Please, is there anyone here who can delete the flotsam and jetsam on this site?
Is the whole of the thread complete bullshit, for I seem to be missing any cogent comments based on the article.
Please, to all of you who commented not on point to the story, please remove your comments. Then I will be happy to remove this comment, and make believe those who participated had only intelligent and thoughtful comments to make.
Hard to restore order when it's also a Mod helping to inject U.S. politics into a thread about Foxconn in China. Maybe he suspended him/herself.
Edit: Ha! The mod even levied a personal attack. I'll say that sanity in the thread died long before that.
Dear Foxconn workers, I know, as I have worked in Asia, that you would like to work as many hours as you can to improve your life and earn more money. However, there has to be limits on hours worked, so as to prevent you from getting physically and mentally ill, and to ensure that Asia continues to improve working conditions in general and attempt to reduce exploitation of workers.
Thank you! If a people have problems, they can solve them themselves.
Every time we hear Foxconn, we get this Apocalypto image of people being dragged from their quaint peaceful neighborhoods to forcefully work for Apple's fat American customers. When in reality, people flock to Foxconn in buses and wait for days on end for an opportunity to work there, they even fake their own IDs just to be admitted.
Yes, they do. So did the workers who lined up to work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York in 1911, 146 of whom died in a fire when they were locked in.
So did the coal miners who worked at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia. 29 of them died in April of 2010 .
People who are desperate will take any jobs offered, even dangerous jobs. That doesn't make it right.
I agree that we should not necessarily apply current American labor standards to the Chinese. I know a number of recent Chinese immigrants to the U.S. and there's a completely different mindset: whenever they see me on a weekend, they always ask, "Oh, you worked today, right?" Most of them hold several jobs.
The summer I graduated from high school, I worked 75 hours per week + 15 hours traveling time (but it wasn't in a factory). And for six years, from 1990 to 1996, as a senior exec, I generally worked 60 hours per week, not including travel and trade show appearances, which generally took place on weekends. So there were actually plenty of 80 hour weeks.
So I believe that there is some fair compromise between how those workers are being treated today and what we, as westerners, expect. Personally, I'm much more concerned about safety than I am about the precise number of hours that someone has to work. But one of the items in the report was that some fire exits were blocked or locked. That's a major disaster waiting to happen. I don't think limiting workers to 50 hours a week in a factory situation is out of line. Even though my understanding is that these devices are mostly hand-built and there are few machines, it's still dangerous doing that kind of mind-numbing work endlessly. And that's aside from the issue of repetitive stress injuries.
I don't like paying more for gasoline/petrol, but BP (yes, evil) seems to provide a pleasant enough environment while having decent air pressure pumps too. Generally Tuesday and Wednesday are the cheapest days so I fill up then. I got a very small car (Chevy/Holden Spark) so I can get about 425km per 35L city/some freeway mixed = 12km/L = 28mpg. Which is not too bad.
I pay $20 a month to Nature Conservancy US as a "carbon offset" of sorts.
I've switched my electricity to 100% renewable through the power company and hope they honour their side of the agreement. As such I pay 26cents per kWh instead of 20cents per kWh ~ which overall is cheaper than solar panel installation which I can't do anyways since I'm renting.
I've recently gone back to buying organic where possible (though I'm not militant about it). The value for money is stellar. For $100 I can get food that would be impossible to easily get in Asia even for USD $300 in one go... Yes there's a growing organic movement especially among Buddhist Chinese sectors but in terms of range and convenience, Asia is still catching up a little, though definitely a great opportunity for those that can do it right.
So I do go out of my way to pay more for certain things, but also I cut down on other things such as partying and drinking, and instead of gym memberships I try to just run by the beach and do simple exercises as per my physio at home.
It's all a matter of priorities. I just can't imagine my life living day to day, with the new opportunities given to me that I didn't think I would ever have again, living while sucking the life from this Earth. Will I make a huge difference in the long run? Am I better than others? Maybe not, but I feel better overall and sleep better at night.
I believe that until Foxconn changes the way they treat their workers, we should boycott all the products they make and all the companies they make products for.
I'll share my perspective on this because I have been passionate about this for several years, and personally I had to bail from Malaysia and return for one final hurrah to Australia.
Malaysia is considered a developing country, somewhere in the "2nd world". GDP and growth look good on paper. It is considered not "as bad" as China, even the ethnic Malaysian Chinese say they wouldn't want to work in China... My childhood friend has worked in Shanghai for about 10 years on insanely good pay but in the end she had enough.
You must understand that in Asia, yes, people want to work as much as possible to pay for the things "Westerners" take for granted, such as affordable housing, healthcare, cars, technology and travel. But because of purchasing power as well, money is "never enough".
The real issue is efficiency. In Malaysia and China, due to rampant corruption, lack of rule of law in many circumstances, and no real job or government security, as well as outright institutionalised racism (eg. in Malaysia only ethnic Malays or Muslims can receive a ton of government benefits)... People are always trying to get more money, but in a very chaotic way. There are many enterprises by people or groups of people that are not only unethical, but basically criminal by modern standards. My dad, being semi-retired does some "freelance" work for doctors in private practices that want to take time off. Even in the esteemed medical profession there has been one or two doctors that tried to rip him off by saying he didn't do x hours, thereby not paying him adequately and then not responding to phone calls or texts.
There is the slippery-slope argument which can get old, but another indicator is this: in Malaysia, no one uses voicemail. It is very rare to encounter anyone using voice mail, and most people use mobile phones, and a lot of people use two mobile phones ~ mobile penetration is around 100% in a lot of Asian countries because of this. Why you ask? Because in Malaysia and many Asian countries, people do not pick up their phone unless they really need to talk to you or it is deemed "genuinely quite urgent"... It works like this. If you have 1-2 missed calls, ah, you'll call them back some time. If you have 5 missed calls, OK, looks urgent, I'll try to pick up next time. If you have 10 missed calls, then it's usually a family emergency of sort, or you're in fairly deep sh*t with your boss. Not to mention tons of texting, not related to teenage social maladies.
The written word is also generally taboo in Asian countries and Facebook and its equivalent is preferred for social discussions, as opposed to email, which is considered more formal by younger people, and is considered "highly legal" especially in ethnic Chinese "workplace getthoes". Let's look at this briefly. In Kuala Lumpur, workplaces tend to be fairly segregated. You have vast amounts of ethnic Malay-Muslim in private and public workplaces. The minority is filled by mixed-race workplaces and a lot of ethnic Chinese-dominated workplaces. In such workplaces, you have a few different types of Chinese. English-speaking and highly-educated, increasingly rare, make up business owners or managers. Middle managers and white collar working-class is made up of two kinds of Chinese: Cantonese-speaking and Mandarin-speaking. Here's the problem... English written communication is almost non-existent because Cantonese and Mandarin speakers tend to do poorly at English subjects in school. Malay (related but somewhat different to Indonesian) is the national medium, but this also cannot be used because non-Malays do not consider it a relevant language in non-Malay or companies with an international outlook. Chinese also cannot really be used, because Cantonese-speakers do not usually do Mandarin written classes in school, that tends to be more towards Mandarin-speakers who go to Mandarin-language schools where they have more rigorous education. So the end result is written English is used very sparingly, only for "serious matters", is usually tragically half-assed like the nonsense language of the Proview emails, and is usually meaningless because verbal communication is preferred because that allows for more unethical and criminal behaviour.
