Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

nlcnet.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 201 posts

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#51

Post by whyme »

NEWS BULLETIN - North Americans benefit from trade practices that reap the rewards in taking advantage of other countries less protected workers. YUP.

For those of you that are complaining about how the article is merely story spinning to target Microsoft, I think you're de-sensitized.

Comparing the worst places to work in North America to the average place to work in China may make yourself feel better, but it's just dishonest thinking. If an American wanted to buy a Computer Mouse would you not think it easier and cheaper to buy one locally? Of course not, because there's too many other countries with unprotected workers to take advantage of that make it cheaper for US..... doesn't this basic concept lend any understanding that there's something wrong here? It does to me. If the treatment norm were that same as you're own country then the product cost would go up.

The playing field isn't level and that's ok, but that doesn't mean we should feel good about taking advantage of them. I know, I know - we're helping them right? Give me a break. There are ways to help them while not taking advantage of them.

Don't buy from countries that don't meet the treatment norms your own country has. It raises the bar for them, and they will to get our business. Meanwhile it's not like Americans couldn't use the work. Yes product costs go up, but so do local jobs increase and quite frankly maybe inflation is the cost of being ethical, maybe North Americans should be a little less wealthy and little more honest.

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#52

Post by yummyfajitas »

binarymax wrote: post #13

The comment that kept jumping out at me was using a bucket as a shower. I was living in Thailand for about 1.5 years and apart from my lavish westernized apartment in Bangkok, about half the places I stayed in had buckets for showers. The first time I used one I kind of complained, but I got used to it quickly. Then, when I moved back to England, my girlfriend at the time lived in a council flat. There was a bathtub…

Even fairly rich Indian families often use bucket baths rather than showers.

I know of a a wealthy stock broker in India, and his estate is unusual in that it has a shower. He never bothered to hook it up to the hot water since no one uses it.

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#53

Post by cosmicray »

rubyrescue wrote: post #14

How do people who are appalled by this not contribute to it without exiting the world of technology altogether? I can't imagine the factories for Apple or Dell are any better... Is there a "no-sweatshop" watchdog organization for tech that says what equipment is manufactured in better conditions?

With respect to Apple, they annually publish a supplier responsibility report. You can get access to it here ... http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/

I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide if Apple's professed claims make it better than what is depicted in the OP's story.

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#54

Post by Zarkonnen »

potatolicious wrote: post #35
lutorm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Privileged white collars shocked and dismayed that blue collar work can really, really suck. News at 11." Your comment made me think: Privileged white collar shows complete disregard for those that have it worse. News at 11.

Despite what you might think, I'm no Ayn Rand-quoting objectivist ;) What I do think is that this article makes much ado about nothing - sweatshop labor permitted my parents' generation to pull themselves out of poverty, get educated, and get white collar jobs - in fact my mother and all of her siblings eventually all got white collar, comfortable desk jobs. What we're looking at is a country in a natural evolutionar…

I think the big question is if sweatshop labour still does do this.

AFAIK most of this work is now done via sub-sub-subcontractors and goes on in special economic zones. Workers are usually employed for the short term and the work may randomly migrate to a SEZ in a different country to take advantage of "tax holidays", periods of no tax for when a company first sets up in a SEZ. There are no permanent factories or permanent jobs. Wages don't rise because it's easy to just go to some other place where people are desperate for work, literally shipping the workshop to the new location.

So what ends up happening is that the workers never work at the same thing for long enough to acquire skills or wage rises and that they don't make enough money for a proper education. And the assembly lines are so ephemeral and set apart from normal society that no infrastructure or know-how ever accumulates in the country.

So this ain't your parents' kind of sweatshop. Literally.

(Note that I'm talking about the kind of sweatshops that assemble consumer goods in general here, not specifically the one in the article. I have no specific insight about that one, but this is the general trend - this is where the west gets its clothes and gadgets from.)

