MacTheWolf (imported) wrote: Sun May 13, 2007 2:14 am The typical jean factory in southern China employs as many as 750 teenage girls. These girls are hired by the factory as employees but, in reality, they have just become slaves. The following ae typical working conditions:

• The girls gross only $1.00 a day but from that the company subtracts living quarters, their meals and fines.

• Factory girls share a room with 11 other girls in cramped quarters.

• Their typical working day starts at 8:00am and ends at 2:00am...18 hours per day.

• Often they have to put out a rush order which means they work 24 hours or longer to complete the order in time.

• Their pay is often delayed.

• Their pay is often cut to please a new buyer of the jeans.

• If the girls dare go on strike for better conditions, they would be arrested and imprisoned.

• If you fall asleep on the job, a manager wakes you by poking you with a long screw driver.

• Tired girls often clip clothespins to they lower eyelids to keep from falling asleep on the job.

• You are not allowed restroom breaks during your shift.

• If you dare leave your work table to go outside for fresh air to wake up, you will be fined.

• If you get sick on the job and it affects your work, you will be fired.

• The jean company you work for receives 20 cents for each pair of finished jeans.

The next time you buy a pair of jeans, look inside the label. If it's made in China, don't buy it....unless you feel the need to promote slave labor conditions in China.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/chinablue/I (http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/chinablue/

Beau Geste (imported) wrote: Sun May 13, 2007 1:13 pm Another nasty thing about manufacturing in China, is that some of it is done by forced labor in prisons--and a considerable number of the convicts are political prisoners. No idea how you could know which products are prison-made and which aren't.

It should be pointed out that working conditions which are substandard are also found in a number of countries in south and southeast Asia. It appears to be difficult to tell, sometimes, whether the workers are slaves, by some definitions, or not.

One of the ironic things about all this is, that manufactured products can be produced today in automated factories at very low prices. Not as low as twenty cents for a pair of jeans, but certainly low enough, that the prices you pay for the products in retail stores would not be dramatically higher, if the manufacturing were brought back to industrialized countries from lesser-developed nations. When you buy practically anything in a store, the actual cost of manufacturing is typically no more than a sixth of the price you pay, and the raw materials also cost very little for most products. You have never bought a loaf of bread with more than about five cents worth of wheat in it, and many loaves have more like three cents worth in them.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the way that economic systems function, because paying people very low wages, reduces the volume of products that they can buy, and therefore holds down economic growth. Yet minimization of costs--largely by reducing what people are paid--is practically an obsession in corporate management. I guess this all falls into the category, "People are awful, and they apparently think there's nothing wrong with that."

tjstill (imported) wrote: Sun May 13, 2007 12:45 pm I have been working and visiting China for about 18 years. I have visited poor factories but also some good ones. Many factories are joint ventures with Taiwanese or other investors. Ex government run factories tend to be the archaic ones. Foreign investment does tend to give the better working conditions. I have not witnessed child labour on any great scale. I have inspected living quarters and employment records. I am not in the toy or clothes industry but I am still visiting a typical factory enviroment though a little more engineering orientated. The vast majority of the workers I have seen are late teens to early 30`s. They live in dorms and send a lot of the money they get back to families in the country. It is not easy to get a job in the factories as these are often in special development regions and you need a special pass to get into these areas. I am not sure about the hire and fire issues you mention but I have heard factory owners complain that another factory is paying more and he was loosing his good workers. The working hours I have witnessed were often double shifts but with seperate work forces. Again this may be particular to my industry. I have been in the factoies and seen the break periods and I have eaten the food during the g lunch break, I have also kicked a football around the yard with workers at break time! I do not doubt that bad factories exist in China and I am sure there are some outside the special development cities like Shanghai. Actually I have not bought directly from China for a few years but I still occasionaly visit the area. It is quite a disturbing country to visit, so many people and the vast majority are not well off at all. It is difficult to know what is best for the people, they need work and money and they need the infrastructure to achieve growth. I appreciate your sentiments about not buying China product but you will also hurt a lot of good people and the bad will just move on to other countries. I have no magic answer and I can only say as a buyer I would never buy from a factory that i though was ill treating people. I just wanted to give my personal perspective and balance out the thread so you dont think its all Dickensian `dark satanic mills`

MacTheWolf (imported) wrote: Sun May 13, 2007 2:14 am http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/chinablue/

balletkyle (imported) wrote: Sun May 13, 2007 12:31 pm What is troubling and somewhat frightening, is that most of the items that are now made in China's sweatshop factories were once made in north america both here in Canada and in the USA. Factories were shut down, jobs were lost, whole towns who's economy revolved around these light industries hit hard times. Big Corporations who's only motive is profit have moved our domestic indutries off shore and into countries with at best questionable human rights and child labour laws. Not to mention that countries such as China are Communists states and could at anytime walk into these factories expelle any and all foreigners and Nationalize the factories and retain all production equipent, continue to produce the products and in the process bankrupt many of these so called north american firms that have invested heavily in south east asia. Need I mention what that would do to our economies?

I for one do not shop at Wallmart or HomeDepot, and I read labels...