way that things are done in that organisation. I'm not a doctor, unlike your wife, but I work very closely with a team of doctors who actually haven't finished their medical training yet, but work up to 36 hours in one stretch (but get a small compensation each month in their pay for giving up their Working Time Directive rights) and often work alone when on-call. It's unsafe, and they're all constantly exhausted (as are we all, under current budget cuts).
10 PRINT "SCUNTHORPE"(2 TO 5): GO TO 10
That's a tough one. I guess I'd have to say that the tone is intentionally sarcastic, but the general message is quite serious.
Tell ya what, I'll just rephrase it so it's easier for you to understand:
Your point was stupid, and your wording dishonest. People who consent to work for a wage are by definition not slaves. All human endeavors require trade-offs, and it's up to the individual to decide whether a particular trade is worthwhile. Likewise, human welfare is relative - work conditions which might seem barbaric to, say, Paris Hilton, would seem quite normal to you and me. Any employment which is voluntary and provides a higher standard of living than would exist in the ABSENCE of such employment is, therefore, a Good Thing.
Hope that helps!
The long hours for programming are a fossil of a time when programmers made so much money that they could work six months and then take six months off.
When programmers commonly contracted and were paid very high hourly rates to make tight deadlines.
When programmers were given the job to do and then left ALONE to do it.
When programmers were "priest kings" and worked in 60 degree air conditioned rooms.
---
Unfortunately since that time, all the bad parts have remained but
Companies had specific laws passed that made it very difficult to be a contract programmer.
Programmers are no longer left alone to get the job done and companies measure programmers a lot (weekly, daily under Agile and other methods).
The pay went to crap (from 3x average to 2x average to now as little as 1.25x average pay-- 4 year degree that cost 50k or more and for that you get an extra 15k a year).
programmers are STILL expected to work nights, weekends, holidays.
programmers are viewed as interchangable by management-- a ".net programmer" is somehow supposed to be interchangable with a "c" coder and both are interchangable with a "java" coder.
Offshoring started slow but grew fast and is growing still and is likely to grow for another 4-6 years.
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I am lucky to have made the jump over to management. I wouldn't enjoy being a programmer any more knowing how far things have fallen. Hell, our guys can't make a 1 line code change to production in less than 4 weeks and three meetings now.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Hell, i do it here at university... puts the students off thou, apparently they feel its less appropriate for the lecturer to grab a cat nap during the lecture than a student.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Corporations would stock more expensive products (and hence more coin per item) in a heartbeat if it would sell. But the fact is its the normal person on the street that wants the ear phones at half the price over idealism. And stockholders are just about everyone too. When was the last time wanted your investments (401k whatever) interest rate be cut in favor of idealism?
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
"Photos of Chinese Sweatshop Used by Microsoft". So I have to ask: What did MS use the photos for?
I lived in Taiwan for 15 years and worked for various tech firms — the picture shown could have been taken at any factory (or office) I ever visited or worked at. Everybody, including executives, except the silly foreigners had a kip after lunch. It's just a part of life.
It is sad that workers must live like that but I suspect that in China these folks are probably thrilled with that job.We simply need an economy that reflects reality in every nation. Unions can be a huge help in breaking up sweat shops. Perhaps all profits earned by scab employers should be seized and donated to the poor.
She is a member of two unions, one which is solely for defending her in court (the Medical Defense Union). Her labour union is the BMA and it gladly turns a blind eye to the above - she cannot be a member of any other union under her GMC membership terms.
If you can read this Chinese article (and some others on the Web,) the company was investigated right after the report by the local labor department and the press. It is found that (a) workers 16-18 year-old are allowed to work under Chinese law, but must be registered with the labor department and the company failed to register them; (b) the wage is the minimum legal wage of the city; (c) the workers need to work 8 hours day time and 2-3 hours OT; (d) the workers are allowed rest-room breaks. Of course, you won't read these follow-ups in the Western press where everything about China is sensationalized, and you can also dismiss the follow-up investigation as cover-up.
And for this image, maybe one can also interpret it as the workers taking a break at work?
it doesnt help.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery
it is possible to create conditions for near slavery of free people, by manipulating the social environment.
this was the method brasilian slaveholder plantation owners used to continue the system as usual after slavery was abolished in brazil.
Read radical news here
These same uncaring scumbags, unfortunately, do not want to see their access to cheap goods disappear. So if American companies were forced to use the same workplace standards in foreign nations, costs of goods will most likely go up slightly (until market correction occurs...) This is what makes me sick to my stomach the most. American companies would be forced to allow for safer environments here in the US. To avoid that, they ship such operations to other nations on the cheap. It boosts their bottom line, and they only have to pay a tiny fraction of what they would pay an American employee.
