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Use of Forced Labor "Systemic" In Malaysian IT Manufacturing
itwbennett (1594911) writes "The use of forced labor is so prevalent in the Malaysian electronics manufacturing industry that there is hardly a major brand name that isn't touched by the illegal practice, according to a report funded by the U.S. Department of Labor and undertaken by Verité, a nonprofit organization focused on labor issues. The two-year study surveyed more than 500 migrant workers at around 200 companies in Malaysia's IT manufacturing sector and found one in three were working under conditions of forced labor."
Which is what, a euphemism for "slavery" ?
Isn't that the GOAL of Capitalism??
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
...then it's not really a job.
Doesn't matter if it's 'clean' multilevel marketing, paying a 'headhunter' to market you to local companies in your area, or paying someone to get you to a job somewhere else, if you're paying, then it's not a job.
At least around here, headhunters are paid by the companies that need workers with particular skills. That's a negotiation between the company and the headhunter. Good headhunters actually take the time to talk to prospective workers to determine their skill sets, so that they can develop a reputation of being good matchmakers between companies and workers. Bad ones just send anyone through with keywords that might sort of apply.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
this right? After all its a global economy.
Globalization has a fringe benefit: you can just make your products in countries where slavery is legal!
(For the uninformed, Malaysia and its neighbor Thailand make the majority of the world's hard drives.)
Lack of regulation and oversight breeds rampant victimization of the labor force?!
And this is news how? There's a reason our tech products are so cheap and it's not because the robots are making them (which is what will inevitably happen, just not yet)
Shut up, you communist .
--
roman_mir
In this case, that's all I need to say.
These new batches of "Capitalist Commie" countries sometimes have the worst of both capitalism and communism, such as 1) wage slavery, and 2) no ability to do anything about it politically.
One could argue the US was such a country during the late 1800's. The "big 3" mega-oligopolies bribed the system up the wazoo such that democracy was a zombie at the time. (Some argue we are headed back that way now.)
Table-ized A.I.
The Horror! Isn't the use of that bloatware banned by some UN Charter? Have they no sympathy for the plight of computers under the burden of that cpu hogging virus allowing software!
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I'm disappointed by the many people (all Americans, as far as I can tell) who post here to say, "fuck no! I'd never be so stupid!!!". This, I think, shows an extremely narrow understanding of the world. Because:
a) America is not the world. There are *many* places where you're expected to pay for your job, in one way or another. Sometimes it's above-board, sometimes not. I don't know about Malaysia, but wouldn't be surprised at all if that was the custom there.
b) Oh, wait, we have this in America, too! I paid LOTS of money to my managing broker when I was a real-estate agent. These are standard fees: Everyone at every agency pays them. And let's not forget the *MINIMUM WAGE* workers forced to pay for their uniforms and so forth.
So stop with the high-and-mighty. You're speaking from ignorance, not strength.
Tom Geller
Are these the people I'm told we must compete against in a world economy?
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Here, you can cite this now in case any more idiots bring it up in the console fanboy war. All electronics are made by slave labor, your suspicions are confirmed.
[Libertarian]
These people should just sue their employer, and it will end this practice.
[/Libertarian]
As I understand it, the economy in the south was dependent to slave labor.
But of course, that is no excuse. If we lived then, we would have nothing to do with the practice of forced labor, even if it did wreck the economy. Right?
You're making a point about how screwed up things are, which is not far off from what we actually live with. To be fair to the concept, the intent behind the idea of Capitalism was division of labor to minimize the crap work we all have to do in order to take care of each other. Unfortunately a bunch of jerks figured out how to game the system and we've all failed to maintain rule #0 - Don't let jerks or cheaters take over the playground.
I don't know how to make playground rules apply to the really real world, but that's the thing we've never figured out. Most of us know that the playground is for everyone who wants to play, that we have to get along even if we don't like each other, and that one way or another we all have to take care of each other. Most of us actually know how to do all that too. But we haven't figured out a good way to keep the jerks from taking over and forcing everyone to play by crap rules that aren't fun for anyone except them.
(wish I could get this stupid g+ login to work. whatever)
"...workers forced to pay for their uniforms and so forth."
Where in the us is the legal?
