Disgraceful

[The PIT]

http://www.cafod.org.uk/news_and_events/news/computer_factory_sweatshops_20040126

But what the heck it's cheap labour and your job.

[DukeP]

Agreed.

But what can one do??

There no way i can check wheter my HD was made by people treated poorly, or by a robot in germany...


I woulndt mind paying 15$ extra for a harddrive, if I was assured they went to a raise for the worker in question.



~~DukeP~~

[Jon P. Inghram]

I'd be interested to see how the tech industry in Ireland works, both my old G400 MAX and my Sennheiser HD600 headphones both were made there.

[Marshmallowman]

Thats how CEO's "earn" their multi-million dollar bonus

[The PIT]

The only way you can cure it is by fining the CEO's so if they're earning £130,000 a year they get fined £100,000. That'll change their minds very quickly.

[Brian Ellis]

Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell, earned £134,000 per day in 2003.

No one can earn £134,000 per day. He may have received it, but earning implies that he has given services to his company with a worth significantly exceeding this figure. I cannot believe that a CEO, sitting in his office, has been personally responsible for increasing the worth of Dell Computers by more than that sum, each and every day.

In reality, these obscene revenues are more to be condemned than the fact that a Thai assembler of HDDs gets $2.50/day. I have been in electronics factories in China, Mexico and Thailand, to cite the three countries mentioned, plus many other developing countries. $2.50 does sound low to us, but it is not a bad wage in the country's context. Unskilled female operators quite often get as low as $30 - 40/ month. The question is, what is the standard of living of such operators? A Malaysian husband and wife I am friendly with have a combined income of about $190/month. Their two kids go to school all day, so both can work. The family lives in a 3-room kampong house with a small garden producing eggs, the occasional chicken, veggies and fruit. They are certainly not rich, but they are comfortable and live within their means (they have TV, aircon in one room and a family PC, albeit P II, with an Internet connection). The cost of living in a provincial town of Malaysia (I'm not comparing the big cities) like Ipoh, Kota Bahru or Kuching is roughly twice the equivalent in Thailand, such as Chiang Mai, so $2.50/day is not as bad as it seems.

Also, one should ask what the bossman of the company earns in these countries. Many senior executives may get as little as $400/month and that is a very comfortable salary for a small enterprise. That having been said, there are also, of course, many who take immense salaries, proportionally speaking.

What is interesting is the progression of salaries. Low salaries are the norm of the first 10-15 years of these emerging tiger economies then, suddenly, they start increasing exponentially. Take Singapore, which was the first country to really take off. I haven't been there for about 8 years now, but the last time I was there, salaries of middle management had risen to typically S$2,500/month and are probably double that now. If so, this is certainly comparable to many Western economies, making them actually better off. Malaysia is already rising up the same curve, lagging behind by perhaps 5 to 8 years and Thailand another 5 years. Mexico is slightly different: even in the region just S of the CA border, salaries are slower to take off. I'm not sure why, but I suspect it may be because of a constant supply of poor people flocking north, hoping in vain to cross over into the US Eldorado. A few years ago, a company assembling handsets in Tijuana was paying young females just $1/day for the fiddly job of soldering fine magnet wires from the earpiece coils onto tags. These handsets were then exported to a major phone company on the other side of the border.

The real problem is that, when these countries' economies expand they start to price themselves out of the market and less developed countries step in with low-cost labour, so the guy assembling drives at $2.50 will lose his job when he is forced up to a $3/day wage, unless there is higher-tech job waiting for him. In 10 years, I guess the unemployment figures in China (already high) will become much higher as Outer Mongolia or Afghanistan cut their teeth on becoming tiger economies, to take away the low-paid jobs.

[The PIT]

Okay the cost of living maybe lower but what about other points raised in the article. I don't think the article claimed that they should be on Western Wages and like you said the wage structure changes so you might be out of date anyway.

[SpiralDragon]

Originally posted by The PIT
The only way you can cure it is by fining the CEO's so if they're earning £130,000 a year they get fined £100,000. That'll change their minds very quickly.

or put an end to capitalisem....... ok maybe not in a few melenia but realy think of it....

[UtwigMU]

IMO putting an end to capitalism is not practical, but setting lower limit, state providing good healthcare, education and cheap appartements for young families and labour rights (pension, benefits, vacation).