7 ms·

A Drop of 4 Degrees Made a Big Difference for a Garment Maker's Bottom Line

77 points by danso 8y ago

messe 8y ago
> Decline and visit plaintext site This doesn't count as opt-out by default behavour for tracking. Have any complaints been made in the EU toward NPR? EDIT: Glad this is getting some attention, whether it be upvoting or downvoting.
- cosmojg 8y ago
  Doesn't it? By default, you're opted out of loading the page altogether. You may then opt in for the full version or remain opted out and continue onto the plaintext version. Personally, I love this implementation.
  - messe 8y ago
    If opt out were truly the default, it would, in turn here, imply that default behaviour of the site is to serve the plaintext version. This is obviously not the case and has never been the case.
    - grawprog 8y ago
      Well you have the choice not to read anything on NPR. If it bothers you.
    - freeone3000 8y ago
      I don't think it's "obviously" not the case. Plain text has been the default since before we had displays. It was not the default for NPR since before GDPR, and now it is. Moreover, the only image in the article is a non-content header display image. The entire article is plain text. You are experiencing no degradation, and honestly an improvement! (smaller page, less loading, less waiting, easier to manage on smaller screens...) I wish this became the standard for compliance.
    - zucan 8y ago
      "opt-out as default" in the context of GDPR means that all EU citizens have to be considered as not having given consent to usage of their personal data until they explicitly do so. See Recital 32, Sentence 3: "Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent." [0] in the context of consent of the data subject to make processing of personal data lawful (Article 6 [1]) I'd be glad if you could point out a regulation on the content website owners must offer to people who do not wish their personal data to be processed. [0] https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-32/ https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-32/ [1] https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/
- jacquesm 8y ago
  You shouldn't make frivolous complaints. You are just adding noise and drowning out the real signal based on your knee jerk reaction to something that you don't like but that is actually perfectly legal and in fact a reasonable solution, after all, you did get to read the article. Personally I prefer the NPR's 'text' version over their fancy one anyway. It loads quicker and doesn't have any of the js nonsense.
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 8y ago
    I like the plaintext version better too, but when I hit decline it redirects me to the “main page” of the plaintext site which just shows a top 10 stories view. Am I missing how to go see the story from plaintext due to some browser settings or something? Running latest iOS on iPhone 7+
    - Firerouge 8y ago
      Same problem, the decline (opt-out) seems to make it impossible to read the article. Android chrome.
      - messe 8y ago
        I feel like the majority of people downvoting my original top level comment haven't had to click the decline/opt-out link.
        jacquesm 8y ago
        I feel like you did not really look: https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=629871725 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=629871725
- megaman22 8y ago
  Pretty sure NPR shouldn't be particularly concerned about foreign regulations. It's an entirely US based entity.
  - messe 8y ago
    In that case, why serve the page at all?
    - megaman22 8y ago
      Because that's not how the internet ever worked before this foolishness.
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      Dude, they're trying to serve you. It's not as if you paid them anything for TFA. Yet you're perfectly satisfied for them to be threatened from abroad? Wow.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    Lots of regulations eventually shift in people's estimation from "this might be a good idea" when introduced to "this is what God intended" after years of acclimation. The shift seems to have been really fast for this regulation.
- toast_coder 8y ago
  GDPR is criminalizing all websites because compliance is impossible. It puts european officials in exactly the possition they want to be in, everyone is breaking the law an enforcement is a matter of who their friends are. Majors websites are taking steps to remove access from eu. This will only get worse. Be prepared to live in the environmet your politicians have created, or be prepared to come back to planet reality. I speak personally, as a technical architect for international sales organization. People who basically are not in that position don't realize the way the law is written that compliance is not feasible. You are simply gambling that the shakedown form the enforceres won't be to bad.
  - messe 8y ago
