7 ms·

Migrants who made China an industrial giant face a grim retirement

96 points by known 7y ago

NeaterPeter 7y ago
Nothing very shocking, I've read multiple articles on how China treats their best and brightest
justinclift 7y ago
Paywalled.
manufact 7y ago
https://outline.com/qMhL2y https://outline.com/qMhL2y
- siberianbear 7y ago
  This link didn't work for me. I got an error saying "Something went wrong We're sorry. This page failed to Outline"
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    Worked just fine for me, though.
- neonate 7y ago
  Also http://archive.is/aJeqo http://archive.is/aJeqo
known 7y ago
https://archive.vn/aJeqo https://archive.vn/aJeqo
- justinclift 7y ago
  Thanks. :)
abledon 7y ago
when my relatives complain about how everything is made in china (feeling threatened ?) I like to remind them that most of the actual people living their are having a very hard time compared to their cushy western lifestyle.
- netsharc 7y ago
  Funny how slavery is pretty abstract for the western consumer nowadays, who don't see through several layers of capitalism of "best bang for your bucks". If the factory in China has to increase its minimum wage due to laws, well, "I want to build a phone factory, I want these shareholder-profit-maximizing conditions for the workers, any takers?" (Hah, even Amazon was doing this in the US with its whole HQ2 saga)
  - tempguy9999 7y ago
    I can't see any reason to downvote this, I don't think it's at all wrong.
    - merpnderp 7y ago
      China's pivot from Marxism to Capitalism has brought more people out of abject poverty, in a miraculously short period, than any other change in history. It isn't perfect, but there's no other viable option.
      - LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
        Roman pivot from local city state with domain to a expanding empire has objectively made the life of many barbarians better. What have the romans ever doen for thus?
      - tempguy9999 7y ago
        The CCP controls the markets. It's not a free market and thus not capitalism (I am ready to be corrected on any of these points). But that's an aside, the point is that exploitative labour practices come about because of what @netsharc says. You've sidestepped his and my point. If it was you or your children in a sweatshop you mightn't be so gung-ho.
justicezyx 7y ago
This is one of the biggest human right violations on earth, dwarfs anything that westerners are aware of, yet this is seldom getting much attentions... These people literally put their life into the modernization of the nation. Some of them died young, mostly from poor safety measures in their work environment. A lot of them suffer chronicle diseases that make their life a living torture. Yet even more of them wait to see the grim prospect of a miserable senior life. We are not even starting mentioning the tragic life of these events on their offsprings!
- coldtea 7y ago
  >* These people literally put their life into the modernization of the nation. Some of them died young, mostly from poor safety measures in their work environment. A lot of them suffer chronicle diseases that make their life a living torture. Yet even more of them wait to see the grim prospect of a miserable senior life. We are not even starting mentioning the tragic life of these events on their offsprings!* Worker fates were the same or worse when the Western nations came from the industrial age into the 20th century... It took until the 1930s with New Deal and unionising to get acceptable working conditions for factory and most service sector workers...
  - justicezyx 7y ago
    The typical "history repeats itself, so we do not need to care about it"... Good luck with this, when the fate of human beings require unified effort.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      >The typical "history repeats itself, so we do not need to care about it"... I'd like to think of it more as the typical: "Yeah, our country did those things back in the day to develop/get rich, but yours should not do them. History shouldn't repeat itself in your country's case, only my country should be allowed that privilege" Countries must pass through certain stages to develop. Countries that were once at stage 0 and now, after centuries , managed to be on stage N, are hypocritical (if not self-serving and used for diplomatic/political reasons) to point fingers at countries earlier in those stages. Especially if those countries are much older and larger (and thus slower to change) and despite that go through those stages much faster...
braindead_in 7y ago
This should not be a surprise: Chinese keep the labour costs down by cutting corners, of course. They are exploitative by nature. The CCP has betrayed the labour class. They should be called Chinese Capitalistic Party.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into political or nationalistic flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
gengchun88 7y ago
For the first woman, she can try to start a legal action against her former employer, force later to make a late payment for her social security. maybe about 50k-100k CNY for her 5 years. Or she can stay for another 5 years and continue to pay on her own to make sure she can retrieve the full benefits. If she'd chose to close her account, I think she can retrieve about CNY 100-200k one time. For the second one, House saving fund is a totally different thing. It is not mandatory nationally, for some employees they preferred to pay a minimum so they can negotiate for a higher wage in cash. It is very rare to see a migrate worker choose to pay housing saving funds instead of more cash. Anyway normally you can try to get some help from government provided legal aid and local media in this situation, but the foreign medias and NGOs is a big no-no.