At the same time, I would rather see people in other nations employed. I would rather see them with the opportunity to have work. I understand that all emerging economies have their rough points. But reading about showers being nothing more than a bucket and sponge, and no bathroom breaks during 17 hour shifts makes me wonder how these same uncaring scumbags would feel if they had to work in the same conditions day in and day out. During short stints, sure, we all go through rough patches where work has to be done yesterday. But if this was your day-to-day outlook for the rest of your lifespan?
Yes, we had to in the past. If it was so great, we would still be doing it. We're not any longer for a reason. And the comments here? It really comes across as "Keep working in those poor conditions so we can get our cheap goods, you fools!" It bothers me that we take advantage of the situations there. We've already been down this path.
Best "String" Ever!
Scroll down
i have a relative that works in the US in a similar job ... putting chips onto circuit boards. i don't know what we are comparing it to, but it looks like about the same conditions. it's clean, well lit ... nothing unsafe about the environment. compared to a nice cubicle with a special-ordered ergo chair, etc it isn't that great but most folks in the US aren't doing any better.
since they are all sleeping, it seems more like they are having a group nap time than that they all happened to fall asleep at the same time and management hadn't noticed yet.
i'm just speaking about what's revealed in the picture. 15 hour work days don't sounds great. i can't say i understand how $0.52 translates into chinese currency.
That sucks, and I guess it was different when she decided to be a doctor. She's basically trapped. But students who haven't started yet have the choice. They may end up becoming security instead, or a cashier or whatever. I foreseen a shortage of coctors in the UK in the future...
According to TFA: The workers also sleep on site, in factory dormitories, with 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28in-wide plywood boards. They 'shower' with a sponge and a bucket. Wow, this sounds exactly like how I spent my younger years as a garbage man at an amusement park.
Yes, why blame Microsoft? The root cause of these working conditions falls squarely on the Chinese government and Chinese culture.
They profit by hiring these companies to force workers into inhumane situations. They certainly share much of the blame for not requiring their suppliers uphold basic human rights and for lying by telling us in their corporate policies that such is the case. MS has the power to stop this. As customers of MS you have the power to stop this. As voters in the country where MS is based you have the power to stop this. The question is, do you care or are you an apathetic lazy american who won't take action that inconveniences you to help their fellow man?
I see one singe photo... on a Daily Mail (tabloid) site... of people (who don’t look like children) hiding their faces...
Sorry, but while I would believe that MS has unfair sweat shops in Asia, neither does that site have any credibility nor does the photo show anything that proves anything.
It it were a set of photos, from someone I trust, that would be something different... (And I hope this happens.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
there being 'criticism' about something does not negate the validity of that thing. there are 'revisionists' who want the public to accept that holocaust never happened, and it was a hoax too, and they bring a lot of 'criticism' against history.
i wont go debating about this deeper and deeper. it is enough if you answer the below question :
if, some humanely inacceptable condition/practice is just changed a little to be different in its former condition only with some measure, and then a seeming but impracticle 'choice' is put in to the equation, and the same thing is named just differently, does this make that thing acceptably humane.
Read radical news here
The mostly female workers, aged 18 to 25, work from 7.45am to 10.55pm, sometimes with 1,000 workers crammed into one 105ft by 105ft room.
That's 10 square feet per worker. I think the only difference between here and there is that we have cubicle walls separating the 10sqfoot sections.
not to mention how disturbingly stupid the criticism is :
Wage slavery is also in contradiction to the classical liberal and libertarian notion of self-ownership. Under this view, a person is not free unless he can sell himself, because if a person does not own themself, they must be owned by either another individual or a group of individuals. The ability for anyone to consent to an activity or action would then be placed in the hands of a third party. Further, the third-party's ownership would also be in the hands of yet another individual or group. This regression of ownership would transfer ad infinitum and leave no one with the ability to coordinate their own actions or those of anyone else. The conclusion is therefore that if under wage slavery, self-ownership is not legitimate, there is no right for anyone then to claim enslavement to wages in the first place.[111]
so as long as you are the one SELLING YOURSELF, it is ok.
Read radical news here
I'm not sure how you can call them slaves, considering the following facts:
1.)They are not forced to work there, they can leave at any time.
2.)They are not forced to work overtime, they can go home instead of working late and not lose their jobs
3.)They earn a better than average wage for their region
4.)They work overtime because they choose to, and need the money (because the local economy is poor).
Slaves, however:
1.)Do not have a choice to work
2.)Do not have a choice in how long they work
3.)Do not earn a wage (though food and shelter is generally provided)
4.)Are allowed no concept of "overtime" - they work until the master says stop
5.)Don't get to consent to anything.
So exactly what part about these people's situation makes them slaves? They are poor because the economy in their region is shit. That does not make them slaves. 50 cents an hour is low by our standards, but one of the most common sociological mistakes people make is by judging the conditions of one society by the standards of another. In China, the gentleman in the article is in an ok position. Not a great position, but not a terrible one either relative to those around him. He has a future, and he can provide for himself. Would he be better off in America? Abso-frickin-lutely, but that does not mean he is bad off. It just means he is not as well off as he could be.
