far from it, safety was never much of a concern before they found they could make a truck load of money from selling to the West. Considering their air and related pollution they remind me of some of the former Warsaw pact before they got out from under communist rule. The environment was never a concern, nor the people.
Very true, the fact that unregulated free market will magically increase the well-being of everyone is exemplified in such countries. It could be Russia as well, an African country. Basically any county where there is no _effective_ regulation or control.
Yet I hear often from Ayn Rand loving libertarians about how they hate the FDA for example and how it is better for it not exist etc etc. I always tell them this magical place exists today, jump on the plane to China and enjoy drinking mystery chemicals instead of juice, soda or even tap water.
Low safety standards may contribute to the low price of goods produced in China, but the main reason is that the Chinese government deliberately keeps the value of the yuan low against the dollar.
There is. China essentially needs to sell off a lot of yuan and buy up a lot of dollars to keep its currency weak, and it does this by purchasing vast amounts of US debt. There's a series of videos about it at the Khan Academy if you're interested:
There's worse. Some time ago they showed someone runned over by a truck in a loading bay. They didn't stop the traffic to help the guy or even drag the body.
It just become a speed bump for the other trucks.
About a solution... Why not force legislation to not ignore imports? Or maybe a occupy Walmart movement.
Wow, the video is quite terrifying. It shows multiple people accidentally electrocuting themselves by stepping on a live wire while carrying a metal manifold. Holy shit is the only real reaction.
China's quality problems in production are nothing new. Pretty certain the coal mining industry there is reckless compared to the worlds standards. It's like what Bill Maher said about the baby they found in the sewage pipe this week, "He's reportedly O.K. and will be back making iPhones soon."
> "In many ways we are complicit, we vote ‘cheap’ every time
> we can (I’m no exception) and if we can externalize the
> problems in such a way that we can pretend they don’t
> exist then we all sleep just fine at night."
Correct, but an extra problem is: i doubt that my extra money will go to those workers when i 'vote expensive'. Most of the time the money just goes into profits for the owners or maybe into an expansion of production. Paying more does not make anything better as long as there's no way to change priorities.
This post (like many others) completely ignores the fact that these people choose to work in this environment. Statistics show that factory / industrial workers in China are doing better than those who stay in rural jobs. Human development indicators in China have constantly risen since the 1980's [1] and the economy is booming [2].
These sweatshops are horrific to our standards, but to their standards, these are great places to work.
It's not about "libertarian choice". It's about not being able to change all the world in an instant. Workplace safety in China looks to be increasing. Wages too. For that matter, the Chinese workforce is shrinking while Mexico has lower labor costs.
Also this constant global coverage due to youtube or other media is improving things in China. Without the unprecedented awareness the internet affords us, I don't think China would have done more to address these issues
Yes, work conditions in China are slowly and steadily improving.
But somehow, whenever the concept of choice comes up, it's always about the privileged giving the oppressed a pep talk, claiming that whatever position society has put them in "it's really totally fine".
"Safety is increasing" - would /you/ work at such a factory?
If I were in the same position as those workers in China were, I certainly would work in the factories. When you options are working a dangerous manufacturing job getting paid relatively well, or a slightly more dangerous farming job where you can barely afford to live, the choice is easy.
The US investing in Chinese manufacturing has and is increasing the quality of life (and safety) for the workers in China. This takes time, and there is nothing we can do to avoid that. If we were to go in and demand North American manufacturing salary and safety standards for the entire supply chain, you can bet their goods would cost more to produce than if we just did it here and we would therefore just make them here. That would destroy the Chinese economy and send everyone back into worse conditions than we currently have. Therefore I would argue that the result would be a net harm if we force conditions to rise too rapidly, rather a balance must be maintained.
Good point. The other choice is planned economy, state regulation all over the place, including in haircut style. They just have a border to cross to see the result in DPRK, or open a book on recent history, or ask the elder. The result is well known: it's starvation.
No Libertarian claims that a world based on Libertarian principles would be perfect, or that nothing bad would ever happen. Pointing out a single instance of a pathology that could happen under Libertarianism is a faint criticism when every other system has it's pathologies as well. In fact, I have never heard anybody refer to China or Bangladesh or the like as bastions of Libertarianism, so it looks like it's the current system whose pathologies we're talking about.
Maybe what China and their ilk need is exactly a dash of good old fashion Libertarian thought.
I appreciate your point and over simplification doesn't make any argument better- but I have often heard the counter argument of "choice" as one that rationalizes horrific conditions. If the choice is between dangerous working conditions or a job that does not pay enough to give your children opportunities many (if not most) people will choose to sacrifice during this generation for the next, it is clear that the financial incentives for every group (manufacturers, laborers, and consumers) and yes standards of living are better but consumers at a minimum should be informed that their is a hidden cost to the cheaper goods... and that they could make different choices or pressure their companies to improve conditions.
Many western consumers seem to struggle with the incrementalism of improving quality of life in (what used to be) the third world. The choice is very real, we just didn't see the horrors of subsistence farming that's been the only possible way of life in these countries, literally forever. It'd be great if the choice included a completely safe and healthy job for everyone, but if we knew how to create those at scale at the drop of a hand, we'd make some of them at home, in our unemployment-stricken economies.
Demanding that Apple/Nokia/whoever pay a little better and improves health and safety measures makes you feel nice, but it's only going to affect a dizzyingly small fraction of the workforce. China is improving at an insane rate on practically all indicators. Of particular interest, wages in the costal cities are exploding, causing factories to move inland, ie. bring progress to the previously underdeveloped rural regions.
But aren't the political and economic conditions in China the responsibility of the Chinese Government and at some level the Chinese people? Maybe the "choice" that they made is not the hideous working conditions but tolerating their political establishment that made such conditions a norm.
Yes, that is right. I only wanted to defend the people and point out the dire place they are in. Guilt is on the Chinese Government above all, certainly.
It really is in the power of the consumer to force companies to change. The heads of corporations are required and expected to be seeking out the highest possible returns for their investors. If their competitors use foreign labor with very cheap standards then that company is at a disadvantage in the marketplace. Only when consumers take into account the working conditions of the laborers does the marketplace change and that empowers/forces heads of companies to change so that they can continue to bring maximum returns. Terrible tragedies like this have to be revealed thank you for brining this up.
It seems sort of perverse that working conditions in China are dictated by the whims of consumers in the west.
How would one go about convincing the consumer to change? That is the hard question.
There are already various organisations out there who campaign to make people aware of these conditions, so it's unlikely that people are totally ignorant.
Yet these don't seem to have affected widespread change in spending habits, I guess because people in the west have their own struggles and it is hard to say no to cheap. So this makes it easy to dismiss such campaigns as "leftist commie crap".
It also requires options, for example if I wanted to buy a smartphone that was free from bad labour conditions right through the supply change, how would I go about that?
It's not a case of saying no to cheap. For most, it's one of buying stuff from China or doing without.
Most middle-class consumers in the USA really have few options. Whether from local stores or online, the majority of all toys, tools, electronics, and household items are made in China. If another option exists, it's frequently available online only from Europe or Japan that's twice the cost.
It's actually the same disregard for human life that could be seen in the not so distant past in Europe or America. But youtube wasn't around back then.
Saying it's wrong fixes nothing. What realistic alternative would you prefer instead, how do plan to get people (e.g. factory owners) to follow it without harming the people you're trying to help?
