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 bad conditions with arguments like 'its expected of them' really exposes a true lack of empathy for one's fellow man and some pretty selfish reasoning.
We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
31–40 of 201 posts
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#32This 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…
"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.
Did you even read his entire comment?
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#33I think the conditions in this factory are actually quite above what you can normally expect to find, and for that kudos to Microsoft.
My mom used to work for a guy that imports ceramic tiles from China- now those workers had conditions that were just plain awful.
While I definitely don't condone these actions, I think the author perhaps should have aimed his venom at a more deserving target.
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#34I feel that some of the pictures are taken out of context and portray an inaccurate image. In Asia, it's common for schools and workplaces to allow students and workers to put their heads down for naps in the middle of the day. The article uses an image of workers seemingly "collapsed" on the work bench as the first picture to depict harsh working conditions, which is misleading.
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#35This 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…
"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 evolutionary state towards wealth - much like the US's tendency to impose democracy on nations with no foundation necessary for its success, it would IMHO be disastrous to attempt to enforce Western standards of work (or hell, enforcing white collar definitions of what is reasonable and fair).
Taiwan has evolved from a cheap-labor, sweatshop labor model to an educated, R&D-centric model. The island has gone from an agrarian backwater to one of the urban jewels of the Pacific. I am glad that this has happened - and yet I'm not convinced it would have gone down that well if well-meaning Western labor activists had their way.
I do think that fundamental worker safety must be ensured - companies certainly have proven that they can't be trusted to do that on their own, but enforcing someone's "right" to use a cell phone while working? Really?
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#36So, hypothetically, wage parity might be achieved by Chinese workers making 5 - 7x more than they do now, whilst American worker would make 5 - 7x less . Obviously prices in the US for healthcare, food and housing need to come down somewhat.
I think what we see is a (hopefully temporary) situation where there are people so poor that they are willing to work cheaper than machines. Because Americans are not going to go back to doing that work, it's not really a situation where Chinese labour is competing against American labour. the Chinese labour is competing against American /machines/
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#37The defensiveness of some of these comments is unsettling. Inhumane conditions are inhumane no matter where they are, and no matter what the situation is in the society; it is never right to do to one's workers what this article is describing, not even if there's a lot of competition for their jobs.
This is the kind of thing that explains why the United States is not lassiez-faire capitalist anymore; and it emphasizes that we should forswear our addiction to shopping cheap, in favor of buying what is produced in a morally licit fashion, and genuinely punishing corporate leaders over whom the US has jurisdiction and who knowingly go along with this kind of thing. I don't mean sanctions directed at the corporation: I mean punishing the individuals who sign off on or turn a blind eye to this, and I think that a crucial part of any such punishment, in addition to a long prison sentence, is the confiscation of the individual's personal fortune -- since this kind of person (well, almost always "this kind of man") sees money as score, and his objective is to die with a score high enough to leave his initials on the game's attract screen.
I want to emphasize here that this is not partisan United States issue, either. I am a serious Catholic; I vote Republican and like the Tea Party movement; and I know that this kind of thing is wrong, and that you don't have to be a Green, "pro-choice," or a gun-control advocate to recognize it as such.
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#38If an individual decides to be highly competitive by working crazy hours, is that considered bad? Will her colleagues complain to the labor department? A capitalist country's inhabitants, who belong to a system driven only by output and profit, complaining about labor practices, is the biggest oxymoron. Surely, the Chinese industries tactics are understandable?
In order for the Chinese manufacturing industry to be competitive, they indulge in such practices. If you want to remain competitive, one way is to cut costs or increase production, the way they do or by way of technological innovation. Or create high quality products, that consumers would want to buy, instead of the cheap {quality, cost} ones made in China.
The opponents of outsourcing are surely barking up the wrong tree. The Chinese workers surely have a choice of not working there. Agreed, that if they choose to work, life is pretty much miserable. But what if they choose not to work there. Do they go back to their non-existent farms, or to the streets? If such labor laws are enforced, the obvious impact is that oursourcing would move elsewhere. There will always be some country willing to take it up, and not to mention the people who would welcome a respite from their poverty.
The Chinese industry has decided to stay competitive. The people are probably between the devil or the deep sea, and it's all about choosing the better path, which in this case, simply is working 15 hours a day.
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#39This 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…
"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.
When I was studying for my first degree (in mechanical engineering) I had to do a one month long internship as a factory worker after my first year (in an EU country). It was truly an eye opener experience, both in terms of understanding how industrial production looks like from below, experiencing the life of a blue collar worker and as a motivation to take my studies seriously (to avoid having to have a job like that) as well.
I think short "slave work" internships for first year students should be more common.
Re: We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.
#40"China does not have unions ..." China might not have unions but they do have child labor laws and if those aren't doing the trick I don't know how a union would. It's a market with a poor, easily exploitable labor pool desperate for work (they have double digit unemployment in the rural areas and the nation's average salary is under $6,000 a year). So I can't see how a union would help unskilled workers when the fac…
Its my understanding China's constitution does protect unions. China is a nation of many provinces, each differing in their respect to national rules. Even within wealthy, better regulated provinces like Shanghai, behavior is highly uneven. I have seen cases where unions and other labor laws (maternity rights is a huge one) were heavily weighed in favor of the laborer. Its still not enough.