Sweat Shop Mickey !!!

[Dennis143]

I know I'm going to get shit for what I'm going to say, but so be it. It's never stopped me before.

 

I went to Whole Foods Market today. This was my first time ever going to Whole Foods. I took my wife to see this monstrosity. I knew before going there that it would be a place full of absolute decadence and extreme prices for food and I wasn't disappointed. It absolutely amazes me how outlandishly expensive food (organic) prices are there. They had ready-to-cook crab cakes at $5.99/oz! That's right, not $5.99/lb but OZ! There's 16 OZ to a pound, so that's $95.84/lb or 718.8RMB/pound for crab cakes.

 

Everything single thing there is so outrageously expensive that it made me puke. I don't care how local or organic the produce and food are, there's no fracking way to justify the cost of these foods. Along the way, there is an entire industry of people being way overpaid with "living wages" and other artificial price level to eventually produce the outlandish prices that is demanded of the final consumer at WFM. But the amazing thing is, there's TONS of people at WFM. It wasn't empty. It was crowded as hell. It absolutely amazes me.

 

So I can definitely argue against GZBill's point "Incredibly naive to think people will pay more for a shirt that has a sticker saying "No slave labor used in producing this shirt." Incredibly naive.". Certain kinds of people will definitely pay the premium as indicated by the abundance of patrons at WFM, but a bigger majority will not pay--as demonstrated by shoppers at Wal-Mart and Costco.

 

Indeed, with Whole Foods Market and Wal-Mart/Costco in existence in the same country--and in fact same city--it's pretty amazing to see the amount of free choice and free market at work.

 

Carl and Dennis are free to cough up the extra dough to support people who demand a "living wage" but others are free to support the poorer folks around the world who are content with $100/USD month.

 

The free market does work. WFM is thriving. Wal-Mart has not crushed WFM. There is a choice.

Poignant post there, Lance. While I have only been to WalMart twice, I just bought myself a Sanyo digital camera for $84 just a couple of weeks ago while Leiqin bought herself a $152 purse from Banana Republic (unbeknown to me).

 

I agree with GBZ though, everyone calls me naive.

[SirLancelot]

People drive 5 miles to their nearest Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Discount City to save three cents on a loaf of bread.

 

 

This applies to me but I do scrupulously calculate the cost to drive to X place and the cost of gas. My car gets 18-20 miles a gallon for city driving and @ $3.50/premiums gallon of gas required for my car, it costs around 18.5 cents per mile of driving right now--purely based on gas, not including cost of repair or replacement for wear and tear of the car.

 

My nearest Wal-Mart is 9 miles away. Round trip is 18 miles. So it'll cost me around $3.40 to make the trip to Wal-Mart and back. That cost is definitely on my mind before I make the trip. And it's actually that precise reason why I rarely get to shop at Wal-Mart. It's not because I don't like Wal-Mart; it's because it's so far away from me. The nearest Safeway (grocery) is a little less than 2 miles away. Target is right door next to Safeway. I substitute Target as my Wal-Mart but prices are definitely lower at Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart was closer to me--like 2 miles away--I'd probably be going every week.

 

High cost of gasoline is killing any desire for us to travel anywhere. I'd like to visit Napa Wine Country for some weekend, but the cost of the drive alone will cost $40. Likewise with hoping over the hill to see the Pacific Ocean. That drive will be $10.

 

On the other hand, Amazon.com has earned a lot of revenue from me because they offer low prices with free shipping and no sales tax to CA.

[Feathers268]

Without regulations there will always be greedy businesses that want to maximize their profits by paying the lowest wage they can regardless of whether or not the business would still be profitable by paying a living wage. This is why American labor unions were started. We have them to thank for the 40 hour work week, over time and child labor laws. The laws are in place in China. They need to be enforced. We have all been there and probably most of us have seen how poor a lot of rural people are. They flock to the cities to try and make a better wage. Just because they are willing to work for such low wages in deplorable conditions doesn't make it alright. Desperate people will do what ever they have to to survive. I see nothing wrong with an American company hiring snoops to make sure the companies they contracted are honoring the terms of the contract which says how much workers are paid and what hours they work. The manufacturers doctor payroll records and force their workers to work longer hours for less money in order to maximize their profits. The Chinese government turns a blind eye. Do you guys honestly believe this is OK as long as the workers are willing?