>Western companies doing business with China and other 3rd world countries should demand compliance with the client countries’ OSHA regulations, ditto when looking at things like labor laws (minimum age for instance) and so on
I think part of the difficulty here is that supply chains are often very long and complex, across many countries. Companies often have no idea where their parts or materials really come from, although this may often be wilful ignorance. They do seem to have some legal obligation to know where things are coming from[1]. George Monbiot wrote a couple[2][3] of articles recently about trying to find out where the materials in smartphones are really coming from:
Of the manufacturers, Nokia appears to have gone furthest, and its efforts are quite impressive. Since 2001 – long before most other companies began to take an interest – it has tried to remove illegally mined tantalum from its supply chain. It now instructs its suppliers to map the routes these metals take before they reach the company. The problem is far from solved: it tells me that "there has been no credible system in the electronics industry that allows a company to determine the source of their material"
Apple's response was less detailed and less persuasive. To give you an idea of how complex the problem has become, it has discovered that its metals are supplied by 211 smelters, liberally distributed around the planet. Any of them could be using minerals seized by militias in Congo.
As you can probably guess, he ended up not buying a smartphone.
> Pollution, a total disrespect for the environment in general and for human lives in particular is what powers the trade that brings cheap goods to the stores near us.
Pointing out real flaws in China's employment & environmental business practices is not anti-China propaganda.
These are things that generations of campaigners have fought against since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
China is now being judged by the same rules as the rest of the world. This is fair and it is to be welcomed.
With luck China and the other fast-growing economies of the world will embrace workers rights and environmental standards in far less than the ~200 years it took Europe.
Wow, that's quite a feat of misunderstanding. And I tried pretty hard to make sure that that exact comment wouldn't be made in order to reject the thing out of hand.
I'm fine with producing goods in the far east, but the fact is that the low prices are in fact powered by more than just a simple difference in value between currencies and standard of living.
The pollution and the work place risks (including death) are a really large factor in those price differences, as corroborated not only by this particular video (which is horrifying) as well as by contact with people that live there or have spent significant time there.
To dismiss this as propaganda is Ostrich politics at its best, we may have to simply realize that we will have to pay more for the goods that we receive unless we want to be explicitly named as accomplices in the situations that we have created.
The fact that some companies have already started programs to track the resources that go into their goods and that some companies have agreed to living wages and anti-pollution measures for their entire supply chain indicates that at least in some boardrooms the message is heard. Profits are important but not that important.
but the fact is that the low prices are in fact powered by more than just a simple difference in value between currencies and standard of living.
Outsourcing to China is based on a well known economic theory of international trade, called the H-O model[1], which basically says " that countries will export products that use their abundant and cheap factor(s) of production and import products that use the countries' scarce factor(s)."
The pollution and the work place risks (including death) are a really large factor in those price differences
Is this really news? I think the real issue here is the misinformation that is painted across media outlets, hence the OP's "propaganda" comment.
It's not misunderstanding. You link to an awful video, draw general conclusions on the account of one event, and your unsaid conclusion is that Chinese people disdain human lives. 100 years ago you'd have added infanticide.
So, no, Chinese people are not heartless zombies workers, they cherish human life and had a full structured ethical system when Europe was Barbary, and they are taking themselves out of survival mode at a pace that is unseen in the history, which require some prioritization.
You're more than just a little bit disingenuous here.
Besides adding a whole pile of strawmen you seem to have a pre-conceived notion that in order to get out of a planned economy into a market economy there is no route other than those that lead through tremendously unsafe work practice and disregard for environmental issues.
And no, working practice are not tremendously unsafe in China, even if they are less safe than in the west in some industries.
Chinese people have a much deeper relation with mother nature than in the west in many regards, their art and culture and literature and gardens are a proof of that. They are extremely concerned with environmental issues, thanks.
A social interest in gardens and mother nature is one thing, but what about pollution regulations? The New York times suggests that there are significant problems with pollution in China:
"China’s state leadership transition has taken place this month against an ominous backdrop. More than 16,000 dead pigs have been found floating in rivers that provide drinking water to Shanghai. A haze akin to volcanic fumes cloaked the capital, causing convulsive coughing and obscuring the portrait of Mao Zedong on the gate to the Forbidden City."
The article lists a number of specific problems, such as (1) oil companies not improving diesel fuel quality (2) coal power plants violating emissions standards (resulting in sulfur levels at least 23 times the US levels) (3) non-compliance by power and oil companies with existing regulations.
The typical Chinese citizen might be very concerned with the environment, but until the government gets corporations under control, pollution may run amok.
China has got its growths because government did (partially) lift their control over private interest. Narrow sighted people (including NYT) tend to forget it and spend a lot of energy lecturing China about government control and things like that.
Not to say that there are no problems in China. But i think it is nauseating to grab a hooror video on Youtube and draw conclusions, or to voice concerns about Chinese pollution with the underlining preconception that Chinese people are dirty subhumans who don't care a shit.
Today the apartment complex I in which I live in Beijing sent some guys out to fix a water leak my landlord reported. There are two: one guy with a big rope attached to a safety harness he is wearing, the other guy holding the rope with one hand. The first guy opens the window, climbs through it onto the 1-foot ledge on the 16th floor (the window only opens about 30 degrees, so this is a little challenging). He caulks a few places, with his companion holding onto the rope with his one hand, right above the (unclipped) harness clip. You can be sure that if the first guy slips, he's a goner, there's no way the second guy is going to catch 150 lbs with his one hand.
So yes, factory conditions on average are probably better than the video, but no, this is not an isolated incident. I'm sure these guys cherish human life, but they've probably been doing this all month (at least) without a problem, why worry? Accidents always happen to the other guy. And there's nowhere to clip onto, so doing it the right way would be very mafan, whereas this way they got it done in 5 minutes. Quick and cheap, probably $10 max. The American way would be safe, take 30 minutes getting the harness set up, 5 minutes caulking, and cost at least $100.
It really is basic anti-china propaganda, whether you are engaging in it deliberately or not. Horrific YouTube videos notwithstanding, the vast majority of chinese people working in those manufacturing jobs are far, far better off and safer than if they had to work in an agriculture position (In china, or the united states for that matter)
Also - have you ever taken an Industrial First Aid course? Lots of gruesome depictions of what happens in some idiotic US workplaces as well.
The article this discussion is about is entirely about politics and economics, as is the resultant discussion. You will note that there is no discussion of "oh, if only there were technology to fix that problem". There is, and it was not employed in this case. Why it wasn't, and the consequences, are what the article is about.
> But I have to agree, that sadly there is a correlation between the low level of discussion and how political a topic is.
Anyone can comment on political articles, whereas it actually takes some interest and experience to discuss the relative merits of Ruby and Python, or Akka and Erlang.
This is a very very sad video and it made feel sorry for the human lifes that were destroyed in this incident. And still, this is not really a problem about work-place safety. I can only assume that this was an honest mistake, of the workers and maybe the employers to do whatever they were trying to do and forget the high power line. We might also ask if these workers even knew how electric power works and why you shouldn't connect a high power line with a metal construction to the ground (or whatever it was here).
Workplace safety in China still is very bad. No joke about that...
One of the issue that comes up with this type of discussion about low pay to workers on developing worlds like China, India, Bangladesh (recently you might have heard some news about it in the media).
I am in Bangladesh, while I agree that a lot can be done to improve working conditions and worker safety, and in some cases worker's payment too. But its not nearly as bad as people make it (esp the ones who have never lived in such circumstances or in those countries). They may not get paid the same salary according to western standard, but the worker are doing (for the most part) pretty fine with the amount of money they are making. As a matter of fact, most of them have never seen so much money in their life, and most of the garments workers (mostly women) who without garments work would either be house wife, or beggars or do seasonal farming work 2-3 months a year with 1/10th of the pay, if at all (usually they get paid by farmed goods like rice, instead of money).
You have to understand, you can live a very good life with very little money in this part of the world, as far as the living standard of the local economy is concerned, the pay is not bad at all (there are few exception where garments owners take advantage of workers, but its not the norm). Garments industry alone single handedly have improved countless people's life and directly or indirectly have saved many people's life too.