It definitely does not make him a slave. There are real cases of slavery in China - it's called human trafficking, and it's horrendous. This story is in no way like it. The place this guy works for can't be considered a "sweatshop", it's just harsh. There are jobs in America that are worse, but they aren't sweatshops.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Would you rather be helped by an uncaring person or killed by a caring person? It surprises me how some person care only about the emotional state, not whether someone does good or not. Maybe it's because it's a lot easier for people to feel rather than do.
You you rather agree with me and compromise your values or disagree with me and be a Nazi?
Nice fallacy buddy. I take option C.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
I'm pretty sure he was being serious, and I'm pretty sure you're being a dumbass. :)
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
And if she quits, she can find something else to do, or you will support her as necessary.
You mean like this Chinese guy who is supporting his parents who don't work?
Wow, great job man.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
as in ?
Read radical news here
there being 'criticism' about something does not negate the validity of that thing
It does in this case, as the criticism amply demonstrates. The term "wage slavery" was invented precisely in order to draw a false equivalence between employment and slavery. It is utterly meaningless for anyone other than self-deluded ideologues.
if, some humanely inacceptable condition/practice is just changed a little to be different in its former condition only with some measure, and then a seeming but impracticle 'choice' is put in to the equation, and the same thing is named just differently, does this make that thing acceptably humane.
I've already answered the general gist of that, and your attempt to couch it in hypotheticals just confuses the issue. Your phrasing would allow for absurd comparisons, such as a situation in which I force you to pick between the murder of your wife or the murder of your child. So no, I won't let you draw me in to that type of debate.
Stick to the facts. We're discussing a Chinese shop which pays minimum wage, has an 8 hour work day, and offers overtime. They employ people who seem to think that working there is better than any other alternative. The bitching quoted in the article is no different than what you'd hear from some zero-education drone working at a Dairy Queen. If you think that's slavery, then you're an idiot. Period, full stop. If you truly believe that, I see nothing left for us to discuss.
What programmers? These kids are putting together hardware. It's a shitty work study program, with shitty managers and shitty policies, and a lot of these kids don't know any better, but they are actually paid a decent wage compared to the rest of china.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
So worn out they fall asleep at their desks? They just look lazy to me.
It does in this case, as the criticism amply demonstrates. The term "wage slavery" was invented precisely in order to draw a false equivalence between employment and slavery. It is utterly meaningless for anyone other than self-deluded ideologues.
that is precisely why i am avoiding a discussion on the technical definitions. its easy to make escape routes by theory.
I've already answered the general gist of that, and your attempt to couch it in hypotheticals just confuses the issue. Your phrasing would allow for absurd comparisons, such as a situation in which I force you to pick between the murder of your wife or the murder of your child. So no, I won't let you draw me in to that type of debate.
Stick to the facts. We're discussing a Chinese shop which pays minimum wage, has an 8 hour work day, and offers overtime. They employ people who seem to think that working there is better than any other alternative. The bitching quoted in the article is no different than what you'd hear from some zero-education drone working at a Dairy Queen. If you think that's slavery, then you're an idiot. Period, full stop. If you truly believe that, I see nothing left for us to discuss.
yes you have answered it. and basically your answer justifies near slavery if the people submit themselves to those conditions willingly. there isnt too much of a stretch to go from that point to total slavery, and all it prevents that hop is just the naming technicality.
that is why i have specifically given you an example from post-slavery brasil in which slaves were supposedly free. i had asked you, whether the conditions created by plantation holders, which emulated slavery in all aspects, but with a different storefront, was ok. you havent answered this one. im waiting for that answer.
Read radical news here
Absolutely correct! They are MUCH more likely to work against human rights so they can get cheap labor closer to home. If they could get away with it they would breed Epsilons just like Brave new World.
For the Betas and Gammas, Prozac is the new Soma.
I'm not familiar with the case in Brazil, but if it's anything like what happened with black slaves in America after the abolition, then no, it wasn't slavery. I think the farmers who took advantage of the situation of their former-slaves were douchebags, but then again, if they hadn't been douchebags they wouldn't have had slaves in the first place.
The important thing is that while some (many?) farmers/plantation-owners decided to take advantage of the situation, that situation only persisted for the period which it took the freed slaves to create new options for themselves. And the difference between THAT and actual slavery is that slaves have ZERO chance of creating ANY new options for themselves. They have no rights. They can never leave. They can never chose to work for a better employer, or save enough money to buy a small piece of land. They have no right to refuse to be beaten or raped. All they can do is toil until they die.
No matter what your opinion, though, you're making a false comparison. Microsoft never owned any slaves. These people voluntarily came to work at a business which offers them decent pay and relatively safe working conditions. No amount of blabbing about plantations and slaves is going to change that. Instead of going off on tangents, why not just admit you've lost the argument?
