Dell under fire for labour rights abuses at China plants Dell has become the latest Western technology giant to find itself accused of labour rights violations at plants operated by Chinese suppliers, with new allegations suggesting extensive overtime, low wages, discriminatory hiring and dangerous working environments are all prevalent. Compiled by rights groups DanWatch and China …
Since most of the products we buy are assembled in China by near slave labour, I'm not sure many people are able to criticise Dell et al, given that we're buying the shiny stuff cheap no questions asked.
But is there any good evidence to explain what is the impact on the end product price of (a) some living wage and decent working conditions in China, and (b) making the product in the US or Europe? If we wanted to get all ethical, how much would the price tag be?
The second part of the obvious question is who currently benefits? Does it translate to some definition of excess corporate profits or is it consumer price savings? For Apple it seems to certainly be excess profits, not sure that's always true away from the "price setter" firms.
excess corporate profit
That concept does not make any sense at all and has been pulled from "progressive" dictionary.
You know the only "non-excessive" profit will, in the end, be 0. Upon which Marxist types will be happy and the excellency of NORK can be attained. God Bless!
Doubtful.
Currently China subsidizes the economy with overly cheap stuff, not to mention buying of "government bonds".
If that stops, there will be gnashing an wailing, not "more manufacturing jobs". And it's not like these jobs will be back quickly with the regulatory horrors and all around "I'm doing what I want and what people like to hear because life is good" attitude of the political elites.
The point is that while for small runs hand assembling is the way to go, any larger runs it makes sense to use automation, hence the reason the Raspberry Pi is assembled in the UK as they have larger enough numbers...
The only reason China uses people to assemble is they can get them at almost slave labour prices, and from the sounds of the locations I expect the local government has a few corrupt officials/inspectors to bribe and keep the factory open....
While China may have a controlled media, they do actually some pretty good investigations, as long as the end result is good for the PRC.
and the PRC prosecuting these factory owners along with the officials getting punished would be good public relations. I.E. the officials/inspectors are low enough down the chain to be disposable, so if they have embezzled more than £1Million, they had better get their affairs in order soon...
IIRC a news article when I was in the PRC last, they actually executed two guys who defrauded toll booths by claiming they lived in a different location and avoiding tolls for their business, it added up to multiple millions over the years they ran the scam...
"extensive overtime, low wages, discriminatory hiring and dangerous working environments ..."
Ah! And there was me thinking that they did it all with Magic Fairy Dust.
The trouble is even if you look and find something not made in China the chances are there will be components in said device that ARE made in China.
So what to do? Best thing is to continue the disclosures and try and put pressure on the vendors, it's not like we have much leverage over the manufacturers in China, but the likes of Apple and Dell do.
Sounds like a result to me! I just hope they really do kick this kind of thing in the butt!
Although having lived in China, I can't imagine how bad the conditions are for the locals to complain about their accommodations being cramped...
Dell do have one good thing they do, and that is they sell a laptop pre-built with Linux! the other big pc companies can't say that... sure it would be nice to have it cheaper than the windows machine, BUT I have to accept that the investment per machine in getting drivers right etc. is higher than the windows version.
While the likes of Dell', Apple and other companies are being taken to task for 'not doing something' about the working conditions, I guess it is good business to buy from the cheapest source.
Surely it is the Chinese government (or wherever this is occurring) that should be taking responsibility for the welfare of their countries workforce. After all, they are supposed to be a Communist country.
I know past Communist countries did not have the highest regard for labour laws, they are the ones who are directly responsible for passing and enforcing them.
Perhaps we should be aiming our condemnation to the various countries' governments to take action for their own workers.
In the end, we may not like it but companies have a duty to shareholders to produce profits for them. I just wish that some of them didn't "price gouge so much.
Regulations to pay a decent wage, make machinery safe, not poison the air and water, etc... these are why our "conservatives" want to abolish the (US) EPA and other inconvenient regulators. Of COURSE the overseas workers are treated like rolls of paper in the toilet (UK: WC); that's how the factories make money. And the rest, too, all the way up the chain.
I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
Captain Renault; Casablanca, 1942
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/quotes
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