It seems hilarious, but you do need to spend a good few years in Asia to soak it all in, and realise how f*cked up everything is if you have been brought up in a colonial or 1st world country. Last year I spoke to some tourists who were French but working in a Chinese city for Michelin. They said they spoke to some Chinese women that told them, "don't tell anyone I smoke, they'll think I'm a prostitute". It's this kind of survival-based, repressed but chaotic social system that pervades most of Asian society.
It's a cliched stereotype but most young Asian women will be thrilled to hook up with a caucasian male ~ because there is a high chance they are more educated and wealthy, more ethical than local men, and there is a real opportunity for such Asian women to move to developed countries with their male partner. Caucasian men may or may not be as reliable as local men but they are considered better lovers than Asian men because they are deemed to be less inhibited and better communicators. It rarely works the other way, most young Asian men do not hook up with caucasian females, for reasons I won't really explore here.
As an ethnic Chinese-Indian mix, though I was born in Malaysia and am a fully-fledged legitimate citizen, as an Australian "green card" (PR visa) holder, or even when I was a USA H1B visa holder, I had more rights and privileges compared to the majority than I ever had in Malaysia, and more than I would ever hope to have in Malaysia. This is one of the reasons why Asians in Western countries tend to perform well, because they represent some of the best talent that would otherwise rot away in their home countries.
Anyway, the point is that in Malaysia for example, there are the "Chinaman companies" (not racist, that's literally what locals call it, including local ethnic Chinese), and then there are the "MNCs" (multinational corporations). The MNCs are generally known to have better working conditions, better pay, and better efficiency compared to Chinaman companies.
Perhaps in the 80s and early 90s there was rampant labour exploitation by Western countries, and perhaps it still does occur a lot. But in Malaysia, Singapore and even China (I have friends who have worked there for MNCs) ... there is a trend whereby Western countries do take care of their employees better than local businesses of any size chasing endless growth in a scatterbrain way.
Take this example ~ local companies even in Malaysia regularly push office workers to do 8am to 7pm stints for 5 days, with bosses requiring Saturday and Sunday work. That's over 60 hours a week. Retail is open 10am to 10pm 7 days a week. Some retail staff are required to do five, sometimes seven days IN A ROW of 10am to 10pm... That's 9am to 11pm six days in a row = 84 hours. Even a local conglomerate requires employees to manage social media from 8pm to 12 midnight so some colleagues of mine, besides 8am to 7pm Mon-Fri, had to stick to their smartphones for another five hours after work, plus weekends, to tweet and Facebook for the company.
The amount of hours worked in Asia is literally unfathomable to Westerners. And I would assert that it is the Asian governments that have given up on their people, assuming pace of life and GDP growth and "hard work" is par for the course, while only enriching the very, very few. In most urban Asian areas, quality of life by global standards is improving in some ways, but also very, very poor in terms of overall mental and physical health. Due to traditionally rich local cuisine, diabetes and cholesterol, as well as smoking, are now the major killers, instead of contagious diseases or hygiene-related diseases. Some local cuisine has a lot of health benefits and is very tasty, but in urban areas the local cuisine is rich in sugar, oil, cholesterol, saturated fat, meat and so on due to cost-cutting, and giving busy urbanites their "fix" several times a day. Even a lot of office workers also prefer such food because they tend to be cheaper compared to healthier restaurants.
Labour laws in Asia are generally a "laughable suggestion". Unions are rare in most workplaces, wages are low due to uncontrolled unskilled migration from places like India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and who knows where else. Education of whatever workplace laws that exist is minimal, and even then enforcement is paltry. There are many Chinese nationals in Malaysia, especially young women, who are known for mostly being prostitutes that work in a "spa" aka whorehouse.
This sounds derogatory but if you are a caucasian or well-educated male of non-controversial ethnicity in Asia that generally treats women with respect, have a reputable job and don't scam people a lot, you're considered a very good catch and most Asian women will treat you in a semi-prostitute way ~ ie. if you take care of them they will be loyal, and while some women don't outright ask for money for each sexual encounter, generally if you provide for their housing, car, and meet their parents and show you're interested in marriage, and converting to Islam in some cases, you've pretty much got sex for money for however long you want. A Dutch DJ was providing a "stipend" for a local acquaintance of mine while she was having sex with other men. Even through all this, he actually wrote a pretty good Trance song named after her.
................
Australians are usually called racist and lazy in Asia. This is incorrect. Australians and Americans tend to be more efficient, productive, and have a balance in life that ensures this. Government structures and rule of law also helps efficiency because (A) the value of your money isn't rubbish and (B) everyone isn't rushing around like there's no tomorrow.
I recently watched the movie "In Time", which is not bad for sci-fi pundits. One of the concepts is that the rich "rush around" less because they have money/time, while the poor are always "going too fast". This is very, very close to what happens in Asia... I have tons of friends that not only work 8am-7pm, but also try to do an MBA at night, plus a lot of people have businesses on the side as well. Whenever I told them I was working part-time, I almost always got asked, "so what's you're full-time job?" ~ it never occurred to them that part-time meant part-time, not part-time on top of full-time.
This is highly pertinent today because the world in 2020 to 2050 will probably fall into three areas:
1.
Established Western countries [such as USA, Canada, Western Europe (not really UK), Australia, New Zealand] that are undergoing a division in society but also a renaissance of sorts ~ whereby at least the left half of the population moves towards better living conditions even in light of global economic apocalypse. The fact is that in established Western countries that haven't been overrun by low-skilled immigrants (such as the UK), "rich white people, and educated native-born ethnicities" will be able to make the most of Asian and Latin American growth without compromising their quality of life by too much. As such I think Apple is doing the right thing.
2.
Developing (2nd/3rd world) countries that will make up the bulk of economic growth at least until 2050, whereby tremendous opportunities exist but quality of life for most will continue to be mediocre and at Western 1900s' levels for most people.
3.
Africa and Middle East and some "rogue states" where they are pretty much either going to get their act together or are just going to continue to skim at the bottom of human existence for the most part ~ not saying that these races/nationalities are inferior in any way, just that the governance of which is sub human if you really know the truth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maestro64
Not sure anyone said this, I highly doubt since most people here have no clue how this stuff works in China.
Just to educated people, unlike the US when a company in china who manufactures product for western companies are found to be in violation of the labor laws in china, it is not the government who comes in and fines them or fixes the situation. What happens is the government notifies the western company that their manufacturer is in violation of the labor laws and they are required to fix the issue with that manufacturer.
Interesting how that works, in stead of the government coming and being the heavy to make sure labor abuse does not happen they force companies to be the heavy. The reason being, if the western company want the government off their back they usually have to pay more to the manufacturing company so they can hire more people of fix the issue that are causing the problem. That is what Apple did that got Fox to give the workers a raise and in turn you know Apple paid more.
China likes this since they do not have to be the heavy on their companies and usually it means more workers making more money which is all good for China.