 

I sure as hell hope nobody thinks it's okay Carl... But there does seem to be a contingent here that believes..."f*ck the poor as long as I've got mine"...

Prices too high, we complain.

Businesses out source to save money, we complain.

Workers don't have the save quality of life as us here, we complain.

If you truly have a problem with how China is handling it's work force, stop buying Chinese made products. American business is held to the standards of the American consumer. We hold them higher, they will send that down the line. It is not so much, "f*** the poor" as much as it is, "let's worry about our own house before telling the nieghbors how to live".

[warpedbored]

Just the fact that companies do hire these snoops shows that shining a media spotlight on such issues does make a difference. Public awareness leads to bad publicity which in turn makes the companies more careful.

[Guest ShaQuaNew]

Just the fact that companies do hire these snoops shows that shining a media spotlight on such issues does make a difference. Public awareness leads to bad publicity which in turn makes the companies more careful.

 

Make a difference? Yes, the difference is that a very small percentage of the public have their opinions swayed by what they see on Hard Copy and MTV. The rest will keep looking and buying the best products at the cheapest price and fill up their cars using oil from the mideast on the way there.

 

The world is driven by market and by price; it's just that simple.

Edited November 5, 2007 by ShaQuaNew (see edit history)

[Tony_onrock]

Only one season working from 8 to 12 and they have the balls to complain? I have been working like that in China almost year round and I never complained! Talk about low wages? My boss refuse to pay us even a fraction of what we have earned till year later and I never complained. No matter where I worked, we never had the right to form a labor union and I never got paid for over time.

 

The most exploited are not those working in garment factories. The most exploited are those who work as lawyers and investment bankers!! Yet we never complain as we are being exploited willingly, why should the garment factory worker be different? We don't like the long hours we can quit and starve, they don't like it, they can do the same.

 

So Tony you would estimate your OT pay as less than 3.5 RMB/hour???

 

Roger, actually I don't get any over time pay. So the OT pay is zero.

 

This past weekend I was supposed to get two assistants, pay is about 10k RMB per month. One came over to interview on Friday at 5 PM, I kept him till midnight and Saturday whole day till midnight to get a taste of the hours I work. Not sure if he is coming back. The other tried to get her start on Friday (she was supposed to start on Monday). She called and said she is not coming. So people do have a choice.

All kidding aside. I do believe that the market will take care of the salary issue, not the government. It is already happening in China.

[Tony_onrock]

Seems like two ideas are floating through here. One is low pay and conditions; the other is lack of enforcement of labor laws.

 

Shanghai Tony made the point that his pay is being withheld but he decided to stay. The comparison was with the factory workers who also decided to stay and get paid. It's irrelevant what the amount of that pay is, it is the point that if you don't like it, you are free to go elsewhere.

 

If the factory workers feel they are being abused, why not refuse to work? Simply because there are many others willing to take their place. Does that make it all right to underpay/overwork the workers? Of course not, but that IS the way it is. Get over it.

 

It's already been said that if the cost of manufacuturing a product goes up too much, due to labor cost, those jobs will move elsewhere. I fail to see how that benefits the current workforce.

 

Should China step up to the plate and enforce labor laws? I wish they would. Should buyers insist their contracts be enforced? Of course they should. Will either happen? Not likely.

 

And the world goes 'round.

 

All kidding aside. I do find what is happening in China quite disturbing. Many of the owners, esp. developers, lavish thousands of RMB on one meal and yet refuse to pay the meager wages of workers.

One of the major problems is lack of free labor unions in China.

[Shenzhen K-1]

There are a lot of great posts and ideas on this thread to say the least!!