    > GDPR is criminalizing all websites because compliance is impossible I disagree, compliance isn't particularly difficult unless you're going out of your way to do something harmful to your users. > be prepared to come back to planet reality. Please refrain from hyperboly, I'd much rather a civil discussion about this.
    - will4274 8y ago
      > compliance isn't particularly difficult unless you're going out of your way to do something harmful to your users. Please stop spreading this FUD. There are tons of architectures (e.g. Apache Kafka) which were totally sane and require total reorganization to become compliant. Dismissing this as "not very difficult" and adding a snide little attack on anybody who disagrees is untrue and an ad hominem to boot. Complying with GDPR is costly and significant work. If implememtations match legislative aspirations, it could also be a significant boon to consumers. However, legitimate questions about the level of compliance, particularly from companies with unscrupulous business models leave it currently vague whether the boon will be realized in full, in part, or not at all. Though I know hacker news discourages political discourse and meta, I would interject - almost all political topics have upsides and downsides. Pretending that the downsides don't exist on any policy isn't passionate advocacy - it's just degrading the level of discourse.
      - 8y ago
tweedledee 8y ago
I wonder if the spectrum difference in the light sources would also have an effect?
- taneq 8y ago
  As a fictional example, in Asimov's "Prelude to Foundation" one of the locations (Dahl, a geothermal power district) offset the sweltering heat by running dimmer, reddish lighting, which apparently had a psychological effect on the inhabitants' perception of temperature. In real life, I wouldn't be surprised if offices choose to run high-colour-temperature lights in order to keep workers more awake and less drowsy (the exact effect that software like F.lux tries to offset).
- zaarn 8y ago
  Sorta, though I don't think normal office hours matter much here. Blue-spectrum light influences the circadian rhythm in your body by shifting it forward, keeping you more awake. Red-spectrum light doesn't influence that rhythm as much and from personal experience, will get you sleepy relatively quickly if it's late at night or you're otherwise exhausted. On the other hand, blue light keeps you awake however once you eat into the normal sleep time of your day enough, you'll start experiencing heavy eye strain, headaches and sore muscles rather quickly. (Personal experience is an Arduino-controlled LED strip with RGBW setting, which allows me to very precisely control the white temperature)
CamelCaseName 8y ago
This is a really interesting article! I recommend anyone just checking out the comments to take a look -- it is quite short. I wonder if there's a real opportunity here. Buy up Indian manufacturing firms with significant books of business and introduce productivity enhancing changes like LED lights. Of course, this is a simplification, but if the effect is as pronounced as described in the article, it seems like a fantastic opportunity. I rarely see news about how business operates, or stories of business success and decline in India. Does anyone know where I could read more? Thank you to the moderators for boosting this story after 3 days, it definitely spiked my curiosity. I presently import a few products from China and love learning about the challenges these manufacturers face.
- NTDF9 8y ago
  There are plenty of small businesses in India going through productivity transitions and becoming bigger exporters. Air conditioning has been the easiest gain in the last 2 decades. More recently it is mobile payments and computerized inventory and financing. The companies making these investments quickly become local franchises or quality exporters who can charge more. Of course the owners and employees are richer for doing this, beating competition.
  - ipince 8y ago
    Do you have some example companies to read about?
    - NTDF9 8y ago
      These are really small neighborhood businesses. I remember walking down the streets and there were some local sweet shops with delicious street food. They used to sell it for Rs 5 (less than 10 cents) at the time. Add some inflation, air conditioning, hygiene (using gloves for example), seating, led lights and these things cost Rs 30 now (50 cents). You'd think the price would shirk customers off especially since competition was selling the same stuff for Rs 10. But no. They got featured in local TV a few times, got large contracts to supply these food items to events. They mechanized their production keeping their recipe the same and franchised their brand, opened websites, created presence in malls and started exporting these foods outside India as a packaged food item. All this in 15 years. http://www.jumboking.co.in/ http://www.jumboking.co.in/
dghughes 8y ago
I wonder if the opposite is true? In my region low income people work seasonally in fish plants. Although now many fish plants hire people from outside the country because they can pay them less. The fish plants are wet and very cold the workers wear rubber gloves and often have their hands in ice. If 30C is the heat stress threshold is there a cold stress threshold?