Indeed. Asian countries try to double-dip into the situation ~ have Western companies as some sort of better enterprise, leaving them to improve working conditions, while letting the local companies "rape" the population.
Quote:
Originally Posted by seanie248
America, F$ck Yeah!
Media get a few workers to say how bad things are for a few dollars of bribery.
Team AmericFLA fly in, nuke the place, shoot all around them, claim a victory over bad standards and leave.
People left looking horrified, wondering WTF? and then go back to the Media and say how bad things are now, they cant afford to live.
But, hey, WE know whats best for them, because , look, the Western Culture has SOOO got it right. No Problems over here. Our 'do-godders' havent ruined things and we have no problems. Crime is virtually eliminated. So they REALLY should do things OUR way.
Like F$ck !!
China, close up the borders again and boot foreigners out. You'll be better off in the long run.
If Western countries pull out of Asia, conditions will be far, far worse. You wouldn't even imagine. I'm not talking about military intervention, I'm talking here about general foreign investment in non-war, non-espionage situations, such as in semi-dictatorship South East Asian countries (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam), India and China.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cameronj
There's also such a thing as starving to death, and if you don't think people in China understand the trade-off between RSI (talk about rich people problems, sheesh) and their family back in the village starving to death, you're nuts. With that much less overtime there's that much less money to send back home and how many children will die as a result of that? It's more than zero, 100% guarantee.
Forcing an employee not to do what they want to do is always making that person worse off. Grow and yourself.
Not really. An employee working well beyond modern human conditions benefits no one. Eventually they will not be able to pay for the things they are working so hard for because of rising costs, rising personal needs, as well as more family obligations. If you have social and government structures in place such as Western nations, most Asians working 45, 55 hours tops a week is enough.
Westerners assume 60 hours or 80 hours is great if you can pull it off. But you're thinking of 40 hours of decent basic pay, 20 hours of decent overtime pay, like a "mom holding down two jobs to pay for the kids because of a deadbeat husband". This is not the case in Asia. For most companies, you're working 60 hours a week for basic salary and basic obligations to the "Chinaman" company, 20 hours overtime is unregulated and usually required for rising up the ladder, and here's the crux:
~The Western mom with two jobs doesn't have to worry as much about the deadbeat husband hiring criminals to get more money from her (if he isn't a criminal himself)
~The Western mom doesn't have to worry as much about the company not paying her basic wages, overtime, let alone compulsory 401(k) equivalent
~The Western mom can get some childcare and unemployment benefits
~The Western mom can more easily get health insurance [in Malaysia I am uninsurable because of a mental condition... it is a growing problem in the US but not as bad in Canada, Australia, Europe ex. UK]
~The Western mom in most cities can take the train to work and not have to sit in traffic for hours in crowded urban hellholes
~The Western mom can buy a car with appropriate child seats other than leave her kids with her parents while she rides a very basic motorcycle to her job(s)
~The Western mom is less likely to have 3 or more children from various fathers, or have them due to rape which she has to bear for the rest of the life due to sub human implementations of Islam or Catholicism.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronbo
While everyone is so busy trying to decide how to help with poor Foxconn workers, has no one bothered to ask them what *THEY* want?
Yes, Foxconn workers should be consulted, but I think in any case you might find that they'll agree with what I'm saying above. But good point, we need more of their perspective. Though, Westerners may not like to hear the ugly truth. That Asian governments are neanderthal and Western countries actually can help, not by simply cutting hours and increasing wages.
The legislation was introduced by Congress in response to President Bush's requests, S.J.Res. 45 sponsored by Sen. Daschle & Sen. Lott was based on the original White House proposal authorizing the use of force in Iraq.
This was a unique situation where the White House drafted a request and proposed it to Congress and then both houses created separate bills. Ultimately it was the Senate version that was passed into law.
Whatever dude- the Bipartisan Senate vote enacted it for crissake which is what I said from the get go! Go after SolipismX with hs blatantly false posts with bad statistics and history.
Perfect. Ignorant and arrogant westerners trying to tell the rest of the world how they should live. It is truly amazing how little we know and understand about other countries and cultures. Stupidity abounds. Oh, but it's for their own good don't you know.
Well Said.
Although Westerners are mainly pointing to Americans as i have yet seen Brits / European being as Vocal about it. ( Not saying they aren't, just not as loud )
Oh, stop the thing about telling what other should or should not do. There are people in the world dying to earn more money so they could do what they want. That could be medical care for their parents or other non essential thing.
Foxconn Technology Group workers would prefer to boost their salaries, bonuses and training before cutting hours or improving conditions, according to an audit of Apple's biggest manufacturer.
Actually, we kind of do know what we're doing. There is such a thing as repetitive stress injury (RSI) that will occur if these people continue to work assembly lines 60+ hours/week. If you want your iPhone so cheap that you want workers in another country maimed for life, you are sub-human. There is nothing whatsoever stupid about cutting their time to 49 hours a week. Oh, and by the way, 49 hours/week is the law there. So your objection about westerners not knowing about eastern cultures falls badly flat. Grow up and learn something.
Do you know that the Japanese people work much more longer hours? You do not care because they are not taking away your jobs. You lost to the Chinese because you refuse to "work" at reasonable pay. You all were dreaming of becoming Doctors, Lawyers etc. when your economy was becoming a buble. Now when that bubble bursts, you find yourself without the skill and willingness to do the necessary dirty, low pay works.
Unfortunately for you, those jobs are not coming back to America.
BTW: I am using an iPhone and proud that it provides food to several poor Chines families. I will stay away from the products made in the US because that will feed some already fat Americans.
Actually, we kind of do know what we're doing. There is such a thing as repetitive stress injury (RSI) that will occur if these people continue to work assembly lines 60+ hours/week. If you want your iPhone so cheap that you want workers in another country maimed for life, you are sub-human. There is nothing whatsoever stupid about cutting their time to 49 hours a week. Oh, and by the way, 49 hours/week is the law there. So your objection about westerners not knowing about eastern cultures falls badly flat. Grow up and learn something.
Maybe we should buy cheaper Android phones from the same factories, where the makers have less to pay workers and can get away with more abuses because no-one is watching.
Although Westerners are mainly pointing to Americans as i have yet seen Brits / European being as Vocal about it. ( Not saying they aren't, just not as loud )
Oh, stop the thing about telling what other should or should not do. There are people in the world dying to earn more money so they could do what they want. That could be medical care for their parents or other non essential thing.
Brits and Europeans are somewhat less vocal about it because they have had their colonial empires and now are retreating from them, or have more or less given them up to the locals over the past 50 years. In some ways, they have "washed their hands clean" from it. They seem to play a important role in Asia but Americans are more relied upon for real social change.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tzeshan
Look at this article.
Foxconn workers would prefer raise to fewer hours
Bloomberg News
Friday, March 30, 2012
Foxconn Technology Group workers would prefer to boost their salaries, bonuses and training before cutting hours or improving conditions, according to an audit of Apple's biggest manufacturer.
This is the real sickness in Asia. Imagine the destitution that a few more dollars is your best hope rather than any real improvement in your life.