Also, where you self employed as an agent?
OTOH, you were a real estate agent, so nothing you say is worth squat.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Don't worry the free market will fix this. In the long run the invisible hand will ensure employees are treated better and will raise everyone's standard of living.
The "long run" lasts longer than we can expect to live unfortunately.
Actually that is a common myth. The Republicans of Lincoln who fought for the principles of freedom is the same today. The difference is that a key Democrat switch from being an outright racist in the 1960's to being a social welfare Democrat which gave them enough votes to get some power. The group that changed was the Democrats, for power, not the Republicans. But the myth goes on.
This is really sad.
Malaysia is over 30% Chinese and over 10% Indian because, during colonial times, the native population refused to work the tin mines. So the British flooded the country with _willing_ Chinese and Indian immigrants. Now those populations are much more wealthy than the native Malay population.
Are the Malays repeating the same mistakes all over again? Is this some kind of Muslim thing, 'cause it's also prevalent on the Arabian Peninsula.
You can make all the jokes you want about America importing labor from Mexico, but unless you've visited these other countries you really have no idea what it actually looks like to have _all_ your labor performed by immigrants.
And this isn't about greedy companies. In all these countries the immigrant labor practices are _encouraged_ by the populist governments. It's insane.
Motorola built a factory in the states and did just fine. They only moved it over seas because slave labor is still cheaper, but they were plenty profitable and selling the phones for competitive prices.
I've been filling the head of a good friend of mine with liberalism and it prompted his Dad to ask "What do you have against Profit". This. This is what I have against profit. It's _never_ enough.
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Let's play devil's advocate here. Let's think about this assuming we don't care about the mass suffering, slavery and murder of humans, which is kinda bad enough already for us to try to end this practice any way we can. Say we are just bare naked capitalists, only interested in profit, past the point even Adam Smith would find horrific.
This is still bad enough for us to care.
We can't use slavery to produce our products because of laws and non-corruption in our countries, nor can we change our system to allow slavery. It would cost too much. So there is no way we can compete with Malaysia who is allow things, official or not. They are gaining an 'unfair' advantage by resorting to this practice that only they can use.
Therefore, even if you are an inhuman psychopathic capitalist (or at least a long-term high functioning one), you should care about abolishing slavery, since it grants those who do an unfair advantage.
OK, let's put it this way - if you don't show up in uniform, you're sent home and don't get invited back to the party. The employer gives you a list of place(s) to buy your uniforms. How you pay for those is up to you. This happened at the first low wage job I had (as an orderly in a nursing home), as a construction worker (you couldn't show up in tennis shoes), and I'm pretty sure that's the case in almost any place in this country where low-wage employees are hired. And it's completely legal. So legal that you're allowed to write those off as a tax deduction. So, yeah, it's not "paying for a job" per se, but it does put a financial burden on people who are just starting one.
That is all.
Don't forget authors and actors, who have to pay agents to intermediate, or they don't get contracts.
If you don't want to pay a broker, keep taking classes. My mom use to work for property management companies but got tired of getting screwed by the bosses after she would continue to bring in new clients, growing their businesses.
What did she do, she went and took the classes to become a broker. It's a lot of testing you pass at state level a believe.
Also, some retail jobs do in fact demand you have a certain uniform and that you figure it out on your own. I know Vons in southern Cali does. They will of course give anyone a uniform loan which you pay back out of each check automatically.
Then again, the uniform is as simple as black slacks, white shirt and a tie. If you don't want to continue to dress in a white shirt and tie, you can purchase the optional shirts that are a beige color and forgo the tie. I think it's like $15 a shirt but S&H kills so we usually try and take a big order for the whole store to save on that.
That 'switching parties' is Soviet-grade historical revisionism. Until the Reagan era the South was dominated by the Democrats; the only 'switching' was during the Johnson 1960's Rights and Social Welfare issues that a series of Democrats (who usually blocked such votes), switched to supporting the Social Welfare issues in order to keep their party relevant and winning elections. The only 'strategic switch' was by a Democrat who realized which way the wind was blowing.
Make everyone who is there have to leave no if ands or buts.