Yes, why blame Microsoft? The root cause of these working conditions falls squarely on the Chinese government and Chinese culture.
I agree that the chinese government and culture are to blame. But microsoft isn't blameless since they're enabling the chinese government. The chinese government actually made an attempt to improve the situation of workers like these and microsoft (through an riaa type trade association) lobbied against the changes arguing that they would increase costs and drive work out of china, thus "hurting" the chinese workers. Of course, this was really just a thinly veiled threat to leave china if they made the slightest attempt to cost big corporations even another penny.
Big evil corporations conspiring with oppressive government is the real source of the problem here. And I believe there's only one solution for that.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
And does china offer any safety nets? unemployment, food stamps, medicare, or social security? At least here if your making very low wages, you can at least eat by getting food stamps. and while your not going to live well in retirement on social security, you at least have some retirement coming in. I think americans always think other countries work like here when that is rarely the case.
even though the workers *choose* to work there
But they don't have a choice. It's either working under these hard conditions and feeding their families, or see their children starve. I agree with granddad poster that the level of apathy in the replies is frightening. The reports from this article of the Daily Mail are no different than most other reports of worker's conditions in China. The conditions are, if anything, harsher than you would imagine from reading such articles.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
Because we're tired of people trying to make us feel outraged, and manipulate us with our outrage. The picture Microsoft doesn't want us to see? It looks like they are taking a company nap (something common in Asia).
Yeah, we all know that things suck in the world, and 15 hour work days suck for sure, but what is the alternative? It's not like these people are being forced to work there, they aren't slaves. They consider it better than the alternative (I say that based on my experience talking to 'sweatshop' workers). If you have a solution to end this sort of thing, I would be very interested in hearing it. Don't talk to me about boycotts, because that will send these people back to subsistence farming and even greater poverty. It's bad, but do you have a solution?
Qxe4
You'd be a king in China, though.
Cheapest beer price I found in China for a pint was $0.11. Average price $1.30. Cheapest pint of beer (retail) I could find in the US was about $.50 per. Average in the US is about $4 for a pint. That works out to about $1 an hour. If you go cheapest beer, you're looking at about $1.50. Beer isn't necessarily a good metric though.
Median income in China is about $1,000, and these kids are being paid about $2700, which is pretty damned excellent by Chinese standards. They just have to take a hell of a lot of abuse to make that much money, and of course, that's not a lot of money by our standards - it's equivalent to making about $15,000 or so in the US. Compared to the rest of China that would be like pulling in $135k (close to 3x the median) in the US. That of course, is because their standard of living is so low. They would not be able to afford the average US standard of living on those wages.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
And Microsoft is the only company among the dozens that contract with this company that is sending over a team to either rectify the situation or find a new company to do business with.
What's your point? That someone else found it first? So what? MS isn't sitting on their hands and ignoring it, they are doing something to fix the problem.
Why not bash the companies that don't give a shit instead?
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Don't say "corporations". In any corporation there are a small handful of *people* who are the executives and actually set policy and run the show. Motivations of intelligent people are complex and cannot be predicted using simple litmus tests. I've seen executives who have made seriously unethical business decisions also exhibit signs of tremendous compassion and empathy.
Every man is the hero of his own story, and human beings have a natural tendency to reciprocate the confidence that you place in them. Appealing to someone's good nature may not always work, but but demonizing them and trivializing their motivations *never* will. I'm not an idealist. I'm just pointing out your attitude is far too simplistic. It fosters a kind of us-versus-them groupthink that can never lead to anything but useless conflict.
They may improve the standards of their suppliers, but they treat their domestic employees like shit. It's almost like they are trying to bring the two together somewhere in the middle.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
I'm not familiar with the case in Brazil, but if it's anything like what happened with black slaves in America after the abolition, then no, it wasn't slavery. I think the farmers who took advantage of the situation of their former-slaves were douchebags, but then again, if they hadn't been douchebags they wouldn't have had slaves in the first place.
you should be familiar with the post-slavery situation in brasil, and other countries who practiced slavery, in order to be able to this freely declare that something that is near slavery is ok, if there is a seeming 'choice'. seeming is the keyword here. i advise you to take up on some history research. you wont regret it.
The important thing is that while some (many?) farmers/plantation-owners decided to take advantage of the situation, that situation only persisted for the period which it took the freed slaves to create new options for themselves. And the difference between THAT and actual slavery is that slaves have ZERO chance of creating ANY new options for themselves. They have no rights. They can never leave. They can never chose to work for a better employer, or save enough money to buy a small piece of land. They have no right to refuse to be beaten or raped. All they can do is toil until they die.
there is the problem. if you move from ZERO chance to 1% chance of some opportunity, that doesnt make the new condition any different. back during slavery slaves also had the chance to run away and pretend as freemen, therefore passing as freemen in the north in united states, and maybe finding a job too. but, the chances were very slim to the point of nonexistent.