To give you an example, we live in a pretty well off part of the city in dhaka, a family of 6 with 2 maids and 2 drivers (thats how the local culture works). Our monthly grocery shopping cost rarely goes over 500-600 dollars. And we eat pretty good too, even compare to my 12 year stay in NY. For a single person my monthly grocery bill could easily go to 400-500 dollars in NY, and I used to be fairly frugal. So I think a perspective is necessary when talking about wages in this part of the world.
This obviously comes at a cost sometimes, but honestly I don't think any sane person believes the alternative (not having enough jobs, however underpaid they are) would have been better. Every, so called developed countries, has come to where they are on the back of cheap labors and poor worker's right and poor working conditions. That doesn't make it right, but thats pretty much how it works.
Let's assume wages are sufficient, the prices that we pay for products are apparently still too low to ensure humane working conditions. And frankly, if a government would ensure humane working conditions wages would have to rise because production for local consumption would be subject to the same laws, raising costs of production.
To ensure the safety of its citizens, it is a government's responsibility to strive to prevent work from being unnecessarily risky. It would be good if this could be orchestrated at a higher level than a national one, otherwise companies will enter a race to the bottom by moving their factories to the least regulated locations.
It's not the low-pay per se that concerns those who criticise the outsourcing of everything to the developing world. It is the lack of comparable safety standards, environmental standards and workers' rights. We in the developed world fought hard for around 200 years to achieve these standards and rights and it smarts to see large corporations side-step them by outsourcing to countries that don't require or enforce them.
It is in everyone's long-term interest to continue lobbying the companies who make our stuff to start requiring equal standards and rights wherever their stuff is manufactured. It will benefit the people of those countries who do the manufacture while re-balancing some of the giant manufacturing cost differential that these companies achieve by such a side-step.
Maybe worth sharing an observation from my building endeavors in Cambodia: often the workers don't realize the risks they are taking, so before lobbying for decent standards, they often need to actually comprehend what they are. This can be more difficult to get through to them than you might think. For example getting welders to always wear eye protection, getting people spray paint for a living to do so in a properly ventilated space. You can try to explain to them the risks - and buy them all the stuff - but many of them will just ignore you and do it the "sensible way without all that silly overhead".
One of the shocking things (to those of us in the developed world) is that in many cases, human life is treated as less valuable in less-developed parts of the world. Not just by other people, but by the person themselves.
bingo! its people themselves - when your option is to starve - or take a potential risk that maybe in the future you'll get sick from the spraypaint. You pick spray paint. People dont realize that not everyone has that many options in the developing world.
A company doing business in Bangladesh has a fixed amount of money they can spend on compensation + safety + etc. In a competitive industry like garment manufacturing, the margins are already very thin, so increasing safety will result in reduced worker pay (or shutting down and workers becoming unemployed).
There is no free lunch. The most we can do is force workers to trade pay for safety, which they might not want to do.
...re-balancing some of the giant manufacturing cost differential that these companies achieve by such a side-step.
The primary goal of many activists is exactly this: re-balancing the cost differential so that low skill American workers can continue to be paid well. I.e., a redistribution of wealth from Bangladesh to the US.
> A company doing business in Bangladesh has a fixed amount of money they can spend on compensation + safety + etc.
That's not true, the safety expenses should be mandated and everyone's prices will increase accordingly. Prices are set according to costs and in the developed world, safety is a required cost. It could happen overnight if the big customers actually required it. Imagine if Walmart suspended billions of dollars worth of contracts until safety standards were met.
Or, you know, those countries could have factories that satisfy their markets, and we could have factories that satisfy ours. All without having to kill people in the process or burning dirty fuels shipping goods halfway around the world.
Factories that satisfy their markets won't magically become safe and clean, much like the ones in the now "developed word" during the industrialization phase weren't.
Yeah, and the solution is not to only mandate safety standards at your own factories, but to impose a stiff tariff on goods produced in countries without comparable standards (and without meaningful enforcement). Yeah, I know, "free trade," but it is not a fair market if some people are playing by a different set of rules, and we do not want to have a race to the bottom.
Agreed. Then some factory owners will build robots instead (as they're already doing due to wage rises in China) and wipe out any foreign competition along with jobs. It's for their own good, after all.
It is for their own good. Robots are inevitable, better to push them out now and start addressing what they mean for society than pretend they're never coming.
Sure, that would be better. It'd be awesome if they could transition to any type of better economy. But I think given all the circumstances and what is happening, facing and accepting reality is the best way to go. Because the robots are coming, waiting for the country to be ready just isn't going to happen.
That's why I suggested the customers mandate safety. If Walmart/Nike/Apple/etc required safety it doesn't matter where the factories move.
Western nations could incentivize this by not assessing fines for firms caught producing their products in unsafe factories (I assume a couple billion dollar fine would be more impactful to Apple than a scathing NY Times article).
First... China has a humongous work force, which solely on numbers no other country can compete with, you need whole continents to get the same mass of workforce.
Second, in comparison to the rest of the BRIC competitors - Chinese workforce is relatively homogenous, well educated and most importantly of all they have a work ethic (Brazil? Hahahahah).
Third, low price is not the sole reason why stuff is produced in China (Go read why Ipad production is never returning to the US according to Steve Jobs).
"The most we can do is force workers to trade pay for safety, which they might not want to do."
This is a weird way to frame things, as though workers don't really mind being killed or injured on the job. Safety is management's responsibility, not an employee choice.
The question is not whether workers mind being killed or injured. The question is which they mind more - lower pay, unemployment, or an increased risk of injury or death.
There are many things we could do to reduce your first world risk of death - mandate that all cars are have a mechanically enforced speed limit of 20mph, for example. We choose not to. Why?
That argument presupposes that people are not facing a real risk of starving to death if they are unemployed. I am not sure that is something that can be assumed.
When there is a gun pointed at your head, you do not have a real choice.
>as though workers don't really mind being killed or injured on the job.
It's a matter of probabilities, not certainty. And workers quite often DO prefer to trade off safety against other concerns. Not just pay, either. Convenience is a big one. When I worked at a factory in China, I was told the people using heavy machinery had safety goggles available but often preferred not to wear their googles, because doing so was hot and uncomfortable. Management would nag people to do so but wouldn't require it. In that sort of circumstance, giving workers objectively more freedom and personal responsibility allows them to be less safe - but more comfortable! - compared to how they would be in the US with OSHA breathing down people's necks.
Yeah that's why OSHA puts responsibility on business owners instead of employees. People have cognitive biases that cause them to make all kinds of terrible decisions about safety, which is why leaving safety to "personal responsibility" is a horrifying idea with serious negative consequences. OSHA might be frustrating at times, but it didn't appear in a vacuum.
We can also educate consumers and show them they really should be buying garments made in America or at least in better conditions/wages than the average. I happily pay more for my clothes knowing that the extra money goes towards that.
I don't disagree with anything you wrote. But wage issue often does come up on western media, with or without reference to safety standard (I am talking about Bangladesh, this might not be true about other countries).
You're in Bangladesh and in a well of part of the city, you say. A family of 6 with 2 maids and 2 drivers too. Your entire post reminds me of something else I read :
While the countries are all different (I'm from Sri Lanka originally), the attitudes are astoundingly similar.
It's the Western equivalent of let them eat cake since they're used to eating grass. Underpaid labor is better than no pay is an excuse of the privileged; and only the privileged.
These jobs wouldn't be there if not for the low wages. They belong to a foreign industry and a foreign market, it's nothing that they can simply protect internally.
Please get off your moral high horse. I used to be like you all smug-faced and judgmental sitting behind a computer, until I was on the field with brac (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRAC_(NGO)) and see for myself how the real world works.