mannykannot 8y ago
An alternative way at looking at this is that, if you are pushing your employees to their physical limits, you can squeeze more out of them if you can prevent them from becoming overheated. This is a negative way of looking at it, but I think, unfortunately, that it is realistic. Beyond the short term, the only way this will benefit the workers is if there is something external to limit the ways it can be exploited solely to increase productivity. Otherwise, the market will do its thing.
- Retric 8y ago
  Not working in 85+ degree temperatures is a benefit on it's own.
  - mannykannot 8y ago
    That's a fair point, but to me, the article's message seemed to be that the important issue was the productivity gain (just look at the title.) That interpretation, and my response, may well be a biased, to which I can only say that it wasn't my initial response, which was more favorable.
  - mc32 8y ago
    Back when i was in high school, i did a summer job in a building without A/C. We got to do nothing if the temp hit 97, or whatever was the local regulation. small “pleasures”.
- abandonliberty 8y ago
  Negative? It's how the world works. Those in resource-driven countries enjoy very little comfort, because you don't need very comfortable/educated people to extract resources. Our economies are more based on knowledge, so we get better lives. CGPGrey's rules for rulers is a very good outline of this and other related topics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
  - ben_w 8y ago
    Just because it’s true doesn’t make it not “negative” — even pessimists are often over-optimistic for project planning, for example, despite being closest to reality. Also, this article shows that people can be irrational about the economically optimal level of comfort. CGP makes a similar point with the valley of revolution, between impoverished and wealthy nations, and why it’s hard to get from poor to rich even though it’s clearly an improvement.
crazygringo 8y ago
Sometimes it's useful to remember just how privileged we are to be working in tech... ...many of us get microkitchens with as many La Croix and "delightful" snacks as we can consume. While for others, just a switch to lamps that produce less heat is a major life improvement.
- nimbius 8y ago
  speak for yourself, I work as a full time engine mechanic for a regional chain of repair shops. - its a full time battle just to convince some management that OSHA is real. earplugs and gloves were a luxury item under my last boss. - one of our managers stole tools all the time and fired a technician just to cover his ass. That technician burned his car to the ground with a road flare in a mcdonalds parking lot. -our former owner was arrested for illegally dumping waste chemicals in a protected habitat, and instead of just paying the fine the madman elected to serve 4 years in prison. - I was asked to testify against her. - two words: angry boomer. The number of times I've had a child of the greatest generation grab me by the collar and scream obscenities at me for something stupid borders on the absurd. Ive had one of them corner me in a hallway and refuse to 'let me go' until I discounted the work on his daughters car. - People shit on you for doing this job, or openly remark that you're incompetent. Fun fact, my coworker in paint and body has a doctorate in mathematics from Pepperdyne. My transmission tech team lead was a former Formula 1 race mechanic. I build my own Linux containers and run my own Kubernetes cluster. We arent all just sweat and wrenches.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    I'm a tradesman in the steel construction industry. I worked for an ISP for ~4 years a few years ago before returning to the trade for the money. After having worked for the ISP and come back to the tools, the culture of abuse in this industry kinda shocked me. Of the eight or so workshops I've worked in only two were well run by professionals.
  - sandworm101 8y ago
    >> two words: angry boomer. Yup. In my early 30s I had one challenge me to a fight after a lifeguard ejected him from the "fast lane" for swimming too slowly. I said I'd meet him in the parking lot, then left the back way. I still wonder whether he showed up. I assume something was wrong with his meds. While riding in a group of 20+ sportbikes we had another try to start a fight with us at a gas station. Twenty people on bikes dressed like power rangers and this old man starts throwing punches because he was stuck in line behind us. We laughed and rode away.
KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago
Nice, always exciting when academia produces immediate impact.
keeler 8y ago
