Made in China commentary, interesting perspective

[flipwils11]

On my car message board, there was a thread recently about the horrid quality of Harbor Freight tools and it spun off to this message. I thought it was very interesting, speaking for myself because of my aversion to certain things made in China, and also because of the recent discussion on this board of the RC10 re-re.

click here

[MelvinsArmy]

That discussion seems to be more about the quality of the product. For me that's totally beside the point. The point is the idea of using slave and child labor to produce a product and China's nearly non-existant environmental and labor laws. I'm sure most people have read about the Foxcon plant that assembles Iphones and how they had to put nets up around the roof of the building to keep employees from jumping off. Also, the workers who've been blinded and messed up from the chemicals that go into those phones. That's the tip of the iceberg.

What really bugs me is American companies who move jobs to China. They claim it's to lower costs, which I'm sure it does, however those lowered costs are NEVER passed along to the customer. All those lowered costs do is increase their profits and the profits of their shareholders. Those profits come with a price, exploited and mistreated workers in China, and the termination of jobs in the US. Sure, every company is in business to make a profit, but I see this more as greed. Taking more than you would ever need and not caring about the real costs of your profit.

[Coelacanth]

Very true. Although there's a lot of inferior-quality product being manufactured in China, some plants put out very high quality product. What consumers often overlook is the deplorable working conditions in China; all those cheap products come at a human cost. Walmart shoppers (just to name one example) are all but oblivious to this fact.

[works92]

That discussion seems to be more about the quality of the product. For me that's totally beside the point. The point is the idea of using slave and child labor to produce a product and China's nearly non-existant environmental and labor laws. I'm sure most people have read about the Foxcon plant that assembles Iphones and how they had to put nets up around the roof of the building to keep employees from jumping off. Also, the workers who've been blinded and messed up from the chemicals that go into those phones. That's the tip of the iceberg.

What really bugs me is American companies who move jobs to China. They claim it's to lower costs, which I'm sure it does, however those lowered costs are NEVER passed along to the customer. All those lowered costs do is increase their profits and the profits of their shareholders. Those profits come with a price, exploited and mistreated workers in China, and the termination of jobs in the US. Sure, every company is in business to make a profit, but I see this more as greed. Taking more than you would ever need and not caring about the real costs of your profit.

+10000....

+not only US company, French company do the same and it seem to be like that everywhere...

[kaiser]

we need to keep in mind that while there are areas with very poor working conditions there are also areas with very good working conditions.

china has a serious problem, too many people. thats why they don't use robotic assembly lines, they use human assembly lines. some of the factories are so clean you can eat off the floor. the dorm's are nicer then the average chinese can afford, the food is good, the pay is ok, considering room and board are included.

i wish i could find the article but there was a peice done about a hemelt factory. the place was beautiful, happy employees, and an awesome carbon fiber product.
the workers were interviewed and were happily there compared to being stuck in the country barely able to survive.

last year npr did a peice on foxcon, only to retract it a month later because the author admitted that he heavily embellished what he saw and was told.

sooner or later wages will rise in china and the next s.e. asian country will become the cheap labor force of choice, like vietnam or cambodia.

maylasia and bangladesh already own the garment industry, look at the fire bangladesh last month. i wear llbean shirts and since they moved production to mylasia the clothing sucks. they use too high of a heat on the irons and clothing falls apart at the creases in less then a month.

btw, it's not just overseas either. in the village in nyc there are sweatshops on uper floors of old buildings. the floor above or the floor below could be high rent, rich folks, but in between, sweat shops full uf asian women on sewing machines.