An article published May 3, 2007 in The Independent by Johann Hari depicts the exhausting and harrowing daily grind of the Chinese worker producing our goods. He tells of a woman who died from exhaustion--"expected to work 360 days a year, from 7.30am to as late as 9.30pm, with only a half-hour break for lunch and fines for taking too long on the toilet"-- and of the 50,000 fingers sliced off each month in Chinese factories.
Worker conditions are so horrible that, faced with a worker revolt, the Chinese "government" (read dictatorship) that holds our debt has agreed to pass basic worker rights into law. That is, until these unelected "legislators" encountered the opposition of the American Chamber of Commerce--Microsoft, Ford, Dell (Nike relented under pressure).
The complete article can be found here:
http://comment.independent.co.uk/...
How did workers express themselves? "Last year, there were 300,000 illegal industrial actions in China, a huge spate of "factory kidnappings" of managers, and more than 85,000 protests," according to Hari's article.
As a result there WAS to have been a NEW law that would permit workers to join trade unions. It would give them the right to a written contract, severance payments, and the ability to change jobs freely. "Where previously China's labour rules were diffuse, dispersed and barely enforced, now they would be drawn together and backed with big fines."
However, even giving basic worker rights to those who produce our consumer goods is not acceptable to the Western corporations:
The American Chamber of Commerce - representing Microsoft, Nike, Ford, Dell and others - listed 42 pages of objections. The laws were "unaffordable" and "dangerous", they declared. The European Chamber of Commerce backed them up. As James Mann, the former Los Angeles Times bureau chief in Beijing, puts it after years of observing the behaviour of big business in China: "The business communities of China and the United States [and, he might have added, Europe] do not harbour dreams of democracy. Both profit from a Chinese system that permits no political opposition, and both are content with it."
The lobbying effort "seems to have paid off. The (unelected) Chinese National People's Congress is due to vote on the new labour laws in the next month or so, but the proposals have already been massively watered down. "
The European Chamber of Commerce has been shamed into retracting its initial opposition to the laws. After lobbying from trade unions and human rights organisations, Nike has now denounced the position of the American Chambers of Commerce to which it belongs and backed the law. The remaining Wal-Martian corporations need to be damned one by one - and subject to legal sanctions - until they relent and accept the rights of Chinese workers.
Does anyone know how we can "shame" companies that do not support basic rights for the Chinese workers who make our goods? I haven't read about these laws, nor much about the near-slave conditions. Does the average American know the human costs of their goods (both those that are too cheap to be believed and others that are expensively labeled and packaged?
Also, is our debt to China based solely on our trade imbalance? If the manufacturing playing field were level, taking environmental and human factors and quality into account, does American manufacturing really not compete? Is it all "No Logo," --products manufacturered cheaply under slave conditions that seem worse than those of the early Industrial Revolution, and the patina just the expensive advertising--the stamped logo? Is the savings to American consumers really as much as it seems if we are competing for oil with China?
No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies is a book by Canadian journalist Naomi Klein well worth reading.