Think about this...
Imagine walking out the door, and the only thing that mattered whether you live or died is how many dollar bills you have in your pocket.
If you did 2 hours less today, in a few weeks your father in the village will die.
A colleague of mine was continually stressed because of ongoing medical costs for her father in a village with no access to good or affordable healthcare
If you get robbed you hope you have enough stashed under your mattress, because the police are corrupt and criminals themselves.
Police in Asia are known to be criminal in many ways, including accepting bribes, conducting raids even after being paid off
If you get poisoned by food or catch a disease, you hope you have enough dollar bills to pay a traditional or Western doctor.
Control of the food chain is reasonable in South East Asia but very bad in China with lots of issues over food and manufactured goods
If you need to travel to the other end of town, you try to take the cheapest possible transport even though it means waking up at 5am and going to sleep at 1am.
Public transport is a joke in most Asian cities. A Tokyo subway is heaven compared to what's available.
If you want a wife or husband rather than looking at a viable partnership you hope that you both make enough to reduce expenses compared to living as a single, and alcohol and prostitutes are an additional expense.
Most Asian boyfriend-girlfriend relationships have marriage in intent despite what each partner actually wants
If you walk out the door you hope you breathe clean enough air, and rather than the government or corporations reducing pollution, you hope you have enough money to pay for asthma or chest infections.
'Nuff said
If you are getting old you hope to work as many hours as you can, get enough money to raise kids, so that rather than live suitably in old age with sufficient independence, education and experience, you hope your kids can take care of you while you have a part-time job for old age. And you hope to God that you've saved up enough money by working as many hours as possible.
This explains some but not all of poor countries having ridiculous attitudes towards increasing the population at great cost to everyone and the earth. Inherent archaic and animal-like behaviour in regards to breeding, Islam and Catholicism notwithstanding.
If you need a business permit for your small business you hope you have enough fifty-dollar bills to bribe your local official to give you that permit, and even more fifty-dollar bills to pay off the inspectors when you "don't comply" with local regulations
In most cases the very-rich have access to government officials, and some being government officials themselves in most cases
Do you see the inherent, systemic failure of economic growth in this situation?
How bad it is that nobody really has hope for general improvements in life other than the ultimate pursuit of more money, regardless of the cost?
Imagine a Western society with no rule of law, no governance, no public benefits, other than a dollar value tattooed into the forehead of every single human being, with every basic human transaction nothing more than what that tattoo says.
And don't imagine it. Welcome to China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia.
If all we do is pump more cash into Asian countries we condemn them to a medieval existence for a long, long time. And we throw away everything that the West has fought against for eons.
If Chinese law limits a work week to 49 hours then that should be respected, for better or worse.
I take no issue with the law being followed by I do take issue with those that wanted to see hours reduced for the benefit of the Foxconn workers. Are things really better for them if they make less money, have more free time between shifts in a factory town, and there are 25% more employees needed within the same space to take up the slack now created by a reduction of working hours? It's good for those workers that are trying to get into Foxconn, but I see issues for those already gainful employed.
How much of a weekly wage lose is it? If workers try to save up while working at Foxconn for 2 years how much longer will they have to work in order to save up the same amount?
For someone who has been stuffing his face with cakes and pastries you sure said a mouthful.
Climb down from your high horse and being righteous doesnt fill an empty stomach with hot food or cakes.
I don't get his comment. I'm not sure which of my comments are "high horse" or why he assumes I not only like cakes and pastries, but stuff my face with them. If one must know I have never had a sweet tooth so cakes and pastries are neither crave nor eat.
I don't get his comment. I'm not sure which of my comments are "high horse" or why he assumes I not only like cakes and pastries, but stuff my face with them. If one must know I have never had a sweet tooth so cakes and pastries are neither crave nor eat.
I surmised it was a Marie Antoinette reference but didn't see how it fit. Given a choice between being ruled and the market, I'll err on the side of the market forces. I'd oppose a law in my state that limited me to 49 hours a week. I do not want to be held back by others' notions of what my limits are or stifled by the maximum someone else chooses to work. I consider that being ruled.
I cannot comprehend the entirety or the complexity of the workplace market is in the PRC. I do believe the people have the power to change the system in which they operate.
And 55 hours a week at my primary occupation is about my norm with no option for "overtime". That's before any weekend work that might get thrown my way. If my co-workers can't handle the pressure, too bad, so sad - I'll take the advancements. There will come a day when 50 hours will have to be my norm, then 45, then 40. I strike while it's hot (and no, I am not really a blacksmith).
I surmised it was a Marie Antoinette reference but didn't see how it fit. Given a choice between being ruled and the market, I'll err on the side of the market forces. I'd oppose a law in my state that limited me to 49 hours a week. I do not want to be held back by others' notions of what my limits are or stifled by the maximum someone else chooses to work. I consider that being ruled.
I cannot comprehend the entirety or the complexity of the workplace market is in the PRC. I do believe the people have the power to change the system in which they operate.
And 55 hours a week at my primary occupation is about my norm with no option for "overtime". That's before any weekend work that might get thrown my way. If my co-workers can't handle the pressure, too bad, so sad - I'll take the advancements. There will come a day when 50 hours will have to be my norm, then 45, then 40. I strike while it's hot (and no, I am not really a blacksmith).
49 hours seems low to me but if that is the law it should be followed. As previously mentioned, has anyone verified that is the law?
I spent several years working 75 hours a week between two jobs. I had no social life as my off duty time was sleeping. One shift started on Saturday at 3pm and went until 7am on Sunday (16 hours), then started 8 hours later at 3pm until 7am Monday morning (16 hours), then I had to be at my Mon-Fri job at 9am. Luckily the weekend job was maintaining a call center network which was dead on the weekends and system maintence was performed every Saturday night from 11am to 6am... which means it was pretty much a baby sitting job, but I still had to be awake and sitting up right (1st world problems). That was grueling but I also had the benefit of it not being repetitive. I guess that can make it easier to do a job since the action is repeatable but psychologically that has to be rough.
I remember when I was bagging groceries at 15yo. I would try to get double shifts on the weekend. It was at that point I started having dreams of bagging groceries. In my dreams I'd try to see how efficiently I could pack them (it was paper bags back then). In no way is that comparable to what Foxconn workers do but I remember being bothered by very vivid, rememberable dreams I felt I was actively controlling on some level.
That's quite a confused rant, but let me assure you that China has no interest in scaring off foreign businesses and investors. Their planned growth depends on it, and if they face too great an economic slowdown, there will be riots on every street in China.
It was written as a humorous poke at the situation. Thought that was obvious. Has this forum lost the ability to recognise light hearted writings?
I do recognise the seriousness of what's going on over there but we can all smile.
Whatever dude- the Bipartisan Senate vote enacted it for crissake which is what I said from the get go! Go after SolipismX with hs blatantly false posts with bad statistics and history.
Perhaps the intent of my two comments disputing your posts was too subtle for you to understand, although I had hoped that you were perceptive enough to read between the lines and admit your errors. Both posts were in fact a rebuke of your arrogant dismissal of SolipX by saying 'his education was lacking and that he should trash his textbooks.' As it turns out, you are the one who needed some schooling in Gov-101.