No matter what your opinion, though, you're making a false comparison. Microsoft never owned any slaves. These people voluntarily came to work at a business which offers them decent pay and relatively safe working conditions. No amount of blabbing about plantations and slaves is going to change that. Instead of going off on tangents, why not just admit you've lost the argument?
it is evident that you are no enthusiast of history. however i will humor you and establish what near slavery means, and how it is being perpetrated in current system, since you have established that you are not someone who is pro slavery. therefore i take it that your misconceptions and overly enthusiastic idealism about the current system we are living in, and its ramifications, are either due to you being rather young, or being too devoid of historical knowledge. so i will establish what modern slavery is and how it is perpetrated even in united states for you :
first, very little chance of happening for something and that thing actually being forbidden are no different. if there is very slim chance of something happening, you dont need to forbid it or enforce it anyway. this is a logical axiom. ie, since there is no chance that someone can actually topple empire state building by leaning on one of its walls, we do not see the need to forbid leaning against its walls. i doubt you would find this objectionable.
therefore, all you need to perpetuate some situation that you desire, is to lower chances of anything other than that situation happening.
now lets take a look at the income and wealth distribution in united states, from recent stats :
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/images/wealth/Figure_1.gif
in this picture you will see wealth distribution in united states. 80% of population can command only 7% of financial wealth. whereas, top 5% commands 73% of country's total financial wealth. top 5% has 62% of country's total worth, whereas bottom 80% has only 15% of its net worth. the disparage between incomes of top wage earners (ceos) and factory workers are even larger and getting larger with time.
original source :
Read radical news here
I don't think they care much about stockholders either. Just look at some of the scams over the last decade of executives screwing over stockholders with faked accounting/audits.
You you rather agree with me and compromise your values or disagree with me and be a Nazi?
Nice fallacy buddy. I take option C.
Declaring something to be a fallacy when it is not, is also a fallacy. In the case of our subject, the choice is being allowing these employers to work their employees at the wages described or to interfere and cause some or all of these workers to lose their jobs.
A common myth along these lines is the "Ford Five Dollar Day". The myth is that Ford, by offering his workers above average pay (along with a heaping helping of amateur psychology), created the demand for his cars. The reality is that Ford needed to pay his workers more in order that they would stay and work. Even if each of his workers bought a car at regular price, they wouldn't have been enough to keep Ford in business. Now suppose aliens came by and were horrified by the working conditions of Ford's factories? It is possible that either Ford couldn't meet those conditions (he wasn't making a very pricey car in the first place) or that he might end up with a much smaller and less efficient business making much more expensive cars. The relatively terrible working conditions went away but so did some of the jobs and some of the valuable goods produced.
I think this is the sort of choice we face here which is where my original question came in. Kind people who will kill jobs and raise the price of manufactured goods or unkind people who employ more workers and deliver cheaper goods. The former harms despite their intentions while the latter helps despite their mercenary motivations.
Such uncaring, heartless bastards...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
My wife works for the British NHS - the following is a comparison.
She is regularly rostered in for 12.5 hour shifts, but is required to stay until the patient she is handling has been dealt with - if she takes on an A&E case 30 minutes before she is scheduled to finish, that case can take up to 4 hours to conclude, and she is not allowed to leave until then. She is still required to turn up for the next shift on time.
Sounds like the last call center I worked at. I was pulling 12 hour shifts regularly (I got to leave early on Saturday though! Yay?) and couldn't leave until my last call was done, which was memorable when it was a call that had to be done via a translator. Four hours to diagnose a printer. And yes, had to be in the next day.
She is not allowed to take extended breaks, short comfort breaks are all she is permitted and any meals she takes are routinely interrupted - the longest she has had to eat a meal in the past 6 months is 20 minutes uninterrupted.
We were allowed to take breaks at specific times. Missed it because of a long call? Well, you can take it if your boss okays it. Need to go to the bathroom when not on break? Gotta fill out a form when you get back explaining why you left your desk on company time!
She is regularly pressured by the Trust to declare that she has not worked past her legal limit, even though they both know that she was rostered on to work way past that limit.
Fortunately we didn't have that. But we were fired if we made any insurance claims. Well, not fired, but things happened, like your shifts suddenly started fluctuating madly. Oh, you work 12 PM to 12 AM on Saturday and next week your 12 hour shift starts at 12 AM on Sunday? Sorry, scheduling error, we'll see about it. You still gotta work it, though. It's not 24 consecutive hours, it's two 12 hour shifts, just like you do now! In fact, you have to sign out and back in between them or you'll be listed as forgetting to sign out and not get paid for the second one. Have a nice day!
She does not get to plan her holidays, she gets told when she is on holiday, sometimes without any notice (she was told she was on holiday last week on the friday before).
Yup. So, by my math, my last job was about half as evil as hers. Still sucked, though. I'll be starving before I work at a call center again.