While I'm glad that this experiment was done, because it resulted in better conditions for the factory workers, it bothers me that experiments like this are necessary in the first place. I get that managers and owners, qua managers and owners, are concerned with maximizing productivity, but it should be obvious to anyone with a modicum of humanity and common sense that productivity will increase when labourers are treated as human beings, with basic needs being met for their general welfare, rather than as beasts of burden. Color me unimpressed at the discovery that productivity increases when workers have something as luxurious as proper lighting and air circulation so that sweat isn't pouring down their faces while they're sewing blue jeans for H&M with the utmost concentration lest they break their finger or hand in a machine.
- st26 8y ago
  Putting it in terms of cost & productivity is very clinical, very inhuman, but it's also virtually unassailable. Nobody will argue "We should continue to treat people badly and make less money". So to me it seems like the gold standard result. You don't have to argue ethics, morals, or worry about people cheating. Because you've just made humane treatment of workers economically rational.
  - keeler 8y ago
    You've missed my point. I'm not saying that putting it in terms of cost and productivity isn't virtually unassailable. I'm saying that it's ridiculous that this experiment was necessary to convince management that ensuring the basic welfare of its workforce would improve that productivity. Just as it's obvious that productivity isn't maximized if workers aren't permitted to sleep or eat lunch (and we don't really need studies to know that), so it should be obvious that productivity isn't maximized when working conditions include stifling heat with no air circulation while you're at risk of maiming yourself at a sewing machine. This is a sweat shop we are talking about. I've explicitly couched my comments in terms of worker productivity, so I'm not exactly talking about ethics. But ethics is certainly the subtext here, because I think it's obvious that humans perform and live better when they're treated the way they ought to be treated, with their basic needs being met. Commonsense ethical rules aren't arbitrary; it isn't a coincidence that people fare badly, and perform poorly, when they are treated badly and are made to work and live in squalor.
rayiner 8y ago
> The company, Shahi Exports, has more than 50 factories, employs about 100,000 workers and supplies brands that include Gap, Uniqlo, Zara and H&M. Some of these brands had encouraged the company to be more environmentally responsible by switching out the fluorescent tube lights in its factories for LEDs that would consume about one-seventh the amount of energy. Maybe Americans and European yuppies can pay a couple of extra bucks for their Gap t-shirts and Gap can insist that Indian factory owners install air conditioning instead?
- jws 8y ago
  …switching out the fluorescent tube lights in its factories for LEDs that would consume about one-seventh the amount of energy. Something is wrong here. Fluorescent tubes to LEDs is more like a ½ savings. I suppose if you reduce overall lighting and provide task lighting you could get to 1/7, but the technologies aren’t that far off in efficiency. Check luminous efficiency in Wikipedia for a nice table. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy
  - fencepost 8y ago
    The fluorescent systems in there are likely older and less efficient, so at the lower end of the range. For this kind of industrial setup you can probably do more efficient DC directly to the lights with fewer and more efficient conversions from AC, and there may be other improvements available (solar tubes, dimmable LEDs, task lighting, etc.). 7x seems high but likely achievable.
  - fredsanford 8y ago
    Don't forget about the power used by the ballast and the heat generated there..
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > Maybe Americans and European yuppies can pay a couple of extra bucks for their Gap t-shirts and Gap can insist that Indian factory owners install air conditioning instead? Like they weren't already overpaying 100x+ for them. Maybe Gap, H&M and others could cut their margins a bit...
saagarjha 8y ago
It's really great when a change like this aimed at improving workers' lives ends up helping company profits overall. It helps give credence to the idea that treating your employees well is not only a nice thing to do, but that it's better from a financial standpoint as well.
wiradikusuma 8y ago
"There have always been these theories that part of why the Northern Hemisphere grew faster than the Southern Hemisphere was because of temperature issues," — it could also because the weather is nicer outside so we go surfing instead of working? I'm from tropical country, and there's a saying that you can literally plant a stick and it will grow up a tree. Unfortunately it makes us lazy.
bipson 8y ago
Link to the text only version: https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=629871725 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=629871725 I still think NPR should consider redirecting to the requested article. Can't be that hard, can it?