They are NOT underpaid for the most part (If you actually bothered to read what I wrote). They are under-paid to "western living standard" but not according to the local living standard (for the most part). There are some exceptions and exploitations, but its very small percentage, but those are the examples that the media and people like you try to bring up when discussion these issues.
Lets be oblivious and ignore the world of good garments industry has done for literally millions people in the poorest parts of the world.
Change takes time, its not pretty, its not shiny, and its not fairy tale and sometimes people die in the process.
I did "bother" to read the article. And I know all about BRAC (there is a branch in Sri Lanka too).
I don't need the media to tell me what's happening. I have family - therefore, a genuine vested interest in what happens to them and their community - and I stay in touch to this day. I know all about what the garment industry has done in the poorest parts of the world; I've seen the end result first hand (and second, third and fourth by virtue of having family working there).
The only one oblivious is you if you think you know how the real world works.
You are from BRAC! I have heard they are some sort of BLOOD SUCKER, by giving small money to poor they take 80% interest. Even some rural farmer had to suicide after taking loan from Brac. And you are talking about "living standard" how funny man :)
Ah, but these are "Western media" outlets with a clearly biased view spewed from behind the computer. I was born there, but let me return to the modest shack my granddad built so I'll have better standing, shoulder-to-shoulder, with you.
Your organization is the NGO equivalent of the U.N. with greater far-reaching tentacles in every aspect of the poorest communities you influence. The garment factories you hold in such high esteem are exploitive in the extreme and the level of self-delusion you exhibit would have been funny if the consequences weren't so tragic.
Edit: Reply link not showing up yet. Meanwhile, since microcredit is the bread and butter, so to speak, of the BRAC scheme :
I find myself falling into this sometimes. I came from a relatively poor area and family (at least by US standards), and sometimes foolishly get the attitude briefly when confronted with poverty of "I got out of that, they should be able too. They're just lazy and/or are happy living that way. Which may be true, but I doubt it. I certainly never was.
> It's the Western equivalent of let them eat cake since they're used to eating grass. Underpaid labor is better than no pay is an excuse of the privileged; and only the privileged.
Seriously, when I first moved here it bothered me a lot. I am used to cooking for myself and wouldn't mind learning how to drive. But I was absolutely prohibited from going to the kitchen even by accident and not go anywhere without having someone with me all the time.
Now as I have learned my way around I do go out by myself but kitchen it still off limit.
Mostly mum, I am really grown up. But people here lives with their parents, until they are married (even when they are married). Nothing wrong that AFAI am concerned. But most people from western culture won't probably get it.
A simple example is when the presence of an overprotected electrical union makes it so nobody else is allowed to plug and unplug standard 120v cables. Better file a $150 ticket to get that coffee maker plugged in.
> But most people from
western culture won't probably get it.
This is the easiest, most cowardly reply to any argument.
For me it's not about being born in a western society (Eastern Europe actually) but about not accepting something just because that's the way it's been, or because it's better than the alternative.
Question everything. Why are things the way are? Why can't you live by yourself? Why can't you marry the person you want? Why can't you make yourself a cup of tea? Why can't you drive?
Its called respecting local sentiment. Its not so much that I agree with they ask me to do, but I chose to let them be at the expense of a little inconvenience to myself. Its not like they are killing me.
I do have a boundary and let them know when I don't like certain things.
You can either chose to stay in harmony or give them a middle finger to all their cultural feelings. I chose the former.
I'm inclined to agree with pavs. I've done some traveling and living abroad, and it seems that these many other countries are in an industrial revolution stage of development.
For the USA that meant better working environments, hours, safety, and pay. Before these things were in place we had insufficient labor laws here too. The portion that I'm missing is that, here in the states our industrial revolution paid well enough for parents to provide a better standard of living for their children. Those children were able to do the same, and we increased the middle class. If that is what is going on in China then we should NOT stop purchasing good from them. Here are a few links from a quick online search.
http://www.futuredirections.org.au/publications/food-and-wat...http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/25/news/economy/china-middle-cl...
However, I think the OP being concerned about this is great, but you can't force change onto another culture nor should you. We can attempt to empower them to make the change, and be aware so that we aren't supporting the a workforce that is being sucked into a cycle of poverty.
"However, I think the OP being concerned about this is great, but you can't force change onto another culture nor should you"
We can, however, stop buying products made in such dangerous factories, and make it clear why we are doing so. Why should we demand that factories in this country adhere to certain safety standards, then buy cheap goods from factories in other countries that do not adhere to the same standards?
My only problem with this idea is that by doing this we could stifle the progress that they are making at the cost of our own desire to push our ideals on them.
Yes they need safety regulations, but that really does need to come from the Chinese workers. We should help them make those demands if they want but we shouldn't force it on them. I.E. Opening a site where workers can Chinese workers can complain about their working conditions (ratings) which then propagates those ratings to the products. We would use the product reference as a guide.
But to force that upon them, in my mind, is wrong. It's hard to find the line between empowerment and external control. This is an issue many Americans had when donating to Haiti. They'd try to give an American fix and it didn't work because that's not what Haitians wanted or needed.
This is not completely true, most of the garments workers are working with low wage like 40$/month(official but unofficially they are paid even less!). They live in the worst part of city and so on. And recent building collapse opened the nasty part of there work environment, when I lived in Bangladesh I have seen how misrable the work condition in garments. And most people work there due to job crisis and for other factors. And you can see the latest accidents photos http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2013/04/304_dead_in_buildin....
So how can we do the improvement, it needs steps from every stakeholders, laws should be strict, there should be labour union(millions of worker working but there is no labour right union!) and of course the West should be more concern to provide better facility for the workers.
What I find somewhat disturbing is that americans have to see a video to start to realize that the fact that they want to get cheap stuff means that people have to work in terrible conditions in other parts of the world...
What I meant is: everybody in the world knows that the fact that you have access to cheap goods means someone is paying for you, the question is why do people need to see a video to understand this, when the rest of the world can figure it out on their own?
This was true in the US pre WWII. Who better to walk in to the giant mechanism of knives and gears than small children? Their little arms can reach!
It doesn't happen anymore because the US doesn't manufacture anything anymore. Well, there is one thing the US manufactures - energy. Not directly, but they get all the economic benefit for it.
When you pull a barrel of oil out of the ground, you've created wealth where there was none before. It is not a zero sum game. When you charge dollars for that barrel, you give those dollars value in the global energy market. It does not matter who 'owns' the oil, even another country, as long as it's sold in dollars, the US gets the benefit.
This is why stuff from China is so cheap. The only thing a dollar is good for on the global market is energy, but the dollar has a near monopoly on it. The US doesn't have to do any of the work when they are the ones putting the gas in the gas tank. The rest of the world makes the engine go off of that gas.
The U.S. is the second largest manufacturer in the world. China only surpassed the U.S. in 2010. Furthermore, manufacturing is growing in the U.S.
Chinese labor is (or at least was) so cheap because the standard of living is considerably lower than in the West or the developed East Asian countries.
As a US based manufacturer, I find your comment ignorant. There is a great deal of manufacturing in the US, and it is getting easier to do - not harder.
I have been manufacturing since 2004. It's not that hard. You start with an idea, build a minimally viable prototype, improve it, make a final design, sort out the supply chain and then start building. Design once, sell thousands of times.
Use automation, its cheaper than even Chinese labor. Work on just-in-time manufacturing techniques and you can get your inventory down to a small fraction of annual sales. The multi-axis controls in a 3D printer can be repurposed to do all sorts of motion control in a factory. See https://www.synthetos.com/project/tinyg/
I didn't watch the video after reading the description. But this problem of poor worker conditions (and poor compensation) is true of so many goods produced cheaply in China or other countries in Asia. I feel we in the "West" (i.e North America, Western Europe) have an ambivalent attitude towards this issue. We decry the outsourcing of manufacturing to other countries, yet we're only too happy to continue purchasing those goods. We might say we are prepared to pay more for quality and standards, but our endless consumption of all these cheap products suggests otherwise.