Comments
Please, is there anyone here who can delete the flotsam and jetsam on this site?
Is the whole of the thread complete bullshit, for I seem to be missing any cogent comments based on the article.
Please, to all of you who commented not on point to the story, please remove your comments. Then I will be happy to remove this comment, and make believe those who participated had only intelligent and thoughtful comments to make.
Hard to restore order when it's also a Mod helping to inject U.S. politics into a thread about Foxconn in China. Maybe he suspended him/herself.
Edit: Ha! The mod even levied a personal attack. I'll say that sanity in the thread died long before that.
Thank you! If a people have problems, they can solve them themselves.
Every time we hear Foxconn, we get this Apocalypto image of people being dragged from their quaint peaceful neighborhoods to forcefully work for Apple's fat American customers. When in reality, people flock to Foxconn in buses and wait for days on end for an opportunity to work there, they even fake their own IDs just to be admitted.
Yes, they do. So did the workers who lined up to work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York in 1911, 146 of whom died in a fire when they were locked in.
So did the coal miners who worked at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia. 29 of them died in April of 2010 .
People who are desperate will take any jobs offered, even dangerous jobs. That doesn't make it right.
I agree that we should not necessarily apply current American labor standards to the Chinese. I know a number of recent Chinese immigrants to the U.S. and there's a completely different mindset: whenever they see me on a weekend, they always ask, "Oh, you worked today, right?" Most of them hold several jobs.
The summer I graduated from high school, I worked 75 hours per week + 15 hours traveling time (but it wasn't in a factory). And for six years, from 1990 to 1996, as a senior exec, I generally worked 60 hours per week, not including travel and trade show appearances, which generally took place on weekends. So there were actually plenty of 80 hour weeks.
So I believe that there is some fair compromise between how those workers are being treated today and what we, as westerners, expect. Personally, I'm much more concerned about safety than I am about the precise number of hours that someone has to work. But one of the items in the report was that some fire exits were blocked or locked. That's a major disaster waiting to happen. I don't think limiting workers to 50 hours a week in a factory situation is out of line. Even though my understanding is that these devices are mostly hand-built and there are few machines, it's still dangerous doing that kind of mind-numbing work endlessly. And that's aside from the issue of repetitive stress injuries.
Yes on all accounts.
Nice.
I don't like paying more for gasoline/petrol, but BP (yes, evil) seems to provide a pleasant enough environment while having decent air pressure pumps too. Generally Tuesday and Wednesday are the cheapest days so I fill up then. I got a very small car (Chevy/Holden Spark) so I can get about 425km per 35L city/some freeway mixed = 12km/L = 28mpg. Which is not too bad.
I pay $20 a month to Nature Conservancy US as a "carbon offset" of sorts.
I've switched my electricity to 100% renewable through the power company and hope they honour their side of the agreement. As such I pay 26cents per kWh instead of 20cents per kWh ~ which overall is cheaper than solar panel installation which I can't do anyways since I'm renting.
I've recently gone back to buying organic where possible (though I'm not militant about it). The value for money is stellar. For $100 I can get food that would be impossible to easily get in Asia even for USD $300 in one go... Yes there's a growing organic movement especially among Buddhist Chinese sectors but in terms of range and convenience, Asia is still catching up a little, though definitely a great opportunity for those that can do it right.
So I do go out of my way to pay more for certain things, but also I cut down on other things such as partying and drinking, and instead of gym memberships I try to just run by the beach and do simple exercises as per my physio at home.
It's all a matter of priorities. I just can't imagine my life living day to day, with the new opportunities given to me that I didn't think I would ever have again, living while sucking the life from this Earth. Will I make a huge difference in the long run? Am I better than others? Maybe not, but I feel better overall and sleep better at night.
Malaysia is considered a developing country, somewhere in the "2nd world". GDP and growth look good on paper. It is considered not "as bad" as China, even the ethnic Malaysian Chinese say they wouldn't want to work in China... My childhood friend has worked in Shanghai for about 10 years on insanely good pay but in the end she had enough.
You must understand that in Asia, yes, people want to work as much as possible to pay for the things "Westerners" take for granted, such as affordable housing, healthcare, cars, technology and travel. But because of purchasing power as well, money is "never enough".
The real issue is efficiency. In Malaysia and China, due to rampant corruption, lack of rule of law in many circumstances, and no real job or government security, as well as outright institutionalised racism (eg. in Malaysia only ethnic Malays or Muslims can receive a ton of government benefits)... People are always trying to get more money, but in a very chaotic way. There are many enterprises by people or groups of people that are not only unethical, but basically criminal by modern standards. My dad, being semi-retired does some "freelance" work for doctors in private practices that want to take time off. Even in the esteemed medical profession there has been one or two doctors that tried to rip him off by saying he didn't do x hours, thereby not paying him adequately and then not responding to phone calls or texts.
There is the slippery-slope argument which can get old, but another indicator is this: in Malaysia, no one uses voicemail. It is very rare to encounter anyone using voice mail, and most people use mobile phones, and a lot of people use two mobile phones ~ mobile penetration is around 100% in a lot of Asian countries because of this. Why you ask? Because in Malaysia and many Asian countries, people do not pick up their phone unless they really need to talk to you or it is deemed "genuinely quite urgent"... It works like this. If you have 1-2 missed calls, ah, you'll call them back some time. If you have 5 missed calls, OK, looks urgent, I'll try to pick up next time. If you have 10 missed calls, then it's usually a family emergency of sort, or you're in fairly deep sh*t with your boss. Not to mention tons of texting, not related to teenage social maladies.
The written word is also generally taboo in Asian countries and Facebook and its equivalent is preferred for social discussions, as opposed to email, which is considered more formal by younger people, and is considered "highly legal" especially in ethnic Chinese "workplace getthoes". Let's look at this briefly. In Kuala Lumpur, workplaces tend to be fairly segregated. You have vast amounts of ethnic Malay-Muslim in private and public workplaces. The minority is filled by mixed-race workplaces and a lot of ethnic Chinese-dominated workplaces. In such workplaces, you have a few different types of Chinese. English-speaking and highly-educated, increasingly rare, make up business owners or managers. Middle managers and white collar working-class is made up of two kinds of Chinese: Cantonese-speaking and Mandarin-speaking. Here's the problem... English written communication is almost non-existent because Cantonese and Mandarin speakers tend to do poorly at English subjects in school. Malay (related but somewhat different to Indonesian) is the national medium, but this also cannot be used because non-Malays do not consider it a relevant language in non-Malay or companies with an international outlook. Chinese also cannot really be used, because Cantonese-speakers do not usually do Mandarin written classes in school, that tends to be more towards Mandarin-speakers who go to Mandarin-language schools where they have more rigorous education. So the end result is written English is used very sparingly, only for "serious matters", is usually tragically half-assed like the nonsense language of the Proview emails, and is usually meaningless because verbal communication is preferred because that allows for more unethical and criminal behaviour.
