We are like prisoners... We do not have a life, only work.

For example, the workers in that factory pay ~$1.50 a day for factory food. I don't think you can get food for a day with that amount in a place that accepts dollar as the main currency.

I know of a a wealthy stock broker in India, and his estate is unusual in that it has a shower. He never bothered to hook it up to the hot water since no one uses it.

And how did you like life in Bangkok?

I'm now considering an out-of-town consulting engagement, and I'd much prefer to work 10+ hours four days a week and have a long weekend with my family. Perhaps these workers are taking this to the extreme -- six months on and six months off?

I also started reading this, expecting something Upton Sinclairesque, until I read

While working, the young people cannot talk, use their cell phones or listen to music.

Duh. I know quite a few places here in the U.S. that would double their output with a rule like that.

> All workers must trim their fingernails so as not to impede production.

> Workers are strictly prohibited from entering any work area other than their own.

> Workers describe factory food as awful.

Teenagers complaining about cafeteria food? Really? I'm sure conditions are bad, but the article is trying too hard.

As bad as things are, the boy interviewed comes back each night for four hours of voluntary overtime.

Your comment made me think: Privileged white collar shows complete disregard for those that have it worse. News at 11.

However, it was not only hard work that bootstrapped Taiwan out of poverty. Some part of Taiwan's current comfort is due to moving its most extreme labor and environmental problems to other Asian countries, namely China. So now China and a few others are at the bottom of the supply chain...who do they pass the buck to to lift themselves out of these conditions?

Well this is the crux right here, we can't put something like this is context without good data. Do these workers actually make a living wage? What is the cost of living in this part of the world, and most importantly, do any workers actually escape poverty over time? Things like these can be measured, and we should demand more from any news source.

I happen to disagree with your point of view, but it's meaningless if all we have is conjecture based on personal experience.

Edit: If your personal experience is actually from that level of poverty in that particular part of the world, then please, by all means, tell us what it's like.

  >> "Security guards search workers' bags and pockets
  >> as they leave the factory."
  >
  > Same in the USA, especially in warehousing/supply
  > chain jobs.

{edit} I was sitting at the airport waiting to talk to an airline rep about getting on the next plane out. I was caught up in this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6... and missed my connecting flight (since it was cancelled due to the terminal being locked down).

Apparently you have no idea how bad it really is there. Here in the US we went through the industrial revolution in the 1800s, when they used to have child labor in factories, letting thousands of children get harmed or injured by unsafe machinery, sending children on suicide missions into mine shafts, chimneys, etc.

We learned over a hundred years ago that those labor practices are barbaric and unnecessary to provide a healthy economic condition for our country.

Why shouldn't we expect the countries we purchase products from to treat their workers with a modicum of respect and humanity?

I know you have the entire article in mind when you say this, but your associated excerpt is a direct quotation from one of the factory workers.

> "We (who?) would respect us? We are ordered around and told what to do and what not to do. No one in management has ever asked us about anything. There is no discussion. You feel no respect."

So unless you question the authenticity of that quotation, i think you're being extremely dismissivie of not just the white-collar western observers who wrote and read this article.

Factory work may have given you a life beyond poverty. It may even have worked out for your mother, in the end. That says nothing of how much she suffered while working in those conditions.

Her generation had it even harder than these kids (many of their peers do!), while enduring hunger and scarcity.

Looking on today's spoiled western civilization - I really can't help but to feel that we have it too well. I mean - leisure really ain't something humanity has been built for.

I predict that this Chinese generation will, ultimately prove as more satisfied and fulfilled than the one in 50 years.

Seems to have a pretty good idea how things work in a factory in China.

> Okay, my mother worked as a child sweatshop laborer in Taiwan in the 60s, before the country bootstrapped itself out of abject, agrarian poverty, and I take issue with this.

Much of Taiwan was poor because of Japanese occupation. Some were rich because of it. That divide is the sole reason Taiwan seemed poor to you.

My relatives prior to that, had enough land to farm and have a comfortable living. They were able to hire people to help. And from what I heard, that was the middle-class at the time. It is annoying that people look at the poorest farmers who probably had barely-arable land and tilled by hand as proof that all farmers are better off being in a sweat-shop.

When WWII came around, the Japanese began to militarize. They seized some of the best land, and they demanded ALL the rice and other staple crops from every farmer. One of my relatives hid some rice to eat, and was beaten to death when the Japanese found out.

Meanwhile, the Japanese were trying to assimilate Taiwan quickly, so they artificially consolidated economic power into the Taiwanese who hated China: the rich and nobles who fled from the Communist uprising. This redistribution of wealth impacted my relatives for generations, even today.

The outcome? The new upper-class were able to own the natural resources, the capital, and the businesses, while my relatives and many others were left with less land and a decade of lost wealth. Those people lived the life of luxury throughout the 1960's. Tales rebounded of bosses that sat around playing mahjong, harassing female workers, or flying all over the world, while exploited workers worked for their enrichment from 6AM-10PM. However, even this did not last very long.

Many companies already started to relocate their sweatshops to China by the late 60's.

