[China] Explotation of Chinese workers by American Corporation

[HelenH]

That sums it up pretty neatly!

It's very easy to turn a blind eye, so long as we get the products we want at a price we like. But if paying a few pennies more means that the people producing the goods aren't made by kids in sweatshops then I'm happy to pay the difference.

The key is knowing which products are which. I think the growth in 'fair trade' brands will continue to grow. Our power as consumers is the only real power we have, so it's nice to use it!

 

[trackrocks17]

Johnno, I always suspected that you had a heart. Keep up the good work.

(I'll put you down on my list of friends I send carob Easter eggs too. God that stuff is disgusting but ethics are ethics.)

 

[mikeatx79]

You know I agree completely, supply and demand. If someone comes to work for me for say $20 an hour, then starts bitching about how little they make, why is it my responsibility to say, oh, poor guy, heres another $3 an hour? They knew the pay when they started.

If I put a sign out saying I'm hiring people for $3 an hour, anyone who walks through that door will be explained the job and the pay/benefits and if they want the job, fine, if not, someone else down the road will or I'll be forced to raise the pay to find someone who will.

 

[rekkimcjones]

You only 'suspected' it? Damnit woman, I'm ALL heart!

I'll, er, look forward to it...!

I tried Fair Trade coffee, but it was awful so I never bought it again. But I hope someone else does.....

Seriously, it's not just a matter of being all 'heart'. It's self-interest too, in the long-run. Globalisation hurts people in the 'developed' world just as surely as it hurts people in the 'developing' world. Not as dramatically - but just as surely. I don't want my descendants to suffer, so I have a stake in the future too. (Sort of.)

 

[bigredfred]

But what if there was no choice for the worker. He could either take your $3 an hour or he could starve. He works for you. You sell your product that he made for you at a massive profit. You now make $1000 for every $3 that he makes. You have more power (economic at least) than him, his family, his community, his government.

When this scenario takes place on a multi-national scale, your government tax your profit and your society benefits from increased funds. His society gets little to nothing. Then you find out that someone is willing to work for $2 an hour in another country. You explain this to your $3 dollar mans government and they say "OK, we'll slacken our environmental policies and allow you to dump radioactive waste in our rivers. We'll suspend laws on workers rights and you can work him for as long as you like. Hell, we'll even force them to work for you by intimidation and assualt." That countries economy becomes dependent on your business. They neglect their agriculture and deforest woodland to make room for your factories. Then one day, you relocate to $2 an hour mans country. $3 an hour mans country has been stripped of resources and there's no alternative industry. Wonderful.

Ok, so it's extreme, but it has, and does happen this way. I accept that there are always going to be those that make more, and those that make less. But I don't believe that decisions should only be made on economic logic and determined by market forces. Morals and ethics have a place in any decision process.

 

[stikfigure16]

I see your point, but thats really his governments issue not mine (or wal-marts) for example. I mean you can take that to an extreme if you wanted. Don't wear animal products, thats immoral to some people, don't use cotton because its the #1 chemical polluter of the Mississippi basin, don't use artificial fabrics because it's use of oil supports terrorists, don't buy a foreign car because its unamerican. Who's to say whats moral or not?

 

[LauraK]

Kwajman, your defeatist attitude is such a cop-out. Having morals and living by them also means one is aware that there are positive and negative effects to every action. However, we try to choose the path of least destruction using the knowledge we have and as human nature has it, given our personal interests. Its better than doing nothing.

And please don't tell me that its the government's responsibiilty in developing countries. Big businesses are the government and politics of the global economy. They are 100% aware of what they are doing and why they are doing it (i.e. using cheap labour, circumventing union laws, abusing human rights, abusing child rights, getting off scot-free for enviromental pollution in developing nations).

Oh and Kwajman, do you even know what the word choice really means? Supply and demand my arse.