96 points by known 7y ago

NeaterPeter 7y ago

Nothing very shocking, I've read multiple articles on how China treats their best and brightest

justinclift 7y ago

Paywalled.

manufact 7y ago

https://outline.com/qMhL2y https://outline.com/qMhL2y

siberianbear 7y ago
This link didn't work for me. I got an error saying "Something went wrong We're sorry. This page failed to Outline"
- DuskStar 7y ago
  Worked just fine for me, though.
neonate 7y ago
Also http://archive.is/aJeqo http://archive.is/aJeqo

known 7y ago

https://archive.vn/aJeqo https://archive.vn/aJeqo

justinclift 7y ago
Thanks. :)

abledon 7y ago

when my relatives complain about how everything is made in china (feeling threatened ?) I like to remind them that most of the actual people living their are having a very hard time compared to their cushy western lifestyle.

netsharc 7y ago
Funny how slavery is pretty abstract for the western consumer nowadays, who don't see through several layers of capitalism of "best bang for your bucks". If the factory in China has to increase its minimum wage due to laws, well, "I want to build a phone factory, I want these shareholder-profit-maximizing conditions for the workers, any takers?" (Hah, even Amazon was doing this in the US with its whole HQ2 saga)
- tempguy9999 7y ago
  I can't see any reason to downvote this, I don't think it's at all wrong.
  - merpnderp 7y ago
    China's pivot from Marxism to Capitalism has brought more people out of abject poverty, in a miraculously short period, than any other change in history. It isn't perfect, but there's no other viable option.
    - LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
      Roman pivot from local city state with domain to a expanding empire has objectively made the life of many barbarians better. What have the romans ever doen for thus?
    - tempguy9999 7y ago
      The CCP controls the markets. It's not a free market and thus not capitalism (I am ready to be corrected on any of these points). But that's an aside, the point is that exploitative labour practices come about because of what @netsharc says. You've sidestepped his and my point. If it was you or your children in a sweatshop you mightn't be so gung-ho.

justicezyx 7y ago

This is one of the biggest human right violations on earth, dwarfs anything that westerners are aware of, yet this is seldom getting much attentions... These people literally put their life into the modernization of the nation. Some of them died young, mostly from poor safety measures in their work environment. A lot of them suffer chronicle diseases that make their life a living torture. Yet even more of them wait to see the grim prospect of a miserable senior life. We are not even starting mentioning the tragic life of these events on their offsprings!

coldtea 7y ago
>* These people literally put their life into the modernization of the nation. Some of them died young, mostly from poor safety measures in their work environment. A lot of them suffer chronicle diseases that make their life a living torture. Yet even more of them wait to see the grim prospect of a miserable senior life. We are not even starting mentioning the tragic life of these events on their offsprings!* Worker fates were the same or worse when the Western nations came from the industrial age into the 20th century... It took until the 1930s with New Deal and unionising to get acceptable working conditions for factory and most service sector workers...
- justicezyx 7y ago
  The typical "history repeats itself, so we do not need to care about it"... Good luck with this, when the fate of human beings require unified effort.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >The typical "history repeats itself, so we do not need to care about it"... I'd like to think of it more as the typical: "Yeah, our country did those things back in the day to develop/get rich, but yours should not do them. History shouldn't repeat itself in your country's case, only my country should be allowed that privilege" Countries must pass through certain stages to develop. Countries that were once at stage 0 and now, after centuries , managed to be on stage N, are hypocritical (if not self-serving and used for diplomatic/political reasons) to point fingers at countries earlier in those stages. Especially if those countries are much older and larger (and thus slower to change) and despite that go through those stages much faster...

braindead_in 7y ago

This should not be a surprise: Chinese keep the labour costs down by cutting corners, of course. They are exploitative by nature. The CCP has betrayed the labour class. They should be called Chinese Capitalistic Party.

dang 7y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into political or nationalistic flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

gengchun88 7y ago

For the first woman, she can try to start a legal action against her former employer, force later to make a late payment for her social security. maybe about 50k-100k CNY for her 5 years. Or she can stay for another 5 years and continue to pay on her own to make sure she can retrieve the full benefits. If she'd chose to close her account, I think she can retrieve about CNY 100-200k one time. For the second one, House saving fund is a totally different thing. It is not mandatory nationally, for some employees they preferred to pay a minimum so they can negotiate for a higher wage in cash. It is very rare to see a migrate worker choose to pay housing saving funds instead of more cash. Anyway normally you can try to get some help from government provided legal aid and local media in this situation, but the foreign medias and NGOs is a big no-no.