Taiwan did not need sweatshop labor to pull itself out of poverty. That is highly insulting. It was not because of laziness or stupidity that much of Taiwan was so poor. Like you, my parents' brothers and sisters all graduated from college with graduate degrees. They were forced to to waste 4+ years of their life and money, just so they could be of service to the ruling-class.

Meanwhile even today, my college graduated uncle with 15 years of experience is being outranked at a bank by one of the privileged who is fresh from high school. Because businesses pay out workers far less the owners, the gap created by Japan will never be closed.

This is why I am not a gung-ho free-capitalist, but I realize that if I were in their shoes, I would definitely be one.

This argument fails on a number of grounds, the least of which is that we may or may not be improving there lives by hiring them to work 85 hour work weeks factories that lack any air conditioning. Perhaps some of these people were starving as farmers, perhaps many of them weren't. Do you have sources that point to the extent of the improvement that factory life is bringing?

Furthermore, do you know that this really is the road to improvement for this generation? You talk as if these factories really are gifts from generous westerners, as if these companies should feel justified, if not proud, that they are transforming and saving the lives of these workers. I recently heard a podcast on Radio West titled, "The Cost of a Two Dollar T-shirt." In it, the author took a non-sensationalist approach that the t-shirt factories in Cambodia really were humane, they were even air conditioned. However, he mentioned that these people still lived in shanty towns and barely made enough money after 60 hours of week to afford food. He also mentioned that their 33 cents an hour wages were lagging behind inflation, and, in fact, these workers were becoming, relatively speaking, poorer and poorer as the years went on. So, no, I disagree with your claim that any factory job + time = helping raise another country out of poverty.

(Link to the podcast I mentioned: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kuer/news.newsmain/article...

Also, link to the original article by the guest on the podcast: http://harpers.org/archive/2010/01/0082784)

Lastly, you provide no justification for why the conditions need to be so bad. You seem to be saying that, since these workers were previously living in worse conditions and since we're improving that life, it's justified to either treat them inhumanely or exploit them. Their lives have been improved ergo they either have no right to complain or we have no responsibility or motive to do any better. There is no high road in your argument, only defensive argumentation and justification of labor practices that are well below what they should humanly be.

In the article I linked above, the author mentioned that the labor costs of making a t-shirt for a major corporation (Gap, Nike, Walmart, etc.) only made up 4% of the total cost of the product. If that's the case or even close to the case with the Microsoft factory mentioned in the original article, then going even so far as doubling the worker's wages would have a minimal impact on the bottom line of the product. At the very least, fat could be trimmed from the other 96-ish% of the cost of making the product to make room to improve the factory conditions.

Not only could most corporations afford to improve the wages of these workers, but what is lost by improving the conditions? Wouldn't workers who are sweating for an entire 16 hour shift be happier and more productive if the management spent more money on air conditioning? Even if find proof that happier workers aren't always more productive and perhaps sweatshop conditions really induce more productivity, there needs to be a line, a line of basic worker's rights, that prevents the downward price pressures from a competitive market from creating deplorable working conditions for anyone.

Your arguments seem to suggest that everyone goes through these deplorable factory conditions before they move onto a better life. Not only do they not NEED to go through these conditions, as ultimately someone has the power to change and improve the conditions of the factory, but these workers are not necessarily guaranteed that life will improve afterwards. Perhaps these working conditions become de facto and the workers don't make enough money to earn an education or gain the economic mobility to choose better working conditions. The system could just as easily become entrenched, leaving a class of workers trapped in poor working conditions for generations.

At the base of your arguments, I think it's frightening to ever use relativistic arguments to justify inhumane treatment. Take slavery in early American history: "Well, slaves used to live in malaria-ridden Africa in mud dwellings, and now at least they get a stable source of food and, most of the time, a wood shelter over their head." Deplorable conditions always need to be addressed and justified in present and absolute terms. Inhumane treatment is inhumane treatment, and active steps should always be taken to improve such conditions. The improvements should not be left up to the "benevolent" forces of time or ignored because the conditions are a (slight) improvement over previous conditions. If you're going to offer a poor farmer a job, you don't have the right to offer him a job with any such conditions that you choose.

Sure, I'll grant you that the article was sensationalist (maybe the photographs were taken without needing to be "smuggled out", etc), and I don't think any cause can be constructively advanced when such arguments are used. However, the majority of your arguments are morally objectionable and logically unsound.

Well thats leaps and bounds from what the article is portraying, in China university costs are around 15000 RMB / year minimum, a person working in such a factory would have to work for a whole year and save everything just to be able to afford one year in university. Furthermore, you would have to pass the national university entrance exam, which is very competitive. Finding jobs a white collar job as a university grad is now hard, as grads are a dime a dozen. And to go abroad you will have to be a top notch student, or have substantial capital - an even more preposterous proposition.

Also, you live in shared rooms / dorms at boarding schools too.

But, last I checked, China, Pakistan, et. al. have a massive unemployment problem. Now, there's two ways to solve this -- the first is to make more jobs, the approach we see here. The other would be to reduce the size of the labor pool through enforcement of child labor laws, limitations on number of hours worked per week, mandatory and free schooling through age 18, social security programs to encourage the elderly to retire, etc.

