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One of the hallmark properties of a market economy is that you have choice. You don't like your compensation? You quit. The truth is that everyone at the factor
by maratd 15y ago
One of the hallmark properties of a market economy is that you have choice. You don't like your compensation? You quit. The truth is that everyone at the factory is there because they want to be. Because it beats being back on the farm. But still, Foxconn created the problem.
When Western media freaked out over the suicides, Foxconn got scared. They started making their employees sign non-suicide agreements. What? That is the height of stupidity. If a worker wants to commit suicide, a contract isn't going to stop them. However, if a worker does not want to kill themselves ... it creates a new bargaining opportunity.
I have zero sympathy for Foxconn on this. They created the problem with a bad business decision, by explicitly broadcasting where they were vulnerable and making themselves even more vulnerable.
You don't need to be sympathetic with the workers either. They're just negotiating for higher pay in a unique way. Completely within their rights. Nobody is jumping. The ones who are going to jump won't advertise it or ask for anything beforehand.
- zasz 15y agoOkay, let me see if I got this straight. Foxconn workers are picking between two shitty jobs. Job A is worse than Job B. Job A is so bad that they are threatening to commit suicide. What kind of choice is this?
- louislouis 15y agoIt's called the choice of capitalism for the poor. Basically get exploited or don't eat.
- pjkundert 15y agoLet me get this straight: you are using one of the most ruthless [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_trade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_trade] command economies in the world as an example of the ills of Capitalism?
- louislouis 15y agoI'm not just talking about China. It really doesn't matter which country the factories are in. The poor will always get exploited. Be it child labour in India or Indonesia, or closing of GM Flint Michigan. Exploitation of the poor is at the root of capitalism if you think about it from a basic level. It's all about making profit, and for that you need cheap labour provided by the poor, globalization provides an abundance of poor people to be exploited. Don't like the working hours here? Hey we got queues of peasants lined up outside to replace you. Get back to work.
- InclinedPlane 15y agoExactly! In the last half century the poor in South Korea and Taiwan were exploited so much that they turned those countries into first world nations.
- louislouis 15y agoI'll assume you're bringing up those 2 countries as a direct comparison to North Korea and China? Correct? China seems to be doing alright for now. As for NK? Well when the country was formed, it got the better half compared to South Korea, in that it had all valuable resources and manufacturing. Now you have to ask how did this country with its head start manage to fall behind to its southern counterpart? Had the playing field been level, ie no sanctions placed and NK was allowed to partake in international trade, the story today would be very different.
- yummyfajitas 15y agoI'm confused. If a company pays people money to build stuff for them (as in India or Indonesia), you criticize them as exploiting the poor. And if they stop paying people money to build stuff for them (as in Flint Michigan), you also criticize them for exploiting the poor?
- louislouis 15y agoPay is certainly a good thing. But perhaps the companies need a heavy touch of social responsibility as part of their manifesto. Unfortunately social responsibility does not fly in the name of profit. That is what I mean by exploitation.
- endtime 15y agoYes, I'm sure all those Chinese employees are pining for the days when "don't eat" was the only option.
- hexis 15y agoA bad one.
- ttttannebaum 15y agoDo you have it straight? From the article: "Instead of the raise they requested, these workers were given the following ultimatum: quit with compensation, or keep their jobs with no pay increase. Most quit and never got the money. That's when the mass suicide threat came in. The incident actually caused a factory wide shutdown, reports Record China. "
- philwelch 15y agoGenuinely suicidal people don't threaten to commit suicide, they just do it. These people tipped their hand by coming off the roof without Foxconn conceding to their demands. If idle threats to commit suicide are a surefire indication that someone's being mistreated, then millions of teenage ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends are mistreated, too. Threatening to jump off a building shows even less conviction than a genuine hunger strike (which will kill you more effectively than picketing on a rooftop making idle threats). IRA terrorists have engaged in hunger strikes to get released from prison--does that mean it's abusive to imprison terrorists?
