4 ms·

$132RMB ~= 900RMB. It is, indeed, slave wage. The workers are charged for their meals from their salaries, though they buy a lunch card once a month. To put t

by mahmud 16y ago

$132RMB ~= 900RMB. It is, indeed, slave wage. The workers are charged for their meals from their salaries, though they buy a lunch card once a month. To put things in perspective: a two course meal in Shenzhen at a cheap Chinese restaurant is $20RMB/person. A McDonald's meal roughly 50RMB. A metro ride is 10RMB. A train ride within Guangzhou ~50RMB, a neighboring province +120RMB. A pirated DVD is 10RMB. One hour of internet at a netcafe is 7RMB. A bottle of Tsingtao is 10RMB. A pack of cigarettes is 10RMB. A 10 minute cab ride is 20RMB. A Chinese teenager can expect to spend 80RMB on a weekend, doing nothing but taking the train to visit friends, having dinner and two pints of beer and a pack of cigarettes. 26% of their weekly income for 2-3 hours of R&R. For comparison, an American teenager with a full time job, making minimum wage at $7.25 earns $7.25x8x5 = $290/wk. Dinner + beer + bus + cigs + movie ~= 10 + 6 + 8 + 4 + 10 = $38. Or only 13% of their weekly income on R&R, half of what a Chinese boy or girl spends, and I threw in a free movie experience at the cinema, something that would break any Chinese teen's budget.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
tomjen3 16y ago
Thanks that was far more enlightening than the usual translated it directly into USD. Still to fully compare the wage, how was it before the teen had the ability to work there? What kind of wage would he then be looking at?
- loewenskind 16y ago
  So if I start a business somewhere that people are starving to death it's ok to abuse the labor because... well now they're abused but they were going to die?
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    What does "abuse" mean? Does "abuse" mean cheating your workers? Or does it simply mean paying them less money than you would accept to do a job you wouldn't want to do? If the latter, what makes your utility function correct, and the workers utility function incorrect? I.e., what right do you have to tell them you know better than them, and that they can't take a job they prefer to other available options?
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      If you find a woman who is starving to death and you offer here one hamburger to perform sexual services for you did you abuse her? But why? She would have starved to death otherwise right? It is abuse because we take advantage of people who have no other options to get them to trade every waking moment of their life away for their survival. There is no moral ambiguity here. Why do you feel the need to justify it? It's not like I'm judging you personally. I'm profiting from exactly the same system and am not doing anything to change that fact.
      - yummyfajitas 16y ago
        No, your example isn't abuse. It's undesirable - I'd certainly like it if no one were starving to death, but the guy improving her situation is not the problem.
        loewenskind 16y ago
        Wow, a man forcing a woman to prostitute herself for the sake of her survival and that of her family is improving her situation? I'm afraid your Dogmatism is showing...
        yummyfajitas 16y ago
        Since she would starve to death without the client, her situation is indeed improved. Do you consider death better than prostitution? Even if you do, she doesn't, and I take her opinion on the matter more seriously than yours. What you call dogmatism is merely logical consistency. You are merely substituting an emotional judgement for reason. Starvation is a bad situation, but unfortunately you have no one to blame. After she engages in a transaction with someone better off, you've now got someone to point the finger at. That's great if you have an emotional need to blame someone, but in your hypothetical there is no guilty party. No one has harmed anyone else.
        loewenskind 16y ago
- mahmud 16y ago
  Factory work in electronics industry is not really a "catch"; most Chinese kids end up doing everything from sales to service industry to retail. If you're stocking shelves with jeans and tshirts, you're looking at 300RMB/week, entry-level sales jobs in SZ are ~400RMB/week, etc. So, the factory work is bottom of the barrel.
Retric 16y ago
I agree with what you’re saying, but you still need to compare that to abject poverty which works out to around 1$ / day. 132$ / month = 4.33$ per day which is more than four times what many people live off of. Granted, for that area it's about the subsistence level, but add in overtime and these people do get spending money. In that situation some people will be saving 30-50% of their income which represents a huge amount of leverage. Yes, it sucks on levels that we are not really aware of, but those jobs hand poor people leverage and assuming a functioning society with minimal corruption etc over a few years many of those people will move on to much better places. Overtime: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/19/the-fate-of-a-generation-of-workers-foxconn-undercover-fully-tr/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/19/the-fate-of-a-generation-... Leverage: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/28/foxconn-raising-wages-by-about-20-percent-as-previously-planned/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/28/foxconn-raising-wages-by-...
- jhancock 16y ago
  So far there's not much to move on to. The only leverage they have is work slowdowns and strikes as their product line skills are of value. Guangzhou isn't a place I would be comfortable leading even a passive employee rebellion. Hopefully, you would simply be carried away by security. If you gained traction and kept coming back for more, well...who knows. The root problem here is equity distribution by the owners of these factories and the buyers have little to no concern about who's pockets their money is going into. The U.S. has terrible equity distribution and we look real good in comparison to China. The bulk of the Chinese are tired of this. They were promised a strong middle class and it hasn't happened yet.
  - Retric 16y ago
    That's not the type of leverage I was talking about. They can leverage skills they learned on the job to get more pay. Either because their current company is willing to pay more or they can move on to another company that knows the value of a trained workforce. They can leverage their income to do all sorts of things. A simple rice cooker can save time, or you save up for 2 years and they can get 6+ months of living expenses and or start their own company. Or use simple compound interest to retire comfortably with minimal risk. PS: While collective negotiation may not amount to much in that part of the world, getting enough capital together from 10+ workers to start a competing company is very possible.