Johnno, yeah I knew that. Just stirring Also, you're right that our actions as global citizens impacts the future. And since I believe in reincarnation I don't want to be born into a world where multinationals are buying the rights to water sources and will be selling water to us (too bad for the workers who earn $3 a month huh?), I don't want to be born into a little South American village where I spend my childhood weaving little blankets that will be sold in L.A. and going blind by the time I'm 12 from working in my little mudhut with bad lighting.

 

[Jeny^^tt]

Lily,

It could be even worse. You could be reincarnated as an Australian.

 

[jaydee]

Of course they want something better, everyone does. I want to be paid 500/hr but that isn't going to happen. It isn't a companies job to pay me what I want or treat me how I want to be treated, their only responsibility is to let me know what a job entails and how I will be compensated for that job, the rest is up to me.

I would love to see everyone have the chance to go to school, but that isn't how life works and if you think it is possible I would love to hear how.



Of course it is, unless you want a book long dissertation I will have to condense things a bit. What I am saying is that big corporations are not responsible for individuals choosing to work for them. Workers have no universal rights instead they only have the rights they demand. If you are unwilling to stand up for what you perceive to be your right, then you will never get them.



No, they are repsonsible but not for the problems you are discussing.

It does matter what Mega Corp A,B,C does, but not what individual workers choose to accept.

I am not endorsing slave labor, I am simply stating that what a consenting adult chooses to accept is up to them just as they are the ones who put a price on their time and efforts.

What double standard are you talking about?




I never said that.... If a consenting adult chooses to work in miserable conditions for miserly wages then that is their choice.



Social responsibility? Corporations to not have a responsibility to look out for society, they have a responsibility to follow the law and to do their best for their stockholders.



What implicit responsibility?

It is not a corporations job to tell me what I should be paid per hour, or what rights I deserve, or what working conditions I deserve, that is all up to me the individual.

 

[TaterSalad]

I've only quoted a couple of bits from near the start and end of your post, but the gist of your argument is flawed because you seem to be totally disregarding the fact that in more 'developed' countries (such as the UK, for example) there are laws regulating how employees can be treated and the conditions they work in, whereas workers in many 'developing' countries do not enjoy the same rights and protection which we tend to take for granted.

 

[RonE]

Of course it would be nice if they were treated better, but it isn't a corporations responsibility to treat their employees the way we would like them too.


>>>>>>



Child Labour may be distasteful, but when it comes down to it- Nike was exploiting them but the children were getting something out of it as well, that something would be food.

I am sure that given a choice between starving and working under terrible conditions everyone would choose working under terrible conditions.

The fact is, companies like Nike are doing something good when they employ children. While it would be preferred if the children were given food and did not have to work, I don't see anyone offering to feed, clothe, provide shelter etc to those working in child labour factories....

Not that Nike is doing it for the children, but they are helping the children by providing them a means to live that they otherwise would not have.




Your correct, this belongs in another topic.

 

[ConnorO]

We have those rights because we demanded them, we won't work without them.

Until they demand the same, they won't get it.

 

[neato]

Johnno - I typed out a whole rant and you had to pick that bit to comment on didn't you? I'll see you in your next life.

 

[gtfordman]

I liked the good old days when American corporations used to exploit American workers. Now we aren't important enough to exploit.


Many countries arre now going through their own industrial revolutions. In time these practises will end as these countries become more modern. India, China and so fourth are growing by leaps and bounds and so will the labor laws.

Soon these manufacturing jobs will be replaced by machines. Who will help the machines that get exploited?

 

[delgamat]

I took a look at Apothesis' response and was almost tempted to respond.
But after a quick think... I found his stance so absurd that it basically doesn't merit the effort involved to respond.

Basically it would entail having to explain basic concepts of social responsibility and corporations and the interaction of the two.

I haven't the patience to go back over basics with someone who obviously has his mind made up the corporations don't bear any responsibility in the societies in which they operate.

Absurd is the only word that comes to mind.

 

[MadeleineL]

This whole thread is made up entirely of bleeding heart liberals!