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#55

Post by [deleted] »

potatolicious wrote: post #16

This article, IMHO, is written by someone who has no idea how things work just about anywhere that's not the industrialized West, and is shocked and appalled that things aren't as awesome as they are in the US of A. It's a also a reminder for those of us who live in such ridiculous comfort and freedom that it can get much, much worse. That being said, I think this article is sensationalist tripe: > "The idea that ‘wi…

[deleted]

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#57

Post by illumin8 »

potatolicious wrote: post #16

This article, IMHO, is written by someone who has no idea how things work just about anywhere that's not the industrialized West, and is shocked and appalled that things aren't as awesome as they are in the US of A. It's a also a reminder for those of us who live in such ridiculous comfort and freedom that it can get much, much worse. That being said, I think this article is sensationalist tripe: > "The idea that ‘wi…

My mother-in-law worked in a factory in Taiwan in the 1960s. They didn't believe in providing ear protection to their workers and the loud machinery caused her permanent hearing loss in both ears that she still suffers from to this day. She can only hear out of one ear with a hearing aid, and her family has to shout at her just to barely communicate.

Apparently you have no idea how bad it really is there. Here in the US we went through the industrial revolution in the 1800s, when they used to have child labor in factories, letting thousands of children get harmed or injured by unsafe machinery, sending children on suicide missions into mine shafts, chimneys, etc.

We learned over a hundred years ago that those labor practices are barbaric and unnecessary to provide a healthy economic condition for our country.

Why shouldn't we expect the countries we purchase products from to treat their workers with a modicum of respect and humanity?

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#58

Post by jdminhbg »

jhancock wrote: post #44
potatolicious wrote: post #16

This article, IMHO, is written by someone who has no idea how things work just about anywhere that's not the industrialized West, and is shocked and appalled that things aren't as awesome as they are in the US of A. It's a also a reminder for those of us who live in such ridiculous comfort and freedom that it can get much, much worse. That being said, I think this article is sensationalist tripe: > "The idea that ‘wi…

Your comments are pretty fair and your feelings on what your family went through in '60s Taiwan I take as genuine. However, it was not only hard work that bootstrapped Taiwan out of poverty. Some part of Taiwan's current comfort is due to moving its most extreme labor and environmental problems to other Asian countries, namely China. So now China and a few others are at the bottom of the supply chain...who do they pa…

"So now China and a few others are at the bottom of the supply chain...who do they pass the buck to to lift themselves out of these conditions?"

Probably Vietnam, and then robots.

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#59

Post by cryptnoob »

r0s wrote: post #45
potatolicious wrote: post #16

This article, IMHO, is written by someone who has no idea how things work just about anywhere that's not the industrialized West, and is shocked and appalled that things aren't as awesome as they are in the US of A. It's a also a reminder for those of us who live in such ridiculous comfort and freedom that it can get much, much worse. That being said, I think this article is sensationalist tripe: > "The idea that ‘wi…

many are doing this only as a means to something else - education, rescuing family from poverty, etc Well this is the crux right here, we can't put something like this is context without good data. Do these workers actually make a living wage? What is the cost of living in this part of the world, and most importantly, do any workers actually escape poverty over time? Things like these can be measured, and we should d…

     all we have is conjecture based on personal experience
I like it! Can I use it? I can refute anything with that. What a tremendously useful sentence.

"No baby, you can't know that this will hurt. All you have is conjecture based on personal experience. Now come over here."

Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

#60

Post by sketerpot »

peterwwillis wrote: post #31

14 and 15 year olds should not be working in sweatshops. what the hell is wrong with the people defending this? this isn't the pampered western worker vs the average 3rd world worker, this is kids being forced to go without sleep and effectively without a life for pennies. fuck that. i know most people will argue something like "they are probably lucky to get it." it's still bad for them, and trying to justify the ba…

If you have a better alternative, do feel free to post your ideas.
Post reply on HN