The true cost of your notebook?

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/14/national-labor-committee-report-on-chinese-ce-factories-uncovers/

 

These working conditions in China and other third world countries have been long been known. In comparison to US standards, this may come to a shock, but in comparison China's domestic standards, this is quite the norm. Even in the garment industry, working conditions and wages are similar. One of my ex's family owns a couple factories in China manufacturing knit-wear for name brand companies such as Ralph Lauren and DKNY. I was fortunate enough to visit one of the factories and although the workers there didn't look too happy, they knew other jobs in other markets would have similar working conditions and pay. To put it bluntly, all blue-collared workers in China (and probably India too) are always replaceable and expendable.

 

David has a great point. The number of jobs vs the number of people makes jobs extremely competitive in China.

For example, there are more students now graduating in China with masters and doctorates than here in the US and yet no jobs. Why do you think so much of our medical field is staffed by Chinese students with Masters/Doctorates. Simply no jobs back home.

This is across the board, no matter your education or economic level, finding a job is extremely difficult.

Important Distinction

While China and India and other third world countries should have better labor laws, but to attract business this is what they do.
- China does have child labor laws. I highly doubt Asus for example is abusing children in their factories.

The responsibility should be with the Corporations. Sure Acer, Asus, Clevo and a few others are Chinese/Taiwanese based companies. But companies like HP, the clothing industry and anyone else that outsources to China/India have the responsibility to ensure good working conditions. But for obvious reasons of overhead costs, this is not a factor.

So we can point fingers at China or India or Malaysia, etc, you really should be pointing our fingers at Adidas, Nike, Ralph Lauren, Apple, HP, Dell. These are the companies that can do something about it. Less profit, but at least a clearer conscious. If these companies could get away with it in Europe/US I'm sure they would.

But again, you can just look at the US, we have our own issues. Working in restaurants through High School and nights during College, every single restaurant I worked abused their brazilian and Guatamalan workers. Working 100 hours a week with minimum wage, and no overpay. Working in landscaping, knew a person who hired Guatamalans who had few safety measures climbing trees with chain saws etc. It's a miracle he had no fatalities. If he hired a US citizen, he'd have to pay such a worker 20-30 an hour, he paid these Guatamalans 8/hour and no overpay.

 

Continuing on the topic of overpay, different countries have different work cultures. In Taiwan for example, people working in the tech industry do not receive overtime pay. It is the norm for people to work overtime and although it is not written on the contract, you can get fired for leaving work "on-time". Also, as long as your boss is still in the office, no one dares to leave before him/her.

 

Let's not forget this one either

http://www.nlcnet.org/reports?id=0006

http://www.lostlaowai.com/blog/general/high-tech-misery-factory-workers-in-china/

As I understand it, the conditions and terms these factories employ are illegal even in the eyes of the Chinese government.

 

Same as selling pirated movies and software. The problem is these laws are not enforced whatsoever. They're mainly for show to the developed countries. In the eyes of the Chinese government, there are more serious issues such as censoring internet content and religious movements. Without getting into too much details on politics and religion which are against forums rules, I'll leave it at there.