What's more, we fawn over some technology companies and take such an uncritical view of their behaviour over the production of their goods (because we love their products) when we should in fact be far more critical.
On a more positive note, there are schemes like Fairtrade that have gained favour with the public. Fairtrade guarantees a fair price to producers of mostly food products. It's not perfect, but a product with a Fairtrade mark provides some re-assurance that the product you buy meets certain ethical standards. Encouragingy, Fairtrade goods are popular with the public too:
The problem is Fair Trade is that it distorts the price signal in the market (obviously, that's the point). But the reason coffee is so cheap is that there is an oversupply - artificially raising the prices extends the problem, it doesn't solve it (by making some farmers realise they can compete better by switching crops).
If you want to help, buy expensive, high end coffee - most of it will be Fair Trade anyway, so I can't say "instead of Fair Trade". But getting the default, supermarket brand coffee that's 10% more expensive than the non-Fair Trade option damages more than it helps.
Also, I remember reading somewhere that Fair Trade places some irrelevant constraints on suppliers, such as the size of the supplier. I can't find a reference, so it might be wrong, but if it's not, then that suggests that pandering to western, urban romantic fantasies about rural life plays an inappropriate role in the scheme as well.
I think fairtrade suppliers are all cooperatives. Though in many cases I've found fairtrade brands not to be significantly more expense (sometimes cheaper even) than mainstream brands of similar quality.
It's a bit disingenuous to suggest that accidents like this don't also happen in the U.S. (or other "first-world" countries). In the mid-to-late '90s I was working on a project that had a fatal accident in the Omaha NE area (fortunately I wasn't present to witness it).
Another contractor was lacing new fiber-optic cable to the existing coaxial cable and realized they'd run the fiber over a safety ground about 7 poles back. Rather than unlace that much cable, they opted to lift the safety ground, move it outside the fiber and reconnect the ground. These ground wires are not supposed to be carrying current when things are working correctly - this one was an it electrocuted those working on it.
Regulations are pretty explicit about how to add cable and telephone wires to a power pole ... and only the power company is supposed to mess with the power. The SCTE and NCTA both have training regimens that obsess over safety, especially when you're working around power (since none of us are actually power experts).
So why did this accident happen? The workers were contractors of contractors of contractors who got paid by the mile. The more fiber they laced up in a day, the more they got paid. They knew there was a slight risk the ground wire would be hot once disconnected but they chose to ignore it for financial reasons.
I've seen tall scaffolding on wheels being moved around in the U.S. and I'm hoping the workers were well versed in the perils of letting their metal structure touch power lines, but what you can't tell from this video is how well these workers were trained and whether they realized the wire they hit was active.
I'm not disagreeing with your article's main points ... that we need to value human life and protect the environment. But I also don't think this video is particularly good at promoting those values.
> They knew there was a slight risk the ground wire would be hot once disconnected
Is there some way you could measure that before touching it or messing with it? And then call in the power company if its properties are not what they are expected to be?
You could measure a lot of things when messing with power lines, but ultimately someone has to be responsible that circus that are powered of or safe for any reason stay safe. You measurements cannot give that guarantee, but installations have procedures that ensure this. Everything deviating from that procedure, which normally includes setting a switch with a safety pin and attached note about the work carried out, will lead to accidental powering up at some point or another.
Again: when dealing with high voltage circuits make absolutely certain that the person or machine controlling the circuit is informed (or it's you personally who shut off the power and no one else can turn it on).
If you are trained to work on live circuits, please ignore my advice. You'll know better :-)
Only in a perfect world would there be zero current on a ground wire.
The current can be measured by measuring the field around the wire. There are many manufacturers of clip on ammeters which make a loop around the wire and then measure
The current or potential induced in the loop by the field resulting from the current in the ground wire.
That video was truly horrible. Was that metal scaffolding? I am surprised that fault carried on for 3
Minutes. A fuse should have blown or other protection operated.
Maybe if it was wooden scaffolding it was a high impedance fault undiscernable from high loads.
A clip on ammeter is is a good recommendation. I don't know how sensitive they were and the nature of the stray voltage.
The video was indeed terrible. I'm guessing the scaffolding was metal but that the wheels were rubber (it seemed as though the current was only going though the workers).
When the cable is properly connected into the ground stake, any stray current is diverted to the ground. If the cable had resistance, you could (in theory) measure voltage drop over it but a heavy copper cable has a very low resistance. You can't measure current without interrupting the circuit, so it's really hard to know which grounds are actually being used. And in power systems, the ground is the sum of the grounds throughout the system. If you look near where the power goes into your meter, there should be a 1/2" (or more) copper rod driven 8-10' into the ground and the ground for your house is connected directly to it.
Disclaimer: I'm not a power engineer (optics, RF, embedded systems and software) but I understand the basic principles. Someone else can probably talk about how the earth ground is actually established (after every transformer I believe) with a lot more detail.
Jacques have you ever thought of exploiting this situation. I mean It is well known and it has been shown that these kinds of inefficiencies can be exploited.
Why don't you move to Asia and start founding companies? With your superior knowledge and with the hands of the hard working locals you could start building a brave new world. You could pay better wages and get increased worker loyalty in return.
I can easily imagine how a group of entrepreneurs (say 50-100) could change a whole culture, simply by outcompeting the old way.
This article has it backwards. These workers don't work is unsafe conditions, _because_ we don't pay them enough. Rather, the economic reality in China means that in order to compete with production elsewhere (e.g. in the US) even a high risk for workers still seems acceptable to them if that means they can get the job. If we would pay more, the jobs would be done elsewhere or by robots and those workers won't be happy about that, either. Still, this is capitalism at its worst, I guess.
I think it is a good thing that wealth is rebalanced between countries, and that these wealth transfer are not UN donations, but the result of commerce and labor.
US agriculture is pretty dangerous - 25 deaths per 100,000 employees/year. Anybody able to find stats on Chinese Manufacturing?
[Edit: from http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/China-Factory-Injuries.htm -- "The International Labor Organization has estimated annual deaths from workplace accidents at 11.1 per 100,000 Chinese workers. That compares with the U.S. on-the-job fatality rate of 2.19 per 100,000." - That means, given a choice, you would be safer in a Chinese Manufacturing job than an American Agriculture job.
Also - the death rate in the United States manufacturing in 1970 is pretty close to the death rate in China, 2011 ]
[Edit 2: Note - another way of looking at this - if FoxCon Manufacturing was as safe/dangerous as US manufacturing, there should be about 20 Foxcon work related deaths per year. Does anybody have insight into how many FoxCon deaths a year there are?]
Tractors flipping over is probably the big on in US Agriculture, but quite a few people die in the grain silos doing various things. Most big Ag companies are fairly psycho about safety. I remember an elevator supervisor who fired workers who went over the speed limit on the elevators road and being told it was a firing offense to stand on a chair to reach something.
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[ 6.7 ms ] story [ 369 ms ] threadYet I hear often from Ayn Rand loving libertarians about how they hate the FDA for example and how it is better for it not exist etc etc. I always tell them this magical place exists today, jump on the plane to China and enjoy drinking mystery chemicals instead of juice, soda or even tap water.
It might present an issue if they wanted to buy a lot of US made weapons for example, but China is big enough that it largely does not need America.
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/core-finance/money-and-b...
Chinese goods are cheaper than they would otherwise be, which increases production in China.
Purchasing power of people holding Yuan (i.e., the Chinese people) is lower than it would otherwise be.
Basically, China is making it's people poorer in order to stimulate production.
In the long run, China is stuck holding a lot of US debt, the value of which will eventually be inflated away.