These reforms happened in the US and Europe a century ago, when most people were objectively poorer than the people in these articles -- no television, electricity, cell phones, etc. Depressingly, I have to speculate that there is a fundamental break in expectations in the national zeitgeist of these countries that allows things to get this bad.

China is very uneven in its protections. Wal-Mart attempted to preclude unions when it opened in China, much like it has managed to fight them in the U.S. Somewhere between citizens and government, it was decided Wal-Mart could not do this; Wal-Mart was clearly told that unionizing was protected by the China constitution. Of course, this is a grand exception to the standard that the boss controls the game more than government rules do and government regulation is highly uneven.

So I feel for people in bad conditions, but it's also important to have perspective about how bad "bad" can be.

Now, clearly, conditions definitely are a problem in many places. However the general theory of working at 14/15 is more of a cultural thing and not an issue.

I don't think it's correct to dictate society rules such as "thou must not work under 16" just because we happened to stop that practice several years back. I find it a bit sadistic that we wish to dictate that sentiment to others...

Of course us then exploiting that work environment is a whole other problem.

Additionally; what's the solution? Stop all these kids working? What are they going to do? Really, seriously? Increased wages would be good - that is certainly something we should encourage.

They can build cities, cars, etc -- but they need natural resource imports, so they must trade with the rest of the world. For some things it makes sense to purchase from the outside market, cheaper to purchase than make themselves, so once again they need to make something that the outside values. It's the most efficient use of their time.

As for possible inhumane treatment in the form of employer abuse, etc that of course is wrong and a different matter than just working hard.

I often wonder why napping is not easily permitted in U.S. offices. The benefits of napping last way beyond where it is practiced in Kindergarten.

For example, the first job I worked at the age of 14-15 was below 'minimum wage' in my area and thus could be called an 'illegal sweatshop' but realistically, considering my background and options (I had no immediate financial need to work; this was my 'foot in the door') it was just some kid getting some experience.

The thing is, I didn't go to school. (I mean, I went to highschool, but that's little more than babysitting. I didn't go to college) If you want to get a job that requires a degree without having that degree, you need to do that job for a smaller company that is paying you way below market rates before you can do that job at market rates. It's the way it works, and it worked out fine for me. I ended up making more than anyone I grew up with.

I'm not saying that my situation compares with that of the Chineese teens; I'm just saying, you need to be careful to define sweatshop in a way that would protect those who need protecting, without getting in the way of those who don't. My stepmother made me quit my first job after she found out that not only were they paying me under the table, they didn't have workman's comp. I was being "exploited." I mean, I was being exploited. But it was a hugely positive experience with me. The shady computer repair place sold me discounted used computer parts for years to come, and I was able to get a (legal, minimum wage, with school credit) job at one of the local county offices that was a customer of the shady computer repair place the next summer, so it all worked out okay in the end, but without getting that foot in the door, who knows how long it would have taken my career to take off?

I'm not saying yours isn't a worthy goal, just... you need to be careful with it.

I think most Japanese companies still build at least their high-end stuff in Japan since the Japanese market can be picky about this kind of thing.

I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide if Apple's professed claims make it better than what is depicted in the OP's story.

It should be easier as PDAs and mobile devices obtain barcode or QR scanners: scan an item at a shop, then see if it is approved. You don't need manufacturer cooperation, who would only participate if there was a mass boycott of their goods, which won't happen so long as prices are so low. But once consumers start checking on their own, they might opt-in.

Bottom-up change.

The photos are misleading too, at least the ones with the people sleeping on the assembly line. While unusual in the West, in my (admittedly limited) experience with Asia (and China in particular) it is much more normal and culturally accepted to take a quick nap during breaks, while waiting for a train/bus, .. anywhere where there are a few spare minutes. This article makes it seem like these people are whipped to work until they literally fall asleep on the assembly line.

I'm not saying that there are no cases of abuse of factory workers; I'm pretty sure there are, and I in no way want to defend those. I live in an area where there were documented instances of people being whipped if they didn't cut coal fast enough, as little as 150 years ago, and that is a black spot in our history. However if this article describes the worst factory they could find, and if the situation that is described is the worst possible description of reality, it seems to me that capitalism has given these people something that they could only have wished for 50 years ago.

<<<no matter what the situation is in the society; it is never right to do to one's workers what this article is describing, not even if there's a lot of competition for their jobs.>>>

Are you saying people are better off being hungry than working hard for food?

You seem to be confused about "capitalism". In a capitalist system, workers are in a market as well and negotiate wages with the employers. Aggregate market behavior emerges from the individual behavior of who works for what. Individual employers may make "take it or leave it" offers, but they are embedded in a larger market and if enough people don't "take it", they have to raise their offer. Complaining about labor practices isn't weird, it's a bargaining chip.

It's the totalitarian systems where complaining about labor practices makes no "sense". They work under a de facto oligarchy or even flat-out monopoly in terms of where they can work, and when you have that, you no longer have capitalism. Hint: If you don't see a market, you're not talking about capitalism.