The basic fact is that (just taking China), in China, because we want cheep foot wear and crappy plastic toys, 400 million people (whats that? Close to the total population of the UK, USA Australia and Canada?) have been lifted out of poverty. 400 million people (over 10 odd years) now eat properly, dress properly, can offer their kids the education that they never had and can start to exert force on the government for social change.

If you take away the sweat shop jobs, you take away the right of the country to develop and clime the economic ladder.



Of course the big issue is in 20 years when China and India make up half the worlds population and are just as rich as USA, then they decide that they don't like america

 

[HaikuAnswerMan]

This entire situation is far more complex than simple arguements of right or wrong.

The fact is that corporations are taking advantage of other country's labor and business laws (or lack their of) to get extremely cheap labor who works far more hours than workers in the US. They also typically are able to use cheapers and more wasteful (read as producing various forms of industrial waste and pollution) modes of production.

And this does put US people out of work. And often those same folks are the ones who are shopping at the low price stores, looking for "deals" and effectively supporting the exact same practices that are getting them into trouble. We also need to acknowledge that there aren't always viable options.

Wes we look at the foriegn labor pool, standards of living are so radically different in these countries that it's difficult to compare them with the US in any way. In some of these countries, the difference between life and death can be being able to buy $5's worth of misquito netting to protect your family from malaria. And in that respect (as has been the case in many areas of the industrialized world) before a group can worry about equal social rights they need be economically stabilized. So this is a generational thing. Take black americans and the civil rights movement. It's no coincidence that the major advancedments in civil rights took place approximately a century after the US slave population was freed. It took that much time for that population to be economicaly stable enough that they could stop worrying about basic human needs and move onto basic social needs.

So, btw, we're decades away from the Chinese labor pool being in a functional position to mobilize. At best there may be some social uprisings in the urban areas. But I don't expect that will happen too soon. The real change will come when and if the countryside gets on board.

Heck, I expect that eventually China is going to be broken up as what they're heading for is more and more of a divide between urban and rural. And it's not China has ever been a united country in anything other than name anyway.

Is it fair? In the grand scheme, no. Should US corporations be held to higher standards, yes.

Let me note that the global version of Capitalism that is presently at play, is about as close to Adam Smith's original conception of the free market system as the USSR and China version of Communism was to Marx's writings. It's just that "modified Capitalism" works better than "modified Communism."

- Matt

 

[LenaA]

But to promote social change, they dont need to 'mobilize'. they just need to worry the government enough. This is not decades away. This is happening now in China. After something like 3000 riots in the country side last year (theres a thread here somewhere), china is now looking at making the countryside as rich as the cities, and more social laws are comming through.

Just because they are communist, dont mean the only way to get better is revolution.

 

[VanessaS]

I guess this is a by degrees thing. There will probably be a bit of give and take for decades. And the Chinese beaurocratic machinary has always been good at playing hard and fast -- pragmatically giving certain rights to one region (or turning a blind eye to certain activites). That said, I expect that substantive changes and legistalated rights are decades away, and at this point I'm not backing down from that perspective.

Especially since the pattern of rural riots has been an ongoing issue for years (dating back to the Mao era). It's just we're hearing a lot more about them now.

And, please note, my analysis has little to do with China as a communist nation and far more to do with it as an authorian beaurocratic government.

- Matt

 

[WaleedM]

Interesting that you should mention that. One of the people in my (physics) research group last summer had been an organizer of the protest at Tiananmin Square. He's still actively trying to change things in China and is planning on going back there soon, despite the fact that he had been in prison for several years.

He indicated to me that China post communism was very much the same in many ways as it had been pre-communism. The main problem, at least, as he described it, seemed to be the amount of government and the amount of power given to the government (which on the lower levels sounded more like the mafia than any legitimate organization). IIRC, he said that each street had someone in charge, each small region (like a ward of a large city), then another region on top of that, etc. and that at each level, the officials were fairly wealthy.

His English wasn't all that good, so I missed quite a bit of what he was saying, but he did seem to enjoy talking about the subject, so I heard quite a bit. I wish I could remember more of it better, though.