It just become a speed bump for the other trucks.
About a solution... Why not force legislation to not ignore imports? Or maybe a occupy Walmart movement.
China's quality problems in production are nothing new. Pretty certain the coal mining industry there is reckless compared to the worlds standards. It's like what Bill Maher said about the baby they found in the sewage pipe this week, "He's reportedly O.K. and will be back making iPhones soon."
Correct, but an extra problem is: i doubt that my extra money will go to those workers when i 'vote expensive'. Most of the time the money just goes into profits for the owners or maybe into an expansion of production. Paying more does not make anything better as long as there's no way to change priorities.
These sweatshops are horrific to our standards, but to their standards, these are great places to work.
[1]: http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/CHN.html [2]: https://www.google.fi/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#...
Also this constant global coverage due to youtube or other media is improving things in China. Without the unprecedented awareness the internet affords us, I don't think China would have done more to address these issues
But somehow, whenever the concept of choice comes up, it's always about the privileged giving the oppressed a pep talk, claiming that whatever position society has put them in "it's really totally fine".
"Safety is increasing" - would /you/ work at such a factory?
The US investing in Chinese manufacturing has and is increasing the quality of life (and safety) for the workers in China. This takes time, and there is nothing we can do to avoid that. If we were to go in and demand North American manufacturing salary and safety standards for the entire supply chain, you can bet their goods would cost more to produce than if we just did it here and we would therefore just make them here. That would destroy the Chinese economy and send everyone back into worse conditions than we currently have. Therefore I would argue that the result would be a net harm if we force conditions to rise too rapidly, rather a balance must be maintained.
Maybe what China and their ilk need is exactly a dash of good old fashion Libertarian thought.
Demanding that Apple/Nokia/whoever pay a little better and improves health and safety measures makes you feel nice, but it's only going to affect a dizzyingly small fraction of the workforce. China is improving at an insane rate on practically all indicators. Of particular interest, wages in the costal cities are exploding, causing factories to move inland, ie. bring progress to the previously underdeveloped rural regions.
Is it a choice between death by fire and death by starvation?
I do not call that a choice.
But aren't the political and economic conditions in China the responsibility of the Chinese Government and at some level the Chinese people? Maybe the "choice" that they made is not the hideous working conditions but tolerating their political establishment that made such conditions a norm.
How would one go about convincing the consumer to change? That is the hard question.
There are already various organisations out there who campaign to make people aware of these conditions, so it's unlikely that people are totally ignorant.
Yet these don't seem to have affected widespread change in spending habits, I guess because people in the west have their own struggles and it is hard to say no to cheap. So this makes it easy to dismiss such campaigns as "leftist commie crap".
It also requires options, for example if I wanted to buy a smartphone that was free from bad labour conditions right through the supply change, how would I go about that?
Most middle-class consumers in the USA really have few options. Whether from local stores or online, the majority of all toys, tools, electronics, and household items are made in China. If another option exists, it's frequently available online only from Europe or Japan that's twice the cost.
I think part of the difficulty here is that supply chains are often very long and complex, across many countries. Companies often have no idea where their parts or materials really come from, although this may often be wilful ignorance. They do seem to have some legal obligation to know where things are coming from[1]. George Monbiot wrote a couple[2][3] of articles recently about trying to find out where the materials in smartphones are really coming from:
Of the manufacturers, Nokia appears to have gone furthest, and its efforts are quite impressive. Since 2001 – long before most other companies began to take an interest – it has tried to remove illegally mined tantalum from its supply chain. It now instructs its suppliers to map the routes these metals take before they reach the company. The problem is far from solved: it tells me that "there has been no credible system in the electronics industry that allows a company to determine the source of their material"
Apple's response was less detailed and less persuasive. To give you an idea of how complex the problem has become, it has discovered that its metals are supplied by 211 smelters, liberally distributed around the planet. Any of them could be using minerals seized by militias in Congo.
As you can probably guess, he ended up not buying a smartphone.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodd_Frank_Act#Disclosures_on_...
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/11/search-s...
[3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/25/smartpho...
Video without the youtube login requirement.
don't need login from this link.
The Anti-China propaganda has reached HN.
These are things that generations of campaigners have fought against since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
China is now being judged by the same rules as the rest of the world. This is fair and it is to be welcomed.
With luck China and the other fast-growing economies of the world will embrace workers rights and environmental standards in far less than the ~200 years it took Europe.
I'm fine with producing goods in the far east, but the fact is that the low prices are in fact powered by more than just a simple difference in value between currencies and standard of living.
The pollution and the work place risks (including death) are a really large factor in those price differences, as corroborated not only by this particular video (which is horrifying) as well as by contact with people that live there or have spent significant time there.
To dismiss this as propaganda is Ostrich politics at its best, we may have to simply realize that we will have to pay more for the goods that we receive unless we want to be explicitly named as accomplices in the situations that we have created.
The fact that some companies have already started programs to track the resources that go into their goods and that some companies have agreed to living wages and anti-pollution measures for their entire supply chain indicates that at least in some boardrooms the message is heard. Profits are important but not that important.
Outsourcing to China is based on a well known economic theory of international trade, called the H-O model[1], which basically says " that countries will export products that use their abundant and cheap factor(s) of production and import products that use the countries' scarce factor(s)."
The pollution and the work place risks (including death) are a really large factor in those price differences
Is this really news? I think the real issue here is the misinformation that is painted across media outlets, hence the OP's "propaganda" comment.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckscher%E2%80%93Ohlin_model
So, no, Chinese people are not heartless zombies workers, they cherish human life and had a full structured ethical system when Europe was Barbary, and they are taking themselves out of survival mode at a pace that is unseen in the history, which require some prioritization.
Besides adding a whole pile of strawmen you seem to have a pre-conceived notion that in order to get out of a planned economy into a market economy there is no route other than those that lead through tremendously unsafe work practice and disregard for environmental issues.
And we already know that that isn't true.
And no, working practice are not tremendously unsafe in China, even if they are less safe than in the west in some industries.
Chinese people have a much deeper relation with mother nature than in the west in many regards, their art and culture and literature and gardens are a proof of that. They are extremely concerned with environmental issues, thanks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/world/asia/as-chinas-envir...
"China’s state leadership transition has taken place this month against an ominous backdrop. More than 16,000 dead pigs have been found floating in rivers that provide drinking water to Shanghai. A haze akin to volcanic fumes cloaked the capital, causing convulsive coughing and obscuring the portrait of Mao Zedong on the gate to the Forbidden City."
The article lists a number of specific problems, such as (1) oil companies not improving diesel fuel quality (2) coal power plants violating emissions standards (resulting in sulfur levels at least 23 times the US levels) (3) non-compliance by power and oil companies with existing regulations.
The typical Chinese citizen might be very concerned with the environment, but until the government gets corporations under control, pollution may run amok.
> government gets corporations under control
China has got its growths because government did (partially) lift their control over private interest. Narrow sighted people (including NYT) tend to forget it and spend a lot of energy lecturing China about government control and things like that.
Not to say that there are no problems in China. But i think it is nauseating to grab a hooror video on Youtube and draw conclusions, or to voice concerns about Chinese pollution with the underlining preconception that Chinese people are dirty subhumans who don't care a shit.
So yes, factory conditions on average are probably better than the video, but no, this is not an isolated incident. I'm sure these guys cherish human life, but they've probably been doing this all month (at least) without a problem, why worry? Accidents always happen to the other guy. And there's nowhere to clip onto, so doing it the right way would be very mafan, whereas this way they got it done in 5 minutes. Quick and cheap, probably $10 max. The American way would be safe, take 30 minutes getting the harness set up, 5 minutes caulking, and cost at least $100.
In fact the precaution principle might be a factor paralyzing European economy right now.