 

We have all driven 6 miles to use coupons, well maybe not Toplaw, but the rest of us yes!

 

Free market does work in most cases until companies cross the line and can not bring themselves back in line with everybody else.

 

Look at an industry dear to my heart the automotive market. The big three are hurting from wages gone crazy, pensions that are owed, benefits and all the rest. Now before I get blasted I have many friends who work at such a plant and feel for them but......

 

I also have a good friend who owns two gas/food stations. When gas gets high and is moving up and down in price greatly, he gets enough fuel to sell on a daily basis.

 

The next situation that will hurt will be at Christmas!! Toy companies have warned about toy shortages because of recalls, they may be real or fake, but prices on some toys will be high because everybody will want the next hot toy for Johnny at Christmas!! B)

[GZBILL]

Look at an industry dear to my heart the automotive market. The big three are hurting from wages gone crazy, pensions that are owed, benefits and all the rest. Now before I get blasted I have many friends who work at such a plant and feel for them but......

 

They are hurting, mainly, from a dismal lack of quality and the ability to supply what customers desire. While things may have improved, the perception that American cars are garbage still lingers and that is why more expensive Japanese cars outsell US cars.

[IllinoisDave]

 

Make a difference? Yes, the difference is that a very small percentage of the public have their opinions swayed by what they see on Hard Copy and MTV. The rest will keep looking and buying the best products at the cheapest price and fill up their cars using oil from the mideast on the way there.

 

The world is driven by market and by price; it's just that simple.

 

And it's this kind of thinking that will ensure that this vicious cycle continues in perpetuity, which is just what big business is counting on.

[rogerluli]

The headline "Indian 'slave' children found making low-cost clothes destined for Gap" in last week's Observer online must have caused massive indigestion for the PR pixies who burnish the Gap's image as a good corporate egg.

 

The paper's investigation uncovered a Dickensian sweatshop in India where children as young as 10 toiled in slavelike conditions to produce Gap-labeled clothes. The children at the New Delhi factory were consigned to lives of deprivation and violence, forced to work 16-hour days and beaten if they cried from exhaustion. Some interviewed by the Observer hadn't been paid for months.

 

The Gap responded by agreeing not to sell any of the garments from the work order identified by the newspaper and reiterating that it has a "rigorous factory-monitoring program" to police against the use of child labor.

 

One is left to wonder, however, if a newspaper can smoke out a Gap-sponsored sweatshop, why couldn't the company's own team of professional auditors?

 

As horrific as child labor is, these working conditions wouldn't be any more palatable if someone 19 years old were subjected to them. Sweatshops, where workers are forced to work long hours, breathing toxic air, for pay that doesn't begin to cover the expenses of basic living, are a kind of ubiquitous evil in the developing world.

 

They exist in places like India and China where human beings are considered disposable and where government makes common cause with business interests to sabotage worker rights.

 

But what happens "over there" has everything to do with what happens here. American toy and apparel companies and retailers like Wal-Mart are largely responsible for allowing this kind of exploitation to flourish. They prime the pump and then fight against rules that would better the lot of workers.

 

One need look no further than the internal auditing documents on the Mattel toy company's Web site to see that the company knows what is going on and continues to profit from it.

 

Plant 18 located in the Dongguan Province of China isn't named, but its 2006 audit indicates that workers there are seriously mistreated. The audit found "important shortfalls" in "wages and working hours, health and safety standards, and environmental protection." The same problems were identified in an earlier review.

 

Workers were on the job up to 17 hours a day, and some were forced to work 31 straight days without a day off. The report also found that the workers were exposed to "air, water and ground contamination," and there were serious questions about whether they were being cheated out of pay.

 

A Mattel representative claims they have "made headway with improvements."

 

Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee, can give you an earful about Mattel's practices in China. In testimony last month before a Senate subcommittee, he laid out in rather stomach-turning detail the pound of flesh extracted from workers in the manufacture of a Barbie accessory toy at the Xin Yi factory in Shenzhen.