77 points by danso 8y ago

> Decline and visit plaintext site This doesn't count as opt-out by default behavour for tracking. Have any complaints been made in the EU toward NPR? EDIT: Glad this is getting some attention, whether it be upvoting or downvoting.

cosmojg 8y ago
Doesn't it? By default, you're opted out of loading the page altogether. You may then opt in for the full version or remain opted out and continue onto the plaintext version. Personally, I love this implementation.
- messe 8y ago
  If opt out were truly the default, it would, in turn here, imply that default behaviour of the site is to serve the plaintext version. This is obviously not the case and has never been the case.
  - grawprog 8y ago
    Well you have the choice not to read anything on NPR. If it bothers you.
  - freeone3000 8y ago
    I don't think it's "obviously" not the case. Plain text has been the default since before we had displays. It was not the default for NPR since before GDPR, and now it is. Moreover, the only image in the article is a non-content header display image. The entire article is plain text. You are experiencing no degradation, and honestly an improvement! (smaller page, less loading, less waiting, easier to manage on smaller screens...) I wish this became the standard for compliance.
  - zucan 8y ago
    "opt-out as default" in the context of GDPR means that all EU citizens have to be considered as not having given consent to usage of their personal data until they explicitly do so. See Recital 32, Sentence 3: "Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent." [0] in the context of consent of the data subject to make processing of personal data lawful (Article 6 [1]) I'd be glad if you could point out a regulation on the content website owners must offer to people who do not wish their personal data to be processed. [0] https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-32/ https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-32/ [1] https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/
jacquesm 8y ago
You shouldn't make frivolous complaints. You are just adding noise and drowning out the real signal based on your knee jerk reaction to something that you don't like but that is actually perfectly legal and in fact a reasonable solution, after all, you did get to read the article. Personally I prefer the NPR's 'text' version over their fancy one anyway. It loads quicker and doesn't have any of the js nonsense.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 8y ago
  I like the plaintext version better too, but when I hit decline it redirects me to the “main page” of the plaintext site which just shows a top 10 stories view. Am I missing how to go see the story from plaintext due to some browser settings or something? Running latest iOS on iPhone 7+
  - Firerouge 8y ago
    Same problem, the decline (opt-out) seems to make it impossible to read the article. Android chrome.
    - messe 8y ago
      I feel like the majority of people downvoting my original top level comment haven't had to click the decline/opt-out link.
      - jacquesm 8y ago
        I feel like you did not really look: https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=629871725 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=629871725
megaman22 8y ago
Pretty sure NPR shouldn't be particularly concerned about foreign regulations. It's an entirely US based entity.
- messe 8y ago
  In that case, why serve the page at all?
  - megaman22 8y ago
    Because that's not how the internet ever worked before this foolishness.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    Dude, they're trying to serve you. It's not as if you paid them anything for TFA. Yet you're perfectly satisfied for them to be threatened from abroad? Wow.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  Lots of regulations eventually shift in people's estimation from "this might be a good idea" when introduced to "this is what God intended" after years of acclimation. The shift seems to have been really fast for this regulation.
toast_coder 8y ago
GDPR is criminalizing all websites because compliance is impossible. It puts european officials in exactly the possition they want to be in, everyone is breaking the law an enforcement is a matter of who their friends are. Majors websites are taking steps to remove access from eu. This will only get worse. Be prepared to live in the environmet your politicians have created, or be prepared to come back to planet reality. I speak personally, as a technical architect for international sales organization. People who basically are not in that position don't realize the way the law is written that compliance is not feasible. You are simply gambling that the shakedown form the enforceres won't be to bad.
- messe 8y ago
  > GDPR is criminalizing all websites because compliance is impossible I disagree, compliance isn't particularly difficult unless you're going out of your way to do something harmful to your users. > be prepared to come back to planet reality. Please refrain from hyperboly, I'd much rather a civil discussion about this.
  - will4274 8y ago
    > compliance isn't particularly difficult unless you're going out of your way to do something harmful to your users. Please stop spreading this FUD. There are tons of architectures (e.g. Apache Kafka) which were totally sane and require total reorganization to become compliant. Dismissing this as "not very difficult" and adding a snide little attack on anybody who disagrees is untrue and an ad hominem to boot. Complying with GDPR is costly and significant work. If implememtations match legislative aspirations, it could also be a significant boon to consumers. However, legitimate questions about the level of compliance, particularly from companies with unscrupulous business models leave it currently vague whether the boon will be realized in full, in part, or not at all. Though I know hacker news discourages political discourse and meta, I would interject - almost all political topics have upsides and downsides. Pretending that the downsides don't exist on any policy isn't passionate advocacy - it's just degrading the level of discourse.
    - 8y ago