It seems hilarious, but you do need to spend a good few years in Asia to soak it all in, and realise how f*cked up everything is if you have been brought up in a colonial or 1st world country. Last year I spoke to some tourists who were French but working in a Chinese city for Michelin. They said they spoke to some Chinese women that told them, "don't tell anyone I smoke, they'll think I'm a prostitute". It's this kind of survival-based, repressed but chaotic social system that pervades most of Asian society.
It's a cliched stereotype but most young Asian women will be thrilled to hook up with a caucasian male ~ because there is a high chance they are more educated and wealthy, more ethical than local men, and there is a real opportunity for such Asian women to move to developed countries with their male partner. Caucasian men may or may not be as reliable as local men but they are considered better lovers than Asian men because they are deemed to be less inhibited and better communicators. It rarely works the other way, most young Asian men do not hook up with caucasian females, for reasons I won't really explore here.
As an ethnic Chinese-Indian mix, though I was born in Malaysia and am a fully-fledged legitimate citizen, as an Australian "green card" (PR visa) holder, or even when I was a USA H1B visa holder, I had more rights and privileges compared to the majority than I ever had in Malaysia, and more than I would ever hope to have in Malaysia. This is one of the reasons why Asians in Western countries tend to perform well, because they represent some of the best talent that would otherwise rot away in their home countries.
Anyway, the point is that in Malaysia for example, there are the "Chinaman companies" (not racist, that's literally what locals call it, including local ethnic Chinese), and then there are the "MNCs" (multinational corporations). The MNCs are generally known to have better working conditions, better pay, and better efficiency compared to Chinaman companies.
Perhaps in the 80s and early 90s there was rampant labour exploitation by Western countries, and perhaps it still does occur a lot. But in Malaysia, Singapore and even China (I have friends who have worked there for MNCs) ... there is a trend whereby Western countries do take care of their employees better than local businesses of any size chasing endless growth in a scatterbrain way.
Take this example ~ local companies even in Malaysia regularly push office workers to do 8am to 7pm stints for 5 days, with bosses requiring Saturday and Sunday work. That's over 60 hours a week. Retail is open 10am to 10pm 7 days a week. Some retail staff are required to do five, sometimes seven days IN A ROW of 10am to 10pm... That's 9am to 11pm six days in a row = 84 hours. Even a local conglomerate requires employees to manage social media from 8pm to 12 midnight so some colleagues of mine, besides 8am to 7pm Mon-Fri, had to stick to their smartphones for another five hours after work, plus weekends, to tweet and Facebook for the company.
The amount of hours worked in Asia is literally unfathomable to Westerners. And I would assert that it is the Asian governments that have given up on their people, assuming pace of life and GDP growth and "hard work" is par for the course, while only enriching the very, very few. In most urban Asian areas, quality of life by global standards is improving in some ways, but also very, very poor in terms of overall mental and physical health. Due to traditionally rich local cuisine, diabetes and cholesterol, as well as smoking, are now the major killers, instead of contagious diseases or hygiene-related diseases. Some local cuisine has a lot of health benefits and is very tasty, but in urban areas the local cuisine is rich in sugar, oil, cholesterol, saturated fat, meat and so on due to cost-cutting, and giving busy urbanites their "fix" several times a day. Even a lot of office workers also prefer such food because they tend to be cheaper compared to healthier restaurants.
Labour laws in Asia are generally a "laughable suggestion". Unions are rare in most workplaces, wages are low due to uncontrolled unskilled migration from places like India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and who knows where else. Education of whatever workplace laws that exist is minimal, and even then enforcement is paltry. There are many Chinese nationals in Malaysia, especially young women, who are known for mostly being prostitutes that work in a "spa" aka whorehouse.
This sounds derogatory but if you are a caucasian or well-educated male of non-controversial ethnicity in Asia that generally treats women with respect, have a reputable job and don't scam people a lot, you're considered a very good catch and most Asian women will treat you in a semi-prostitute way ~ ie. if you take care of them they will be loyal, and while some women don't outright ask for money for each sexual encounter, generally if you provide for their housing, car, and meet their parents and show you're interested in marriage, and converting to Islam in some cases, you've pretty much got sex for money for however long you want. A Dutch DJ was providing a "stipend" for a local acquaintance of mine while she was having sex with other men. Even through all this, he actually wrote a pretty good Trance song named after her.
................
Australians are usually called racist and lazy in Asia. This is incorrect. Australians and Americans tend to be more efficient, productive, and have a balance in life that ensures this. Government structures and rule of law also helps efficiency because (A) the value of your money isn't rubbish and (B) everyone isn't rushing around like there's no tomorrow.
I recently watched the movie "In Time", which is not bad for sci-fi pundits. One of the concepts is that the rich "rush around" less because they have money/time, while the poor are always "going too fast". This is very, very close to what happens in Asia... I have tons of friends that not only work 8am-7pm, but also try to do an MBA at night, plus a lot of people have businesses on the side as well. Whenever I told them I was working part-time, I almost always got asked, "so what's you're full-time job?" ~ it never occurred to them that part-time meant part-time, not part-time on top of full-time.
This is highly pertinent today because the world in 2020 to 2050 will probably fall into three areas:
1.
Established Western countries [such as USA, Canada, Western Europe (not really UK), Australia, New Zealand] that are undergoing a division in society but also a renaissance of sorts ~ whereby at least the left half of the population moves towards better living conditions even in light of global economic apocalypse. The fact is that in established Western countries that haven't been overrun by low-skilled immigrants (such as the UK), "rich white people, and educated native-born ethnicities" will be able to make the most of Asian and Latin American growth without compromising their quality of life by too much. As such I think Apple is doing the right thing.
2.
Developing (2nd/3rd world) countries that will make up the bulk of economic growth at least until 2050, whereby tremendous opportunities exist but quality of life for most will continue to be mediocre and at Western 1900s' levels for most people.
3.
Africa and Middle East and some "rogue states" where they are pretty much either going to get their act together or are just going to continue to skim at the bottom of human existence for the most part ~ not saying that these races/nationalities are inferior in any way, just that the governance of which is sub human if you really know the truth.
Not sure anyone said this, I highly doubt since most people here have no clue how this stuff works in China.
Just to educated people, unlike the US when a company in china who manufactures product for western companies are found to be in violation of the labor laws in china, it is not the government who comes in and fines them or fixes the situation. What happens is the government notifies the western company that their manufacturer is in violation of the labor laws and they are required to fix the issue with that manufacturer.
Interesting how that works, in stead of the government coming and being the heavy to make sure labor abuse does not happen they force companies to be the heavy. The reason being, if the western company want the government off their back they usually have to pay more to the manufacturing company so they can hire more people of fix the issue that are causing the problem. That is what Apple did that got Fox to give the workers a raise and in turn you know Apple paid more.
China likes this since they do not have to be the heavy on their companies and usually it means more workers making more money which is all good for China.
Indeed. Asian countries try to double-dip into the situation ~ have Western companies as some sort of better enterprise, leaving them to improve working conditions, while letting the local companies "rape" the population.
America, F$ck Yeah!
Media get a few workers to say how bad things are for a few dollars of bribery.
Team AmericFLA fly in, nuke the place, shoot all around them, claim a victory over bad standards and leave.