by mahmud 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

tomjen3 16y ago

Thanks that was far more enlightening than the usual translated it directly into USD. Still to fully compare the wage, how was it before the teen had the ability to work there? What kind of wage would he then be looking at?

loewenskind 16y ago
So if I start a business somewhere that people are starving to death it's ok to abuse the labor because... well now they're abused but they were going to die?
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  What does "abuse" mean? Does "abuse" mean cheating your workers? Or does it simply mean paying them less money than you would accept to do a job you wouldn't want to do? If the latter, what makes your utility function correct, and the workers utility function incorrect? I.e., what right do you have to tell them you know better than them, and that they can't take a job they prefer to other available options?
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    If you find a woman who is starving to death and you offer here one hamburger to perform sexual services for you did you abuse her? But why? She would have starved to death otherwise right? It is abuse because we take advantage of people who have no other options to get them to trade every waking moment of their life away for their survival. There is no moral ambiguity here. Why do you feel the need to justify it? It's not like I'm judging you personally. I'm profiting from exactly the same system and am not doing anything to change that fact.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      No, your example isn't abuse. It's undesirable - I'd certainly like it if no one were starving to death, but the guy improving her situation is not the problem.
      - loewenskind 16y ago
        Wow, a man forcing a woman to prostitute herself for the sake of her survival and that of her family is improving her situation? I'm afraid your Dogmatism is showing...
        yummyfajitas 16y ago
        Since she would starve to death without the client, her situation is indeed improved. Do you consider death better than prostitution? Even if you do, she doesn't, and I take her opinion on the matter more seriously than yours. What you call dogmatism is merely logical consistency. You are merely substituting an emotional judgement for reason. Starvation is a bad situation, but unfortunately you have no one to blame. After she engages in a transaction with someone better off, you've now got someone to point the finger at. That's great if you have an emotional need to blame someone, but in your hypothetical there is no guilty party. No one has harmed anyone else.
        loewenskind 16y ago
mahmud 16y ago
Factory work in electronics industry is not really a "catch"; most Chinese kids end up doing everything from sales to service industry to retail. If you're stocking shelves with jeans and tshirts, you're looking at 300RMB/week, entry-level sales jobs in SZ are ~400RMB/week, etc. So, the factory work is bottom of the barrel.

Retric 16y ago

I agree with what you’re saying, but you still need to compare that to abject poverty which works out to around 1$ / day. 132$ / month = 4.33$ per day which is more than four times what many people live off of. Granted, for that area it's about the subsistence level, but add in overtime and these people do get spending money. In that situation some people will be saving 30-50% of their income which represents a huge amount of leverage. Yes, it sucks on levels that we are not really aware of, but those jobs hand poor people leverage and assuming a functioning society with minimal corruption etc over a few years many of those people will move on to much better places. Overtime: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/19/the-fate-of-a-generation-of-workers-foxconn-undercover-fully-tr/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/19/the-fate-of-a-generation-... Leverage: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/28/foxconn-raising-wages-by-about-20-percent-as-previously-planned/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/28/foxconn-raising-wages-by-...

jhancock 16y ago
So far there's not much to move on to. The only leverage they have is work slowdowns and strikes as their product line skills are of value. Guangzhou isn't a place I would be comfortable leading even a passive employee rebellion. Hopefully, you would simply be carried away by security. If you gained traction and kept coming back for more, well...who knows. The root problem here is equity distribution by the owners of these factories and the buyers have little to no concern about who's pockets their money is going into. The U.S. has terrible equity distribution and we look real good in comparison to China. The bulk of the Chinese are tired of this. They were promised a strong middle class and it hasn't happened yet.
- Retric 16y ago
  That's not the type of leverage I was talking about. They can leverage skills they learned on the job to get more pay. Either because their current company is willing to pay more or they can move on to another company that knows the value of a trained workforce. They can leverage their income to do all sorts of things. A simple rice cooker can save time, or you save up for 2 years and they can get 6+ months of living expenses and or start their own company. Or use simple compound interest to retire comfortably with minimal risk. PS: While collective negotiation may not amount to much in that part of the world, getting enough capital together from 10+ workers to start a competing company is very possible.