tweedledee 8y ago

I wonder if the spectrum difference in the light sources would also have an effect?

taneq 8y ago
As a fictional example, in Asimov's "Prelude to Foundation" one of the locations (Dahl, a geothermal power district) offset the sweltering heat by running dimmer, reddish lighting, which apparently had a psychological effect on the inhabitants' perception of temperature. In real life, I wouldn't be surprised if offices choose to run high-colour-temperature lights in order to keep workers more awake and less drowsy (the exact effect that software like F.lux tries to offset).
zaarn 8y ago
Sorta, though I don't think normal office hours matter much here. Blue-spectrum light influences the circadian rhythm in your body by shifting it forward, keeping you more awake. Red-spectrum light doesn't influence that rhythm as much and from personal experience, will get you sleepy relatively quickly if it's late at night or you're otherwise exhausted. On the other hand, blue light keeps you awake however once you eat into the normal sleep time of your day enough, you'll start experiencing heavy eye strain, headaches and sore muscles rather quickly. (Personal experience is an Arduino-controlled LED strip with RGBW setting, which allows me to very precisely control the white temperature)

CamelCaseName 8y ago

This is a really interesting article! I recommend anyone just checking out the comments to take a look -- it is quite short. I wonder if there's a real opportunity here. Buy up Indian manufacturing firms with significant books of business and introduce productivity enhancing changes like LED lights. Of course, this is a simplification, but if the effect is as pronounced as described in the article, it seems like a fantastic opportunity. I rarely see news about how business operates, or stories of business success and decline in India. Does anyone know where I could read more? Thank you to the moderators for boosting this story after 3 days, it definitely spiked my curiosity. I presently import a few products from China and love learning about the challenges these manufacturers face.

NTDF9 8y ago
There are plenty of small businesses in India going through productivity transitions and becoming bigger exporters. Air conditioning has been the easiest gain in the last 2 decades. More recently it is mobile payments and computerized inventory and financing. The companies making these investments quickly become local franchises or quality exporters who can charge more. Of course the owners and employees are richer for doing this, beating competition.
- ipince 8y ago
  Do you have some example companies to read about?
  - NTDF9 8y ago
    These are really small neighborhood businesses. I remember walking down the streets and there were some local sweet shops with delicious street food. They used to sell it for Rs 5 (less than 10 cents) at the time. Add some inflation, air conditioning, hygiene (using gloves for example), seating, led lights and these things cost Rs 30 now (50 cents). You'd think the price would shirk customers off especially since competition was selling the same stuff for Rs 10. But no. They got featured in local TV a few times, got large contracts to supply these food items to events. They mechanized their production keeping their recipe the same and franchised their brand, opened websites, created presence in malls and started exporting these foods outside India as a packaged food item. All this in 15 years. http://www.jumboking.co.in/ http://www.jumboking.co.in/

dghughes 8y ago

I wonder if the opposite is true? In my region low income people work seasonally in fish plants. Although now many fish plants hire people from outside the country because they can pay them less. The fish plants are wet and very cold the workers wear rubber gloves and often have their hands in ice. If 30C is the heat stress threshold is there a cold stress threshold?

mannykannot 8y ago

An alternative way at looking at this is that, if you are pushing your employees to their physical limits, you can squeeze more out of them if you can prevent them from becoming overheated. This is a negative way of looking at it, but I think, unfortunately, that it is realistic. Beyond the short term, the only way this will benefit the workers is if there is something external to limit the ways it can be exploited solely to increase productivity. Otherwise, the market will do its thing.