So does anyone here believe Malaysian IT needs a union to help them?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Slaves were very expensive compared to immigrants. With immigrants you could treat them just as bad and when they got weak move on to the next batch. With slaves you had money sunk in. The south also had huge amounts of capital sunk into slaves. If you're selling someone's buying, and that costs money. It's one of the reasons they were so far behind the curve on the industrial revolution...
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the real capitalists are global. They benefit from us competing with cheaper labor. Marx predicted this but all anyone can remember about him is that a few dictators used his books for rhetoric.
As for Adam Smith, he actually as against this sort of naked capitalism. He wrote at a time of small merchant artisans. He didn't see the industrial revolution coming and if he had probably wouldn't have written the books he did. These days he's like Marx: all anybody remembers about him is what fits in with what they want.
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I don't know about Malaysia, but wouldn't be surprised at all if that was the custom there.
No, it's not the custom here. With respect to the article, the payments are made by the migrant workers to the brokers in their home state, e.g. Bangladesh, before they step foot in Malaysia.
Don't fornicate. Seriously, just don't do it.
So what your saying is that Democrats used to not give a shit about Civil Rights and Social Welfare before the 60's and they did afterwards? And that is used to argue against the Southern Strategy and Dixiecrats being responsible for a "swap" in political party agendas?
Whether you say Dems started giving a shit about minorities in the 60's or Pubs stopped giving a shit about minorities in the 60's, the point is the parties switched how they felt about tolerance, equality, and civil rights in the 60's. So anything the the Pubs did in regards to that before the 60's can no longer be used to claim that you should support that party for those actions today.
I finally updated my sig, but now it's lame.
to all of our problems. We should start using slavery in the USA to make us competitive with foreign markets that have no qualms about using it in an attempt to defeat us in the world market.
I strongly recommend using folks with IQs below 104, and those who would otherwise end up in prison more than once (because clearly they can't be cured of their sickness). That may actually encourage Americans to actually pay attention in school and avoid criminal activities. There will always be plenty of people of African descent that fail to make the grade, so members of other races will only become slaves if they are intellectually and genetically inferior.
Republicans freed the slaves.
No, no, that was the Democrats. Just ask the Democrats. There was some naming confusion back in those days, when people didn't know any better. Probably all the Republicans' fault.
Oddly President Obama seems to want a return to the slave trade in the guise of "shortage of skilled workers" but instead of Africa it is India as the slave labour workforce. I have yet to work with an intelligent, competent Indian. I met a few at university; they were all women yet in the workplace they're treated horridly by their Indian male counterparts. President Obama is a traitor to the United States of America. For a constitutional legal scholar he certainly disrespects the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights and Freedoms. Islamic State mentality much?
Pretty much. There's an expression that's often used to demonize management in the workplace as it's attributed to them saying it, "...but what have you done for me today?"
It works a lot better when applied to political parties. There's a sliding scale for how much worth one should put on the past actions of a political party, and actions a decade-old without either further followup or continued attempts to followup are meaningless.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Actually the idea of 'switched' is completely incorrect and you are using that word where it does not apply. Republicans _always_ stood for individual liberty. No change. Still working to protect the rights of the individual (even though you would argue not the right to stay out of the bedroom, i.e. abortion, even though one could well argue that the baby is a _different_ person with individual rights). The only switching, again, was when a body of Democrats in the 1960s switched to the social welfare platform. It worked out well for them. And today they try to whitewash their past by pretending they all swapped roles. Horsey puck.
In India 80% people are slaves.
They're called Lower caste.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Casteism
The republican party was considered the liberal party of the time.
However, Lincoln, would be considered split by today's standards.
For example, he spent money and land to help push trains to the west. it would be akin to the liberals work on Alternative Energy.
OTOH, He pushed for freeing the slaves, but it was because he wanted to solve the divide over the issue. In fact, he wanted to send all blacks back to Africa (even if they were from the Caribbean or elsewhere, or were born in America). THis is no different than what the GOP wants with Latinos.
Lincoln wanted a balanced budget, similar to what dems do, but increased the deficits each year throughout his terms, like the GOP do.
Today's GOP is only similar to Lincoln's GOP, in the absolute WORST ways.
"If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care." --Nelson Mandela
Casteism