Also - have you ever taken an Industrial First Aid course? Lots of gruesome depictions of what happens in some idiotic US workplaces as well.
Another example from the "What is Happening in Istanbul" thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5808064
You can't just drop accusations like that without supporting them with, at least, an equally well formed argument.
You want the political articles, you've got to accept the degraded quality of the site and discussion that goes along with them.
But I have to agree, that sadly there is a correlation between the low level of discussion and how political a topic is.
Not, it is not. Here are some articles about technology:
http://www.brython.info/
http://dehora.net/journal/2013/06/01/on-go/
http://ninjasandrobots.com/three-mistakes-i-see-web-designer...
http://moron4hire.tumblr.com/post/51904590190/processing-and...
The article this discussion is about is entirely about politics and economics, as is the resultant discussion. You will note that there is no discussion of "oh, if only there were technology to fix that problem". There is, and it was not employed in this case. Why it wasn't, and the consequences, are what the article is about.
> But I have to agree, that sadly there is a correlation between the low level of discussion and how political a topic is.
Anyone can comment on political articles, whereas it actually takes some interest and experience to discuss the relative merits of Ruby and Python, or Akka and Erlang.
Workplace safety in China still is very bad. No joke about that...
I am in Bangladesh, while I agree that a lot can be done to improve working conditions and worker safety, and in some cases worker's payment too. But its not nearly as bad as people make it (esp the ones who have never lived in such circumstances or in those countries). They may not get paid the same salary according to western standard, but the worker are doing (for the most part) pretty fine with the amount of money they are making. As a matter of fact, most of them have never seen so much money in their life, and most of the garments workers (mostly women) who without garments work would either be house wife, or beggars or do seasonal farming work 2-3 months a year with 1/10th of the pay, if at all (usually they get paid by farmed goods like rice, instead of money).
You have to understand, you can live a very good life with very little money in this part of the world, as far as the living standard of the local economy is concerned, the pay is not bad at all (there are few exception where garments owners take advantage of workers, but its not the norm). Garments industry alone single handedly have improved countless people's life and directly or indirectly have saved many people's life too.
To give you an example, we live in a pretty well off part of the city in dhaka, a family of 6 with 2 maids and 2 drivers (thats how the local culture works). Our monthly grocery shopping cost rarely goes over 500-600 dollars. And we eat pretty good too, even compare to my 12 year stay in NY. For a single person my monthly grocery bill could easily go to 400-500 dollars in NY, and I used to be fairly frugal. So I think a perspective is necessary when talking about wages in this part of the world.
This obviously comes at a cost sometimes, but honestly I don't think any sane person believes the alternative (not having enough jobs, however underpaid they are) would have been better. Every, so called developed countries, has come to where they are on the back of cheap labors and poor worker's right and poor working conditions. That doesn't make it right, but thats pretty much how it works.
To ensure the safety of its citizens, it is a government's responsibility to strive to prevent work from being unnecessarily risky. It would be good if this could be orchestrated at a higher level than a national one, otherwise companies will enter a race to the bottom by moving their factories to the least regulated locations.
It is in everyone's long-term interest to continue lobbying the companies who make our stuff to start requiring equal standards and rights wherever their stuff is manufactured. It will benefit the people of those countries who do the manufacture while re-balancing some of the giant manufacturing cost differential that these companies achieve by such a side-step.
Cheap stuff comes at a high cost.
There is no free lunch. The most we can do is force workers to trade pay for safety, which they might not want to do.
...re-balancing some of the giant manufacturing cost differential that these companies achieve by such a side-step.
The primary goal of many activists is exactly this: re-balancing the cost differential so that low skill American workers can continue to be paid well. I.e., a redistribution of wealth from Bangladesh to the US.
That's not true, the safety expenses should be mandated and everyone's prices will increase accordingly. Prices are set according to costs and in the developed world, safety is a required cost. It could happen overnight if the big customers actually required it. Imagine if Walmart suspended billions of dollars worth of contracts until safety standards were met.
Right now, Bangladesh needs wealth more than anything else. Once they have wealth, they can spend it on things like OSHA.
Western nations could incentivize this by not assessing fines for firms caught producing their products in unsafe factories (I assume a couple billion dollar fine would be more impactful to Apple than a scathing NY Times article).
Because they would have nowhere to move to.
First... China has a humongous work force, which solely on numbers no other country can compete with, you need whole continents to get the same mass of workforce.
Second, in comparison to the rest of the BRIC competitors - Chinese workforce is relatively homogenous, well educated and most importantly of all they have a work ethic (Brazil? Hahahahah).
Third, low price is not the sole reason why stuff is produced in China (Go read why Ipad production is never returning to the US according to Steve Jobs).
This is a weird way to frame things, as though workers don't really mind being killed or injured on the job. Safety is management's responsibility, not an employee choice.
There are many things we could do to reduce your first world risk of death - mandate that all cars are have a mechanically enforced speed limit of 20mph, for example. We choose not to. Why?
When there is a gun pointed at your head, you do not have a real choice.
It's a matter of probabilities, not certainty. And workers quite often DO prefer to trade off safety against other concerns. Not just pay, either. Convenience is a big one. When I worked at a factory in China, I was told the people using heavy machinery had safety goggles available but often preferred not to wear their googles, because doing so was hot and uncomfortable. Management would nag people to do so but wouldn't require it. In that sort of circumstance, giving workers objectively more freedom and personal responsibility allows them to be less safe - but more comfortable! - compared to how they would be in the US with OSHA breathing down people's necks.
http://newint.org/features/2013/01/01/india-elite-sense-of-e...
While the countries are all different (I'm from Sri Lanka originally), the attitudes are astoundingly similar.
It's the Western equivalent of let them eat cake since they're used to eating grass. Underpaid labor is better than no pay is an excuse of the privileged; and only the privileged.
They are NOT underpaid for the most part (If you actually bothered to read what I wrote). They are under-paid to "western living standard" but not according to the local living standard (for the most part). There are some exceptions and exploitations, but its very small percentage, but those are the examples that the media and people like you try to bring up when discussion these issues.
Lets be oblivious and ignore the world of good garments industry has done for literally millions people in the poorest parts of the world.
Change takes time, its not pretty, its not shiny, and its not fairy tale and sometimes people die in the process.
I don't need the media to tell me what's happening. I have family - therefore, a genuine vested interest in what happens to them and their community - and I stay in touch to this day. I know all about what the garment industry has done in the poorest parts of the world; I've seen the end result first hand (and second, third and fourth by virtue of having family working there).
The only one oblivious is you if you think you know how the real world works.
I.E. From just December last year :
http://www.eoi.es/blogs/amyblyth/dp-the-grameen-and-brac-exp...
For balance, here's the response straight from the horse's mouth before that story was written :
http://www.brac.net/node/861
Very convenient when borrowers are unaware of those choices all too often as happened in Sri Lanka too after the tsunami.
And a guardian piece from 2008 :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/20/internationala...
Ah, but these are "Western media" outlets with a clearly biased view spewed from behind the computer. I was born there, but let me return to the modest shack my granddad built so I'll have better standing, shoulder-to-shoulder, with you.
Your organization is the NGO equivalent of the U.N. with greater far-reaching tentacles in every aspect of the poorest communities you influence. The garment factories you hold in such high esteem are exploitive in the extreme and the level of self-delusion you exhibit would have been funny if the consequences weren't so tragic.
Edit: Reply link not showing up yet. Meanwhile, since microcredit is the bread and butter, so to speak, of the BRAC scheme :
https://www.google.com/search?q=consequences+of+microcredit
https://www.google.com/search?q=effects+of+microcredit
https://www.google.com/search?q=repercussions+of+microcredit
I didn't find any such thing from your links after a quick glance.
