Photo by Steve Jurvetson (jurvetson on Flickr Creative Commons)
Workers in China don’t just have to fight ruthless parent corporations, oppressive subcontractors and draconian labor laws. They also have our insatiable desire for newer, cheaper and more cutting edge goods to contend with.
Chinese factory workers, who build our mobile phones, laptop computers and plastic knickknacks, have long worked in conditions tantamount to slave labor. They often live in dormitories located on the factory grounds, which sleep ten to a room, where they are forbidden to cook, to have sex, listen to music or take showers. Talking is not allowed while working and breaks are non-existent. Shifts are around 13 hours long, but can last up 25 or even 36 hours.
During China’s astounding and rapid development, workers have consistently earned less in proportion to the country’s GDP – every year from 1983 to 2005.
Deaths from overwork are so common in Chinese factories that they have a word for it: guolaosi. China Daily estimates that 600,000 people are killed this way every year, mostly making goods for us. Li had never experienced any health problems, his family says, until he started this work schedule; Foxconn say he died of asthma and his death had nothing to do with them. The night Li died, yet another Foxconn worker committed suicide – the tenth this year.
–Johann Hari in the Independent
Last year the Chinese government gave in to worker demand and allowed the formation of trade unions, though political lobbying from Western corporations emasculated the new labor law. Despite this setback, workers have not given up and are seeing dramatic increases in pay and may even be allowed to elect union representation.
Western corporate-backed governments are lobbying against these reforms. Did you think they wanted democracy and human rights in developing countries more than they want cheap goods and the outsourcing of labor for the large corporations who fund them? Let’s call it global economic realpolitik rather than cynicism and hypocrisy of the worst order.
And what about our never ending search for the cheapest cell phones and computers? Isn’t that at the heart of this issue? How can economic growth – ours or theirs – be worth it if the price is millions of people living and working in slave-like conditions?
Read Johann Hari’s piece in the Independent:
Johann Hari: And now for some good news
Additional resources:
China Daily – Electronics factory raises workers’ pay to end strike