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> Privileged white collars shocked and dismayed that blue collar work can really, really suck. News at 11. I know you have the entire article in mind when you
by exit 17y ago
> Privileged white collars shocked and dismayed that blue collar work can really, really suck. News at 11.
I know you have the entire article in mind when you say this, but your associated excerpt is a direct quotation from one of the factory workers.
> "We (who?) would respect us? We are ordered around and told what to do and what not to do. No one in management has ever asked us about anything. There is no discussion. You feel no respect."
So unless you question the authenticity of that quotation, i think you're being extremely dismissivie of not just the white-collar western observers who wrote and read this article.
Factory work may have given you a life beyond poverty. It may even have worked out for your mother, in the end. That says nothing of how much she suffered while working in those conditions.
- potatolicious 17y ago> "So unless you question the authenticity of that quotation" I do not, and I sympathize with the frustration. That being said, this article is alleging some kind of gross, inhuman, deplorable condition in the plant, and attempting to pin this on Microsoft in the process. This quote does nothing to justify this conclusion, and the fact that someone can perceive this kind of dissatisfaction as some sort of harsh indictment on the working conditions shows a complete disconnect between them and the realities of production line work. Note that I mentioned that blue collar industries in our country are the same - if the author himself had any notion of how factory work goes, he would know that his quote from a frustrated Chinese factory worker proves exactly nothing. If he wants to allege unacceptable conditions by virtue of the fact that managements acts without consultation with line workers, he should rightly level this claim at just about every factory in existence, everywhere.