Retric 8y ago
Not working in 85+ degree temperatures is a benefit on it's own.
- mannykannot 8y ago
  That's a fair point, but to me, the article's message seemed to be that the important issue was the productivity gain (just look at the title.) That interpretation, and my response, may well be a biased, to which I can only say that it wasn't my initial response, which was more favorable.
- mc32 8y ago
  Back when i was in high school, i did a summer job in a building without A/C. We got to do nothing if the temp hit 97, or whatever was the local regulation. small “pleasures”.
abandonliberty 8y ago
Negative? It's how the world works. Those in resource-driven countries enjoy very little comfort, because you don't need very comfortable/educated people to extract resources. Our economies are more based on knowledge, so we get better lives. CGPGrey's rules for rulers is a very good outline of this and other related topics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
- ben_w 8y ago
  Just because it’s true doesn’t make it not “negative” — even pessimists are often over-optimistic for project planning, for example, despite being closest to reality. Also, this article shows that people can be irrational about the economically optimal level of comfort. CGP makes a similar point with the valley of revolution, between impoverished and wealthy nations, and why it’s hard to get from poor to rich even though it’s clearly an improvement.

crazygringo 8y ago

Sometimes it's useful to remember just how privileged we are to be working in tech... ...many of us get microkitchens with as many La Croix and "delightful" snacks as we can consume. While for others, just a switch to lamps that produce less heat is a major life improvement.

nimbius 8y ago
speak for yourself, I work as a full time engine mechanic for a regional chain of repair shops. - its a full time battle just to convince some management that OSHA is real. earplugs and gloves were a luxury item under my last boss. - one of our managers stole tools all the time and fired a technician just to cover his ass. That technician burned his car to the ground with a road flare in a mcdonalds parking lot. -our former owner was arrested for illegally dumping waste chemicals in a protected habitat, and instead of just paying the fine the madman elected to serve 4 years in prison. - I was asked to testify against her. - two words: angry boomer. The number of times I've had a child of the greatest generation grab me by the collar and scream obscenities at me for something stupid borders on the absurd. Ive had one of them corner me in a hallway and refuse to 'let me go' until I discounted the work on his daughters car. - People shit on you for doing this job, or openly remark that you're incompetent. Fun fact, my coworker in paint and body has a doctorate in mathematics from Pepperdyne. My transmission tech team lead was a former Formula 1 race mechanic. I build my own Linux containers and run my own Kubernetes cluster. We arent all just sweat and wrenches.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  I'm a tradesman in the steel construction industry. I worked for an ISP for ~4 years a few years ago before returning to the trade for the money. After having worked for the ISP and come back to the tools, the culture of abuse in this industry kinda shocked me. Of the eight or so workshops I've worked in only two were well run by professionals.
- sandworm101 8y ago
  >> two words: angry boomer. Yup. In my early 30s I had one challenge me to a fight after a lifeguard ejected him from the "fast lane" for swimming too slowly. I said I'd meet him in the parking lot, then left the back way. I still wonder whether he showed up. I assume something was wrong with his meds. While riding in a group of 20+ sportbikes we had another try to start a fight with us at a gas station. Twenty people on bikes dressed like power rangers and this old man starts throwing punches because he was stuck in line behind us. We laughed and rode away.

KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago

Nice, always exciting when academia produces immediate impact.

keeler 8y ago

While I'm glad that this experiment was done, because it resulted in better conditions for the factory workers, it bothers me that experiments like this are necessary in the first place. I get that managers and owners, qua managers and owners, are concerned with maximizing productivity, but it should be obvious to anyone with a modicum of humanity and common sense that productivity will increase when labourers are treated as human beings, with basic needs being met for their general welfare, rather than as beasts of burden. Color me unimpressed at the discovery that productivity increases when workers have something as luxurious as proper lighting and air circulation so that sweat isn't pouring down their faces while they're sewing blue jeans for H&M with the utmost concentration lest they break their finger or hand in a machine.

st26 8y ago
Putting it in terms of cost & productivity is very clinical, very inhuman, but it's also virtually unassailable. Nobody will argue "We should continue to treat people badly and make less money". So to me it seems like the gold standard result. You don't have to argue ethics, morals, or worry about people cheating. Because you've just made humane treatment of workers economically rational.
- keeler 8y ago
  You've missed my point. I'm not saying that putting it in terms of cost and productivity isn't virtually unassailable. I'm saying that it's ridiculous that this experiment was necessary to convince management that ensuring the basic welfare of its workforce would improve that productivity. Just as it's obvious that productivity isn't maximized if workers aren't permitted to sleep or eat lunch (and we don't really need studies to know that), so it should be obvious that productivity isn't maximized when working conditions include stifling heat with no air circulation while you're at risk of maiming yourself at a sewing machine. This is a sweat shop we are talking about. I've explicitly couched my comments in terms of worker productivity, so I'm not exactly talking about ethics. But ethics is certainly the subtext here, because I think it's obvious that humans perform and live better when they're treated the way they ought to be treated, with their basic needs being met. Commonsense ethical rules aren't arbitrary; it isn't a coincidence that people fare badly, and perform poorly, when they are treated badly and are made to work and live in squalor.

rayiner 8y ago

> The company, Shahi Exports, has more than 50 factories, employs about 100,000 workers and supplies brands that include Gap, Uniqlo, Zara and H&M. Some of these brands had encouraged the company to be more environmentally responsible by switching out the fluorescent tube lights in its factories for LEDs that would consume about one-seventh the amount of energy. Maybe Americans and European yuppies can pay a couple of extra bucks for their Gap t-shirts and Gap can insist that Indian factory owners install air conditioning instead?

jws 8y ago
…switching out the fluorescent tube lights in its factories for LEDs that would consume about one-seventh the amount of energy. Something is wrong here. Fluorescent tubes to LEDs is more like a ½ savings. I suppose if you reduce overall lighting and provide task lighting you could get to 1/7, but the technologies aren’t that far off in efficiency. Check luminous efficiency in Wikipedia for a nice table. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy
- fencepost 8y ago
  The fluorescent systems in there are likely older and less efficient, so at the lower end of the range. For this kind of industrial setup you can probably do more efficient DC directly to the lights with fewer and more efficient conversions from AC, and there may be other improvements available (solar tubes, dimmable LEDs, task lighting, etc.). 7x seems high but likely achievable.
- fredsanford 8y ago
  Don't forget about the power used by the ballast and the heat generated there..
TeMPOraL 8y ago
> Maybe Americans and European yuppies can pay a couple of extra bucks for their Gap t-shirts and Gap can insist that Indian factory owners install air conditioning instead? Like they weren't already overpaying 100x+ for them. Maybe Gap, H&M and others could cut their margins a bit...

saagarjha 8y ago

It's really great when a change like this aimed at improving workers' lives ends up helping company profits overall. It helps give credence to the idea that treating your employees well is not only a nice thing to do, but that it's better from a financial standpoint as well.

wiradikusuma 8y ago

"There have always been these theories that part of why the Northern Hemisphere grew faster than the Southern Hemisphere was because of temperature issues," — it could also because the weather is nicer outside so we go surfing instead of working? I'm from tropical country, and there's a saying that you can literally plant a stick and it will grow up a tree. Unfortunately it makes us lazy.

bipson 8y ago

Link to the text only version: https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=629871725 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=629871725 I still think NPR should consider redirecting to the requested article. Can't be that hard, can it?