...and only an excuse.
I have never seen a comment, anywhere, that so clearly, and concisely, explains how a local culture works.
Now as I have learned my way around I do go out by myself but kitchen it still off limit.
This is the easiest, most cowardly reply to any argument. For me it's not about being born in a western society (Eastern Europe actually) but about not accepting something just because that's the way it's been, or because it's better than the alternative.
Question everything. Why are things the way are? Why can't you live by yourself? Why can't you marry the person you want? Why can't you make yourself a cup of tea? Why can't you drive?
I do have a boundary and let them know when I don't like certain things.
You can either chose to stay in harmony or give them a middle finger to all their cultural feelings. I chose the former.
For the USA that meant better working environments, hours, safety, and pay. Before these things were in place we had insufficient labor laws here too. The portion that I'm missing is that, here in the states our industrial revolution paid well enough for parents to provide a better standard of living for their children. Those children were able to do the same, and we increased the middle class. If that is what is going on in China then we should NOT stop purchasing good from them. Here are a few links from a quick online search. http://www.futuredirections.org.au/publications/food-and-wat... http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/25/news/economy/china-middle-cl...
However, I think the OP being concerned about this is great, but you can't force change onto another culture nor should you. We can attempt to empower them to make the change, and be aware so that we aren't supporting the a workforce that is being sucked into a cycle of poverty.
We can, however, stop buying products made in such dangerous factories, and make it clear why we are doing so. Why should we demand that factories in this country adhere to certain safety standards, then buy cheap goods from factories in other countries that do not adhere to the same standards?
How do you know what factories are dangerous?
Yes they need safety regulations, but that really does need to come from the Chinese workers. We should help them make those demands if they want but we shouldn't force it on them. I.E. Opening a site where workers can Chinese workers can complain about their working conditions (ratings) which then propagates those ratings to the products. We would use the product reference as a guide.
But to force that upon them, in my mind, is wrong. It's hard to find the line between empowerment and external control. This is an issue many Americans had when donating to Haiti. They'd try to give an American fix and it didn't work because that's not what Haitians wanted or needed.
It doesn't happen anymore because the US doesn't manufacture anything anymore. Well, there is one thing the US manufactures - energy. Not directly, but they get all the economic benefit for it.
When you pull a barrel of oil out of the ground, you've created wealth where there was none before. It is not a zero sum game. When you charge dollars for that barrel, you give those dollars value in the global energy market. It does not matter who 'owns' the oil, even another country, as long as it's sold in dollars, the US gets the benefit.
This is why stuff from China is so cheap. The only thing a dollar is good for on the global market is energy, but the dollar has a near monopoly on it. The US doesn't have to do any of the work when they are the ones putting the gas in the gas tank. The rest of the world makes the engine go off of that gas.
Chinese labor is (or at least was) so cheap because the standard of living is considerably lower than in the West or the developed East Asian countries.
I have been manufacturing since 2004. It's not that hard. You start with an idea, build a minimally viable prototype, improve it, make a final design, sort out the supply chain and then start building. Design once, sell thousands of times.
Use automation, its cheaper than even Chinese labor. Work on just-in-time manufacturing techniques and you can get your inventory down to a small fraction of annual sales. The multi-axis controls in a 3D printer can be repurposed to do all sorts of motion control in a factory. See https://www.synthetos.com/project/tinyg/
What's more, we fawn over some technology companies and take such an uncritical view of their behaviour over the production of their goods (because we love their products) when we should in fact be far more critical.
On a more positive note, there are schemes like Fairtrade that have gained favour with the public. Fairtrade guarantees a fair price to producers of mostly food products. It's not perfect, but a product with a Fairtrade mark provides some re-assurance that the product you buy meets certain ethical standards. Encouragingy, Fairtrade goods are popular with the public too:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/mar/02/fairtrade-taste-...
If you want to help, buy expensive, high end coffee - most of it will be Fair Trade anyway, so I can't say "instead of Fair Trade". But getting the default, supermarket brand coffee that's 10% more expensive than the non-Fair Trade option damages more than it helps.
Also, I remember reading somewhere that Fair Trade places some irrelevant constraints on suppliers, such as the size of the supplier. I can't find a reference, so it might be wrong, but if it's not, then that suggests that pandering to western, urban romantic fantasies about rural life plays an inappropriate role in the scheme as well.
Another contractor was lacing new fiber-optic cable to the existing coaxial cable and realized they'd run the fiber over a safety ground about 7 poles back. Rather than unlace that much cable, they opted to lift the safety ground, move it outside the fiber and reconnect the ground. These ground wires are not supposed to be carrying current when things are working correctly - this one was an it electrocuted those working on it.
Regulations are pretty explicit about how to add cable and telephone wires to a power pole ... and only the power company is supposed to mess with the power. The SCTE and NCTA both have training regimens that obsess over safety, especially when you're working around power (since none of us are actually power experts).
So why did this accident happen? The workers were contractors of contractors of contractors who got paid by the mile. The more fiber they laced up in a day, the more they got paid. They knew there was a slight risk the ground wire would be hot once disconnected but they chose to ignore it for financial reasons.
I've seen tall scaffolding on wheels being moved around in the U.S. and I'm hoping the workers were well versed in the perils of letting their metal structure touch power lines, but what you can't tell from this video is how well these workers were trained and whether they realized the wire they hit was active.
I'm not disagreeing with your article's main points ... that we need to value human life and protect the environment. But I also don't think this video is particularly good at promoting those values.
Is there some way you could measure that before touching it or messing with it? And then call in the power company if its properties are not what they are expected to be?
Again: when dealing with high voltage circuits make absolutely certain that the person or machine controlling the circuit is informed (or it's you personally who shut off the power and no one else can turn it on).
If you are trained to work on live circuits, please ignore my advice. You'll know better :-)
The current can be measured by measuring the field around the wire. There are many manufacturers of clip on ammeters which make a loop around the wire and then measure The current or potential induced in the loop by the field resulting from the current in the ground wire.
That video was truly horrible. Was that metal scaffolding? I am surprised that fault carried on for 3 Minutes. A fuse should have blown or other protection operated.
Maybe if it was wooden scaffolding it was a high impedance fault undiscernable from high loads.
The video was indeed terrible. I'm guessing the scaffolding was metal but that the wheels were rubber (it seemed as though the current was only going though the workers).
Disclaimer: I'm not a power engineer (optics, RF, embedded systems and software) but I understand the basic principles. Someone else can probably talk about how the earth ground is actually established (after every transformer I believe) with a lot more detail.
Why don't you move to Asia and start founding companies? With your superior knowledge and with the hands of the hard working locals you could start building a brave new world. You could pay better wages and get increased worker loyalty in return.
I can easily imagine how a group of entrepreneurs (say 50-100) could change a whole culture, simply by outcompeting the old way.
didnt know what it was since I am not american
I.E. Is american agriculture (farming) more dangerous than chinese manufacturing?
Here is what I was able to find on the US:
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0658.p...
US agriculture is pretty dangerous - 25 deaths per 100,000 employees/year. Anybody able to find stats on Chinese Manufacturing?
[Edit: from http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/China-Factory-Injuries.htm -- "The International Labor Organization has estimated annual deaths from workplace accidents at 11.1 per 100,000 Chinese workers. That compares with the U.S. on-the-job fatality rate of 2.19 per 100,000." - That means, given a choice, you would be safer in a Chinese Manufacturing job than an American Agriculture job.
Also - the death rate in the United States manufacturing in 1970 is pretty close to the death rate in China, 2011 ]
[Edit 2: Note - another way of looking at this - if FoxCon Manufacturing was as safe/dangerous as US manufacturing, there should be about 20 Foxcon work related deaths per year. Does anybody have insight into how many FoxCon deaths a year there are?]