My point? The western world has its own little sweat shops and no one gives a damn.
And HOW!
you sounded like reasonable individual, only to come out as another right wing nutjob in the end. anyway. youll grow out of it with time.
Read radical news here
And if she quits, she can find something else to do, or you will support her as necessary.
What wage are you making that you can comfortably support two people for the months and months it takes to find a job in this market? Can I have your job?
In any corporation there are a small handful of *people* who are the executives and actually set policy and run the show.
These people ARE the corporation; at least, its brains and conscience. Too bad sociopathy is almost mandatory to succeed in one of these positions.
Appealing to someone's good nature may not always work, but but demonizing them and trivializing their motivations *never* will.
Tell that to the survivors of the people who died in the chicken plant fire in the US a decade or so ago because management chained the doors shut to keep them from stealing chicken parts. Tell that to the private owner of the filthy peanut factory that sickened so many people last year. Tell that to the survivors of the mine explosion a few weeks ago after the mine failed inspection after inspection.
You can't appeal to a sociopath's sense of compassion; he has none, although he can feign it when needed.
Free Martian Whores!
But they don't have a choice. It's either working under these hard conditions and feeding their families, or see their children starve.
Really? So you're saying people can't possibly quit those jobs? Even though the fucking source for the article *says people quit those jobs*? Huh. Interesting. So I guess you're privy to information no one else is, then?
And Microsoft is the only company among the dozens that contract with this company that is sending over a team to either rectify the situation or find a new company to do business with.
Citation please.
What's your point? That someone else found it first? So what? MS isn't sitting on their hands and ignoring it, they are doing something to fix the problem.
My point is MS isn't actively looking for problems and insuring compliance among their suppliers as they should be or they would have found it first.
I'm bashing MS for ignoring human rights complaints against them for many, many years. If they say they'll look into one incident because it got too much publicity, that sounds like spin rather than a real commitment. I certainly condemn all companies with this attitude and I try to avoid doing business with them as well, including HP and Dell.
I've been there and the report is mostly factually accurate, but the "tone" is to make it out like there's some secret abuses. It's how all the factories in China work. And the other point is the workers like it and come back for more. They chose that over subsistence farming. They could leave any time, but most likely moved there specifically to find a factory job, knowing what is in involved, and, though I wouldn't say they "like" their jobs (ask the American workers in malls or McDonalds if they "like" their jobs), they are content for the most part.
Learn to love Alaska
But no one cares as long as their newest toy is affordable.
Just be grateful no one is losing a limb folding promotional materials.
Those without families could probably afford not to work there and quit, but those with families to support and no other means of income have no choice but to work in those conditions.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
The cost savings in China aren't from the labor. The labor is essentially free, but that's nothing compared to the lack of corporate controls. If you could make a $100 robot that could assemble mice in the US and you'd never have to pay it or give it health care or fund retirement, it would still be cheaper to make the item in China (though it might be close enough that with shipping and the coveted Made in USA sticker someone might shift to making it in the US, but those are considerations external to my point). The EPA, OSHA, IRS, FTC all drive up costs with costs of compliance. In something like this, I'd say EPA rules are the greatest cost, but again it depends. The super-cheap labor is a bonus, but making plastic-cased electronics in the US from the raw materials is a messy business, and if you have someone sniffing your tailpile the whole time, the costs of cleaning it up and paying for tests and such to make sure it stays that way are expensive.
Learn to love Alaska
A mid-level civil service worker in China gets paid about $500 a month in a well-developed city. He lives comfortably on this salary, bought his own 1-bedroom place, goes out to eat in restaurants on weekends, and has a decent PC computer and Internet connection. This is an educated knowledge worker with an M.S. degree.
You can't apply a Western minimum wage to a place where you can rent an apartment for less than the price of my California utility bills.
As for the rest of your comment, I didn't read it.
FYI, I did read it. It was quite interesting and very thoughtful.
"I'm bashing MS for ignoring human rights complaints against them for many, many years. If they say they'll look into one incident because it got too much publicity, that sounds like spin rather than a real commitment. I certainly condemn all companies with this attitude and I try to avoid doing business with them as well, including HP and Dell. "
The issue is that you're doing it with extreme bias. In your original response to me you noted that in the 2006 investigation the issues were merely too much overtime- in other words you were simply parotting Apple's PR response. Look at the fucking dormitories they have to live in, and 80 FORCED hours extra per month? that's pretty fucking excessive:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/26/ipod-city-admits-labor-law-violations/
You can bash Microsoft's record all you want, but don't try and suggest Apple's is better- if Apple are really doing regular audits since 2006 and really care, then how the fuck did they get away with using child labour and so forth in the first place? The audits obviously aren't very effective if knowing full well that it's a big deal they weren't able to deter it. What about the workers who were poisoned elsewhere by n-hexane, one of whom died as a result that Apple refused to comment on? Or does that not count as an issue because Apple didn't give you a nicely worded PR statement about it?