People left looking horrified, wondering WTF? and then go back to the Media and say how bad things are now, they cant afford to live.
But, hey, WE know whats best for them, because , look, the Western Culture has SOOO got it right. No Problems over here. Our 'do-godders' havent ruined things and we have no problems. Crime is virtually eliminated. So they REALLY should do things OUR way.
Like F$ck !!
China, close up the borders again and boot foreigners out. You'll be better off in the long run.
If Western countries pull out of Asia, conditions will be far, far worse. You wouldn't even imagine. I'm not talking about military intervention, I'm talking here about general foreign investment in non-war, non-espionage situations, such as in semi-dictatorship South East Asian countries (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam), India and China.
There's also such a thing as starving to death, and if you don't think people in China understand the trade-off between RSI (talk about rich people problems, sheesh) and their family back in the village starving to death, you're nuts. With that much less overtime there's that much less money to send back home and how many children will die as a result of that? It's more than zero, 100% guarantee.
Forcing an employee not to do what they want to do is always making that person worse off. Grow and yourself.
Not really. An employee working well beyond modern human conditions benefits no one. Eventually they will not be able to pay for the things they are working so hard for because of rising costs, rising personal needs, as well as more family obligations. If you have social and government structures in place such as Western nations, most Asians working 45, 55 hours tops a week is enough.
Westerners assume 60 hours or 80 hours is great if you can pull it off. But you're thinking of 40 hours of decent basic pay, 20 hours of decent overtime pay, like a "mom holding down two jobs to pay for the kids because of a deadbeat husband". This is not the case in Asia. For most companies, you're working 60 hours a week for basic salary and basic obligations to the "Chinaman" company, 20 hours overtime is unregulated and usually required for rising up the ladder, and here's the crux:
~The Western mom with two jobs doesn't have to worry as much about the deadbeat husband hiring criminals to get more money from her (if he isn't a criminal himself)
~The Western mom doesn't have to worry as much about the company not paying her basic wages, overtime, let alone compulsory 401(k) equivalent
~The Western mom can get some childcare and unemployment benefits
~The Western mom can more easily get health insurance [in Malaysia I am uninsurable because of a mental condition... it is a growing problem in the US but not as bad in Canada, Australia, Europe ex. UK]
~The Western mom in most cities can take the train to work and not have to sit in traffic for hours in crowded urban hellholes
~The Western mom can buy a car with appropriate child seats other than leave her kids with her parents while she rides a very basic motorcycle to her job(s)
~The Western mom is less likely to have 3 or more children from various fathers, or have them due to rape which she has to bear for the rest of the life due to sub human implementations of Islam or Catholicism.
While everyone is so busy trying to decide how to help with poor Foxconn workers, has no one bothered to ask them what *THEY* want?
Yes, Foxconn workers should be consulted, but I think in any case you might find that they'll agree with what I'm saying above. But good point, we need more of their perspective. Though, Westerners may not like to hear the ugly truth. That Asian governments are neanderthal and Western countries actually can help, not by simply cutting hours and increasing wages.
Sorry. You are wrong once again.
The legislation was introduced by Congress in response to President Bush's requests, S.J.Res. 45 sponsored by Sen. Daschle & Sen. Lott was based on the original White House proposal authorizing the use of force in Iraq.
This was a unique situation where the White House drafted a request and proposed it to Congress and then both houses created separate bills. Ultimately it was the Senate version that was passed into law.
Whatever dude- the Bipartisan Senate vote enacted it for crissake which is what I said from the get go! Go after SolipismX with hs blatantly false posts with bad statistics and history.
Perfect. Ignorant and arrogant westerners trying to tell the rest of the world how they should live. It is truly amazing how little we know and understand about other countries and cultures. Stupidity abounds. Oh, but it's for their own good don't you know.
Well Said.
Although Westerners are mainly pointing to Americans as i have yet seen Brits / European being as Vocal about it. ( Not saying they aren't, just not as loud )
Oh, stop the thing about telling what other should or should not do. There are people in the world dying to earn more money so they could do what they want. That could be medical care for their parents or other non essential thing.
Foxconn workers would prefer raise to fewer hours
Bloomberg News
Friday, March 30, 2012
Foxconn Technology Group workers would prefer to boost their salaries, bonuses and training before cutting hours or improving conditions, according to an audit of Apple's biggest manufacturer.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...BU1B1NSIS8.DTL
Actually, we kind of do know what we're doing. There is such a thing as repetitive stress injury (RSI) that will occur if these people continue to work assembly lines 60+ hours/week. If you want your iPhone so cheap that you want workers in another country maimed for life, you are sub-human. There is nothing whatsoever stupid about cutting their time to 49 hours a week. Oh, and by the way, 49 hours/week is the law there. So your objection about westerners not knowing about eastern cultures falls badly flat. Grow up and learn something.
Do you know that the Japanese people work much more longer hours? You do not care because they are not taking away your jobs. You lost to the Chinese because you refuse to "work" at reasonable pay. You all were dreaming of becoming Doctors, Lawyers etc. when your economy was becoming a buble. Now when that bubble bursts, you find yourself without the skill and willingness to do the necessary dirty, low pay works.
Unfortunately for you, those jobs are not coming back to America.
BTW: I am using an iPhone and proud that it provides food to several poor Chines families. I will stay away from the products made in the US because that will feed some already fat Americans.
Actually, we kind of do know what we're doing. There is such a thing as repetitive stress injury (RSI) that will occur if these people continue to work assembly lines 60+ hours/week. If you want your iPhone so cheap that you want workers in another country maimed for life, you are sub-human. There is nothing whatsoever stupid about cutting their time to 49 hours a week. Oh, and by the way, 49 hours/week is the law there. So your objection about westerners not knowing about eastern cultures falls badly flat. Grow up and learn something.
Maybe we should buy cheaper Android phones from the same factories, where the makers have less to pay workers and can get away with more abuses because no-one is watching.
Well Said.
Although Westerners are mainly pointing to Americans as i have yet seen Brits / European being as Vocal about it. ( Not saying they aren't, just not as loud )
Oh, stop the thing about telling what other should or should not do. There are people in the world dying to earn more money so they could do what they want. That could be medical care for their parents or other non essential thing.
Brits and Europeans are somewhat less vocal about it because they have had their colonial empires and now are retreating from them, or have more or less given them up to the locals over the past 50 years. In some ways, they have "washed their hands clean" from it. They seem to play a important role in Asia but Americans are more relied upon for real social change.
Look at this article.
Foxconn workers would prefer raise to fewer hours
Bloomberg News
Friday, March 30, 2012
Foxconn Technology Group workers would prefer to boost their salaries, bonuses and training before cutting hours or improving conditions, according to an audit of Apple's biggest manufacturer.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...BU1B1NSIS8.DTL
This is the real sickness in Asia. Imagine the destitution that a few more dollars is your best hope rather than any real improvement in your life.
Think about this...
Imagine walking out the door, and the only thing that mattered whether you live or died is how many dollar bills you have in your pocket.
If you did 2 hours less today, in a few weeks your father in the village will die.
A colleague of mine was continually stressed because of ongoing medical costs for her father in a village with no access to good or affordable healthcare
If you get robbed you hope you have enough stashed under your mattress, because the police are corrupt and criminals themselves.
