Friday, November 25th 2011
Workers of Supplier for Apple and IBM in China Strike
Over a thousand workers in Shenzhen, China went on strike against their employer Jingmo Electronics Corporation (JEC), which is a supplier for companies like Apple and IBM. According to China Labor Watch (CLW), a New York-based watchdog of labor rights in China, and an advocate of ethical consumerism, "the motivation behind the strike was the factory's decision to make workers work nightly overtime." CLW goes on to add that the workers had been asked to work from 6 PM to midnight and sometimes even up to 2 AM on top of the usual four to four and a half day shifts from 7 AM to 11.30 or 1 PM to 5 PM.
CLW goes on to add that the workers "commonly worked anywhere from 100 to 200 hours of overtime a month," but the factory refused to let them put the hours in at the weekend because under Chinese labour law JEC would have had to double the wages. Authorities dispatched several hundred riot policemen to tackle striking workers. CLW called upon Apple and IBM to assume responsibility of for these workers' dissatisfaction, and work with JEC to improve the working conditions in the factory. Responding to the strike, JEC agreed to cut the average overtime hours, and resume operations soon.
Source:
Channel Register
CLW goes on to add that the workers "commonly worked anywhere from 100 to 200 hours of overtime a month," but the factory refused to let them put the hours in at the weekend because under Chinese labour law JEC would have had to double the wages. Authorities dispatched several hundred riot policemen to tackle striking workers. CLW called upon Apple and IBM to assume responsibility of for these workers' dissatisfaction, and work with JEC to improve the working conditions in the factory. Responding to the strike, JEC agreed to cut the average overtime hours, and resume operations soon.
18 Comments on Workers of Supplier for Apple and IBM in China Strike
50's to the 60's - manufacturing was mostly done in Western countries
70's to the 90's - Mexico, Central America and Taiwan. (Higher end stuff from Japan)
00's to the 20's - China, Vietnam, Thailand and some other Asian countires
20's to the ..... - Africa
See a pattern. As soon as labour prices increase. Companies get out of town.
Paart of the problem is the lack of tariffs and the rapid expansion of "free" trade agreements, it makes more sense to ship manufacturing jobs overseas not only because of the cheaper wages, but also the overhead of just employing people in general. Remember the healthcare law from last year? Wait until even more jobs go overseas because of the rising cost of employing people.
There is no place worse off than Africa.
I can tell you where it will go. Europe is already using countries like Slovakia, Czech, Hungary and Poland for cheap manufacturing. USA is mostly using Mexico for that. But even these won't work for long... I wonder what was wrong with domestic manufacturing. Sure it's a bit more expensive but as far as logistics go, you don't have to carry stuff across entire globe since you're manufacturing it "in your backyard". But i guess transportation is so cheap its still better to make it in Asia and ship it to USA.
Secondly, when all factories were being moved to China, the corporations, governments and banks standing behind them managed to persuade the sheeple in the west that China was and would remain just a source of cheap labour force and that the Chinese would never be able to reverse engineer western technologies. And now I already see Chinese smart-phones getting all 5-star reviews on Amazon costing very, very little.
Thirdly, we are entering into the overproduction phase of the economical development cycle. And in a few years the situation will start resembling the one in the 30s. And that's scary.
In Norway fishsticks are produced in a Norwegian factory then frozen and shipped to Poland for packaging, before it gets shipped back to be sold in Norway. Even with all the logistics involved it's still slightly cheaper than just packing it here.