As I say, slag Microsoft off for it all you want, slag any company off for it, but when you try and defend Apple for it when they're very clearly at least as guilty, that just makes you a fanboy, period. You say you boycott HP and Dell, but tell me, do you do business with Apple? is this how you justify it by telling yourself it's not as bad, by simply swallowing their PR statements, rather than those of the 3rd party independent investigative journalists who broke the story?
If you consume Apple kit, at very least quit trying to pretend that you're not part of the problem.
Those without families could probably afford not to work there and quit, but those with families to support and no other means of income have no choice but to work in those conditions.
Well, or they could just go back to farming and survive like their ancestors did for generations. 'course, they don't do that because these jobs are better than any job their ancestors ever had (which do you think is better, working 15 hours in a factory, or working 15 hours farming dirt? I know what I'd pick).
The only actual humans they give a damn about are their stockholders.
Corporations will move production back here as soon as their stockholders agree to work for the same low wages as those foreigners, which will allow prices to stay at or near their current levels. As others point out, it's not the corporations keeping production overseas, it's their customers.
Just thought I would point out the following:
"He was nothing but a nerdy college kid messing with computers in his garage when he struck it rich, and now he is at the apex."
He was indeed a nerdy college kid, that is without dispute. But he was also at Harvard at the time, and he did not exactly come from a humble background. His father was a prominent lawyer, and his mother was on the board for a bank and the US United Way.
By no means is Bill Gates a moron, and certainly his upbringing was not a total pre-requisite to his success. But much of his later success was probably stoked by having access to a computer from his high-end prep school, and his family connections were certainly not a hindrance to his admission to Harvard. (High SAT scores themselves certainly don't get you into Harvard, and Bill Gates certainly didn't win admission through his social skills.)
Just nit-picking here though... overall your post is excellent!
SirWired
The original report was little more than a Microsoft bash piece. From the very first sentence there was an extremely heavy anti-Microsoft bias, and it continued in the language throughout the entire thing. You would think Microsoft management were dictating the conditions that these poor "slaves" were working under by the language in the report
.
Any time they left the compound they called it "fleeing", even though the workers clearly state that they are not required to work any over time, but they choose to because they need the money.
They highlight cultural differences - like sponge baths and sleeping on hard mats - as though these are unusual conditions cruelly thrust upon the workers at KYE. They aren't. That's how the Chinese prefer to do things - sponge baths instead of showers and hard mats (or wood planks and some blankets) to sleep on.
Even underage workers - they make a big deal about it, but the legal minimum age to work in China is actually significantly higher than in the US. Yeah putting 14 year olds to work is against Chinese law, but it's a far cry from a human rights violation.
The things that seemed like real issues to me - being required to live in dorms and being locked in at night, and occasionally working without pay if a quota was missed - were not the focus of the article. It was all about how poorly a "Microsoft Worker" was treated.
In other words, it sounds like there were some legitimate issues, but the report much preferred pulling cheap shots and taking things way out of context instead of highlighting the real issues.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
I hope no one is surprised.
companies know this goes on, how the heck do you think we get stuff made for so cheap?
You don't want this stuff to happen, quit allowing our companies to make our products over seas.
Sure, we'll pay more, but then, we'd be paying to keep american familys feed and knowing their kids are in school, instead of making our mice.
Here's some history.
You know what started the end of most big empires? When they started importing more then they exported.
So say good bye to the USA, because we are on our way out.
Be seeing you...
And, of all places, he chose Australia. I'm an idealist myself but if that passes for idealism nowadays, I think we might as well succumb.
11 cents... at that price, that beer can't taste any better than drinking a bucket of horsepiss....?
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
that the majority are from uncaring scumbags defending these working conditions.
Some of us are not Americans/Europeans, and are intimately familiar with concepts such as "average quality of life", "purchasing power", and similar other things important to properly assessing this issue, but which are conspiciously absent from TFA.
Troll?...Seriously?!? This is a perspective that I have never, ever heard, and I'm sure most slashdotters agree given that they ranked his two comments +5 Interesting and +5 Informative.
Those are fair questions (asked politely) and I am genuinely curious about the answers. I'm honestly not yet sure what to think about the whole US healthcare issue because, unlike some people, I don't make knee-jerk reactions to things I don't fully understand.
Go ahead...mod me down again, jerk!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siesta
Afternoon sleep is also a common habit in China and Taiwan after the midday meal. This is called '"wujiao()" in Chinese. Almost all schools in Mainland China and Taiwan have a half-hour nap period right after lunch. This is a time when all lights are out and one is not allowed to do anything other than rest or sleep.
Some Japanese offices have special rooms known as napping rooms for their workers to take a nap during lunch break or after overtime work.