Police in Asia are known to be criminal in many ways, including accepting bribes, conducting raids even after being paid off
If you get poisoned by food or catch a disease, you hope you have enough dollar bills to pay a traditional or Western doctor.
Control of the food chain is reasonable in South East Asia but very bad in China with lots of issues over food and manufactured goods
If you need to travel to the other end of town, you try to take the cheapest possible transport even though it means waking up at 5am and going to sleep at 1am.
Public transport is a joke in most Asian cities. A Tokyo subway is heaven compared to what's available.
If you want a wife or husband rather than looking at a viable partnership you hope that you both make enough to reduce expenses compared to living as a single, and alcohol and prostitutes are an additional expense.
Most Asian boyfriend-girlfriend relationships have marriage in intent despite what each partner actually wants
If you walk out the door you hope you breathe clean enough air, and rather than the government or corporations reducing pollution, you hope you have enough money to pay for asthma or chest infections.
'Nuff said
If you are getting old you hope to work as many hours as you can, get enough money to raise kids, so that rather than live suitably in old age with sufficient independence, education and experience, you hope your kids can take care of you while you have a part-time job for old age. And you hope to God that you've saved up enough money by working as many hours as possible.
This explains some but not all of poor countries having ridiculous attitudes towards increasing the population at great cost to everyone and the earth. Inherent archaic and animal-like behaviour in regards to breeding, Islam and Catholicism notwithstanding.
If you need a business permit for your small business you hope you have enough fifty-dollar bills to bribe your local official to give you that permit, and even more fifty-dollar bills to pay off the inspectors when you "don't comply" with local regulations
In most cases the very-rich have access to government officials, and some being government officials themselves in most cases
Do you see the inherent, systemic failure of economic growth in this situation?
How bad it is that nobody really has hope for general improvements in life other than the ultimate pursuit of more money, regardless of the cost?
Imagine a Western society with no rule of law, no governance, no public benefits, other than a dollar value tattooed into the forehead of every single human being, with every basic human transaction nothing more than what that tattoo says.
And don't imagine it. Welcome to China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia.
If all we do is pump more cash into Asian countries we condemn them to a medieval existence for a long, long time. And we throw away everything that the West has fought against for eons.
But the conditions are better now¡
Have conditions ever been worst.
If Chinese law limits a work week to 49 hours then that should be respected, for better or worse.
I take no issue with the law being followed by I do take issue with those that wanted to see hours reduced for the benefit of the Foxconn workers. Are things really better for them if they make less money, have more free time between shifts in a factory town, and there are 25% more employees needed within the same space to take up the slack now created by a reduction of working hours? It's good for those workers that are trying to get into Foxconn, but I see issues for those already gainful employed.
How much of a weekly wage lose is it? If workers try to save up while working at Foxconn for 2 years how much longer will they have to work in order to save up the same amount?
For someone who has been stuffing his face with cakes and pastries you sure said a mouthful.
Climb down from your high horse and being righteous doesnt fill an empty stomach with hot food or cakes.
For someone who has been stuffing his face with cakes and pastries you sure said a mouthful.
Climb down from your high horse and being righteous doesnt fill an empty stomach with hot food or cakes.
Cute.
Cute.
I don't get his comment. I'm not sure which of my comments are "high horse" or why he assumes I not only like cakes and pastries, but stuff my face with them. If one must know I have never had a sweet tooth so cakes and pastries are neither crave nor eat.
I don't get his comment. I'm not sure which of my comments are "high horse" or why he assumes I not only like cakes and pastries, but stuff my face with them. If one must know I have never had a sweet tooth so cakes and pastries are neither crave nor eat.
I surmised it was a Marie Antoinette reference but didn't see how it fit. Given a choice between being ruled and the market, I'll err on the side of the market forces. I'd oppose a law in my state that limited me to 49 hours a week. I do not want to be held back by others' notions of what my limits are or stifled by the maximum someone else chooses to work. I consider that being ruled.
I cannot comprehend the entirety or the complexity of the workplace market is in the PRC. I do believe the people have the power to change the system in which they operate.
And 55 hours a week at my primary occupation is about my norm with no option for "overtime". That's before any weekend work that might get thrown my way. If my co-workers can't handle the pressure, too bad, so sad - I'll take the advancements. There will come a day when 50 hours will have to be my norm, then 45, then 40. I strike while it's hot (and no, I am not really a blacksmith).
I surmised it was a Marie Antoinette reference but didn't see how it fit. Given a choice between being ruled and the market, I'll err on the side of the market forces. I'd oppose a law in my state that limited me to 49 hours a week. I do not want to be held back by others' notions of what my limits are or stifled by the maximum someone else chooses to work. I consider that being ruled.
I cannot comprehend the entirety or the complexity of the workplace market is in the PRC. I do believe the people have the power to change the system in which they operate.
And 55 hours a week at my primary occupation is about my norm with no option for "overtime". That's before any weekend work that might get thrown my way. If my co-workers can't handle the pressure, too bad, so sad - I'll take the advancements. There will come a day when 50 hours will have to be my norm, then 45, then 40. I strike while it's hot (and no, I am not really a blacksmith).
49 hours seems low to me but if that is the law it should be followed. As previously mentioned, has anyone verified that is the law?
I spent several years working 75 hours a week between two jobs. I had no social life as my off duty time was sleeping. One shift started on Saturday at 3pm and went until 7am on Sunday (16 hours), then started 8 hours later at 3pm until 7am Monday morning (16 hours), then I had to be at my Mon-Fri job at 9am. Luckily the weekend job was maintaining a call center network which was dead on the weekends and system maintence was performed every Saturday night from 11am to 6am... which means it was pretty much a baby sitting job, but I still had to be awake and sitting up right (1st world problems). That was grueling but I also had the benefit of it not being repetitive. I guess that can make it easier to do a job since the action is repeatable but psychologically that has to be rough.
I remember when I was bagging groceries at 15yo. I would try to get double shifts on the weekend. It was at that point I started having dreams of bagging groceries. In my dreams I'd try to see how efficiently I could pack them (it was paper bags back then). In no way is that comparable to what Foxconn workers do but I remember being bothered by very vivid, rememberable dreams I felt I was actively controlling on some level.
That's quite a confused rant, but let me assure you that China has no interest in scaring off foreign businesses and investors. Their planned growth depends on it, and if they face too great an economic slowdown, there will be riots on every street in China.
It was written as a humorous poke at the situation. Thought that was obvious. Has this forum lost the ability to recognise light hearted writings?
I do recognise the seriousness of what's going on over there but we can all smile.
Whatever dude- the Bipartisan Senate vote enacted it for crissake which is what I said from the get go! Go after SolipismX with hs blatantly false posts with bad statistics and history.
Perhaps the intent of my two comments disputing your posts was too subtle for you to understand, although I had hoped that you were perceptive enough to read between the lines and admit your errors. Both posts were in fact a rebuke of your arrogant dismissal of SolipX by saying 'his education was lacking and that he should trash his textbooks.' As it turns out, you are the one who needed some schooling in Gov-101.