 

Last year, that factory's 5,000 workers were made to work seven days a week for months on end, with routine 15-hour days. In the steaming, hot factory, workers were barred from standing during work hours. They had to sit on hard wood benches with no backs.

 

Things have slightly improved this year, according to Kernaghan, with a six-day work week. Still, the workers report being regularly cheated out of the equivalent of two days' wages every week, even though their base wage is only 53 cents an hour.

 

Mattel claims it doesn't operate at the Xin Yi factory, one of its licensees does, nonetheless it has "dispensed an audit team to the facility."

 

Another abuse-ridden report for the Web site, perhaps?

 

According to Kernaghan, Mattel has in the past sought and obtained special waivers in China so it could pay workers less than the legal minimum wage. It also has gotten waivers to allow it to force workers to do 32 hours of overtime a week - an amount that is 295 percent above China's legal limit.

 

Parents rightly reacted fiercely when lead paint was found on some of their children's Chinese-made toys. Now we just need that same intense anger on behalf of the young workers making them. We need some national consciousness-raising that will goose Congress into passing the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act, a bill that would make it illegal to sell goods made in a sweatshop.

 

In the documentary Mardi Gras: Made in China, Mardi Gras revelers were shown video of the Chinese factory where young women toiled to make the very beads they now had piled around their necks. Most were seriously discomforted by the sight. Americans don't want to buy goods made by people forced to work to exhaustion, around toxic fumes, for unsustainable pay, even if that means a good bargain.

[Shenzhen K-1]

 

 

The headline "Indian 'slave' children found making low-cost clothes destined for Gap" in last week's Observer online must have caused massive indigestion for the PR pixies who burnish the Gap's image as a good corporate egg.

 

The paper's investigation uncovered a Dickensian sweatshop in India where children as young as 10 toiled in slavelike conditions to produce Gap-labeled clothes. The children at the New Delhi factory were consigned to lives of deprivation and violence, forced to work 16-hour days and beaten if they cried from exhaustion. Some interviewed by the Observer hadn't been paid for months.

 

The Gap responded by agreeing not to sell any of the garments from the work order identified by the newspaper and reiterating that it has a "rigorous factory-monitoring program" to police against the use of child labor.

 

One is left to wonder, however, if a newspaper can smoke out a Gap-sponsored sweatshop, why couldn't the company's own team of professional auditors?

 

As horrific as child labor is, these working conditions wouldn't be any more palatable if someone 19 years old were subjected to them. Sweatshops, where workers are forced to work long hours, breathing toxic air, for pay that doesn't begin to cover the expenses of basic living, are a kind of ubiquitous evil in the developing world.

 

They exist in places like India and China where human beings are considered disposable and where government makes common cause with business interests to sabotage worker rights.

 

But what happens "over there" has everything to do with what happens here. American toy and apparel companies and retailers like Wal-Mart are largely responsible for allowing this kind of exploitation to flourish. They prime the pump and then fight against rules that would better the lot of workers.

 

One need look no further than the internal auditing documents on the Mattel toy company's Web site to see that the company knows what is going on and continues to profit from it.

 

Plant 18 located in the Dongguan Province of China isn't named, but its 2006 audit indicates that workers there are seriously mistreated. The audit found "important shortfalls" in "wages and working hours, health and safety standards, and environmental protection." The same problems were identified in an earlier review.

 

Workers were on the job up to 17 hours a day, and some were forced to work 31 straight days without a day off. The report also found that the workers were exposed to "air, water and ground contamination," and there were serious questions about whether they were being cheated out of pay.

 

A Mattel representative claims they have "made headway with improvements."

 

Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee, can give you an earful about Mattel's practices in China. In testimony last month before a Senate subcommittee, he laid out in rather stomach-turning detail the pound of flesh extracted from workers in the manufacture of a Barbie accessory toy at the Xin Yi factory in Shenzhen.

 

Last year, that factory's 5,000 workers were made to work seven days a week for months on end, with routine 15-hour days. In the steaming, hot factory, workers were barred from standing during work hours. They had to sit on hard wood benches with no backs.