I cover this every time the "sweatshop" discussion rears its head, so here we go again. These companies build these "sweatshops" precisely because operating costs, including labor, are cheaper in countries such as China. You can go on and on about how they should pay their workers "fair" wages and provide better working conditions. Let's ignore for a moment the fact that a "fair" wage is whatever the company is offering that the worker is willing to accept. Instead, let's focus on what would happen if these companies were forced, presumably through legal action, to pay workers the same, and provide the same working conditions, as would be required in, say, the US. If that were to occur, there would be zero, absolutely zero, incentive for these companies to open up their "sweatshops" in these countries. Why bother to assemble parts in a poor country at the same cost as assembling them in a rich country, if on top of that cost you then have to export them for sale to places where people can afford them? If that happened, all those workers earning "unfair" wages would have no source of employment at all. Their bare subsistence wages would turn to no wages, and they would starve. So, all these misguided "humanitarians" who cry foul and demand that sweatshops be shut down are actually demanding that the workers in the sweatshops be put out of work and left to rot in the gutter. When the choice is a crappy job and some food in your belly, versus unemployment and destitution, the crappy job is clearly preferable (and to those who don't agree with that sentiment, they are always free to pursue destitution).
The EPA, OSHA, IRS, FTC all drive up costs with costs of compliance.
True, and all those entities are sorely needed. Before the Clean Air Act in 1970 you literally could not breathe driving past Monsanto; the air burned your lungs. Government is there to protect me from Monsanto, do they have the right to poison me? OSHA is there to protect the factory worker from his cheapassed employer, and if they had been on the ball that mining company couldn't have murdered* those miners last month. If the FTC were on the ball the economy probably wouldn't have melted down (but Bush did the appointing; the FTC was probably run by somebody like "Good Job Brownie").
And you can't have those protections against amoral money grubbing sociopathic thieving billionaires without taxes.
*Negligent homicide, but don't expect anybody to go to prison over that mass murder.
Free Martian Whores!
Thank you for a well-written comprehensive expansion on my point. Much of the description in TFA is of what is common, accepted, even desirable in that culture; assured they hear "horror stories" of Americans living/working/eating/sleeping in ways that shock/outrage them yet are normal to us. In neither culture are conditions Utopian, but they are indeed in large part what participants accept - even desire - as normal.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
True, and all those entities are sorely needed.
I'm not sure if you completely missed my point, or if it just triggered a tangent for you. Whether they are good is 100% irrelevant. You bear the cost of them in the US and you don't in China. The result to the environment or whatever is irrelevant to sociopaths like corporations. The Chinese will require environmental and worker safety at some point, but they don't really do it now, and won't until they either feel pressure to do so, whether external or internal. But for today, the manufacturing costs are disproportionate because of such issues.
Or, to tie your tangent back in, if we in the US declare those to be important functions, then we should tax incoming goods based off the added cost those functions add. So goods made in China will cost the same as in the US. Places with similar structures, like Europe and Australia, will have "free trade" and China would have a hefty tariff. But that would never happen because if we had to internalize the costs for the goods we bought, it would have a drastic affect on our purchases and thus economy.
Learn to love Alaska
In answer to your question, nationalised healthcare is something I would not do without, and would support with great effort.
Being able to walk into a hospital and get treated for any ailment without cost to myself is fantastic. Not having to sort out healthcare insurance for each visit to the doctors is amazing, and not having to worry about the cost of a hospital stay for any reason is the best feeling in the world.
I get to pay £7 odd per item for prescription items, regardless of how much the drug or treatment actually costs. If the prescription item costs less than £7, the pharmacy typically offers to sell me it over the counter rather than on prescription, and I save money. Again, not having to worry about insurance costs and affiliated drug requirements is amazing.
The problem with the NHS is not the service they provide, or the concept of nationalised or socialised healthcare - its the way the NHS has become top heavy, and that is going to happen in any scenario.
When it was created, the NHS was truly national - today, its regional, with Primary Care Trusts dictating the individual level of treatments in its region and hospitals.
The very concept of the Primary Care Trust regions brings in the so called post-code lottery, where some people will get some treatments and others will not. It of course also duplicates administration positions et al.
But the NHS also tries to con itself...
GP practices are businesses (GPs are privately employed by private practices, and have a service contract with the NHS), and hospitals are set up to be business like - GPs are given treatment budgets by the NHS, and when they refer to a hospital for treatment the hospital gets to bill the GP practice for the amount. The problem is, the GP budget includes aftercare treatment such as pain relief, and the hospital bills for that as well but doesn't dispense it all (for example, a hip replacement budget item will include two weeks of pain relief, but the hospital will dispense one week on discharge of the patient - the patient can ask for the second week, but the aim is that they will go to the GP for it and not the hospital, so the GP pays twice).
So in my view the concept is fine, and it does actually work, but its the current realisation that is the issue.
we should tax incoming goods based off the added cost those functions add
I agree completely, but since the multinational corporations own the US government lock, stock, and barrel, don't expect it to ever happen.
Free Martian Whores!