 

Things have slightly improved this year, according to Kernaghan, with a six-day work week. Still, the workers report being regularly cheated out of the equivalent of two days' wages every week, even though their base wage is only 53 cents an hour.

 

Mattel claims it doesn't operate at the Xin Yi factory, one of its licensees does, nonetheless it has "dispensed an audit team to the facility."

 

Another abuse-ridden report for the Web site, perhaps?

 

According to Kernaghan, Mattel has in the past sought and obtained special waivers in China so it could pay workers less than the legal minimum wage. It also has gotten waivers to allow it to force workers to do 32 hours of overtime a week - an amount that is 295 percent above China's legal limit.

 

Parents rightly reacted fiercely when lead paint was found on some of their children's Chinese-made toys. Now we just need that same intense anger on behalf of the young workers making them. We need some national consciousness-raising that will goose Congress into passing the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act, a bill that would make it illegal to sell goods made in a sweatshop.

 

In the documentary Mardi Gras: Made in China, Mardi Gras revelers were shown video of the Chinese factory where young women toiled to make the very beads they now had piled around their necks. Most were seriously discomforted by the sight. Americans don't want to buy goods made by people forced to work to exhaustion, around toxic fumes, for unsustainable pay, even if that means a good bargain.

 

 

 

 

 

Great article and post, uncomfortable to read but still very good!! Most Americans do not want sweat shop goods, but they also would rather buy a good deal and just not be told where it came from!!

[Guest hi5pro]

Without regulations there will always be greedy businesses that want to maximize their profits by paying the lowest wage they can regardless of whether or not the business would still be profitable by paying a living wage. This is why American labor unions were started. We have them to thank for the 40 hour work week, over time and child labor laws. The laws are in place in China. They need to be enforced. We have all been there and probably most of us have seen how poor a lot of rural people are. They flock to the cities to try and make a better wage. Just because they are willing to work for such low wages in deplorable conditions doesn't make it alright. Desperate people will do what ever they have to to survive. I see nothing wrong with an American company hiring snoops to make sure the companies they contracted are honoring the terms of the contract which says how much workers are paid and what hours they work. The manufacturers doctor payroll records and force their workers to work longer hours for less money in order to maximize their profits. The Chinese government turns a blind eye. Do you guys honestly believe this is OK as long as the workers are willing?

 

I sure as hell hope nobody thinks it's okay Carl... But there does seem to be a contingent here that believes..."f*ck the poor as long as I've got mine"... B)

Prices too high, we complain.

Businesses out source to save money, we complain.

Workers don't have the save quality of life as us here, we complain.

If you truly have a problem with how China is handling it's work force, stop buying Chinese made products. American business is held to the standards of the American consumer. We hold them higher, they will send that down the line. It is not so much, "f*** the poor" as much as it is, "let's worry about our own house before telling the nieghbors how to live".

Well said.

 

Best wishes,

 

Gino & Lulu

[Guest hi5pro]

High cost of gasoline is killing any desire for us to travel anywhere. I'd like to visit Napa Wine Country for some weekend, but the cost of the drive alone will cost $40. Likewise with hoping over the hill to see the Pacific Ocean. That drive will be $10. B)

I feel the pain too, Lance. Gas just jumped another 20 cents a gallon this morning in my area.

 

Best wishes,

 

Gino & Lulu

[warpedbored]

Just the fact that companies do hire these snoops shows that shining a media spotlight on such issues does make a difference. Public awareness leads to bad publicity which in turn makes the companies more careful.

 

Make a difference? Yes, the difference is that a very small percentage of the public have their opinions swayed by what they see on Hard Copy and MTV. The rest will keep looking and buying the best products at the cheapest price and fill up their cars using oil from the mideast on the way there.

 

The world is driven by market and by price; it's just that simple.

Sighing and saying "oh well that's just the way the world is, we might as well accept it" makes more of a difference? Attitudes like that is what perpetuates this exploitation of workers.