- anigbrowl 15y agoThe Chinese attitude to suicide is completely different to the one in the west, which everyone commenting here is missing. Worker suicides would cause a tremendous loss of face for Foxconn while preserving the face of the workers' families. The point of an anti-suicide contract is not to prevent people from feeling suicidal but to prevent the individual who signs it from holding that over Foxconn as a threat. If someone committed suicide after signing such a contract, the contract has priority and the loss of face would be from the worker's family.
- zasz 15y agoNot everyone who is suicidal does so because they are mentally ill. People kill themselves for political causes, too. It's kind of a thing for monks to set themselves on fire as a means of political protest. Source: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/10/world/asia/tibet-march/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/10/world/asia/tibet-march/index.h... Also, Gandhi went on hunger strikes.
- yummyfajitas 15y agoIt's one option more than they would have without Foxconn. If these workers were subsistence farmers back in rural China, with earnings < what they get at Foxconn, they would be worse off. They just wouldn't have anyone to blame or to demand more money from. This is why prosperity often results in unrest.
- drumdance 15y agoAnd unrest often leads to political change.
- Natsu 15y agoThe same kind people have in the USA, sadly. I know the guys on our production floor and I'll be blunt: factory work sucks. If they want it to be better, they need labor laws. The people working that kind of job have little leverage. For example, if people are working 20 hour shifts in ~120 degree heat, it just sucks to be them. But once someone turns that into an on-the-record safety issue? Things get fixed. Maybe China should copy that...
- Deestan 15y ago> You don't need to be sympathetic with the workers either. Of course not, they are just accepting 36 hour shifts because they are bored. Not because the alternative is starvation and unemployment.
- seanc 15y ago> You don't need to be sympathetic with the workers either. They're just negotiating for higher pay in a unique way. Completely within their rights. Nobody is jumping. The ones who are going to jump won't advertise it or ask for anything beforehand. They're not asking for higher pay. They're asking for basic rule of law and enforcement of contracts. Foxconn promised them money and then didn't pay it. In Shenzen there is no practical way for the worker to force the company to pay. The workers are screwed. Getting your employer to pay up shouldn't require negotiation of any kind, much less 'negotiation' of this extreme nature. I'm halfway through the TAL piece and this sort of thing is all that most workers are asking for; "Pay my overtime." "Use less toxic chemicals on the assembly line." "Let me do different activities so I don't destroy my hands from doing the same motion all the time." "Let me join a union without putting me in jail." I have sympathy for anyone who works in conditions where simple basic things like this aren't taken for granted.
- king_jester 15y ago> You don't need to be sympathetic with the workers either. They're just negotiating for higher pay in a unique way. Completely within their rights. Nobody is jumping. The ones who are going to jump won't advertise it or ask for anything beforehand. This is bizarre to me. Shouldn't we be sympathetic to the workers? Some of us are really lucky to have been born in a country where the industrial revolution already took place and labor union struggles already succeeded in establishing the ability to take group action against your employers for better working conditions. So what if paying a fair wage or giving better conditions hurts Foxconn's bottom line? Also, it is not true that those that threaten suicide do not intend to follow through. This story is an unusual situation since it is group action against an employer, but people threaten and commit suicide for a variety of reasons the world over and your statement erases those peoples experiences.
- ugh 15y agoNo. It’s exploitation, pure and simple. It might be better than the alternatives but it’s still exploitation. I simply cannot comprehend how you cannot have empathy in such a situation. Industrialization – over the course of more than one century – led to a more prosperous, just and healthier society in many western nations. That doesn’t negate the millions of workers who were exploited along the way.
- maratd 15y ago> It’s exploitation, pure and simple. One party can't exploit another without the threat or use of force. If no threat of force is present, then the relationship is voluntary and both parties should accept responsibility for participating in it. > It might be better than the alternatives but it’s still exploitation. If a man one thousand years from the future came to visit you, he may very well consider your standard of living absolutely deplorable. But that wouldn't mean you are being exploited. Since no force is being used. See above. > I simply cannot comprehend how you cannot have empathy in such a situation. Why would I have empathy for either party in a business transaction? What? This is business. It is as much business for Foxconn as it is for their employees. Let them hash it out.
- jmathes 15y ago> This is business. ... Let them hash it out. When is a disagreement not business? Why should we be unwilling to take sides in a negotiating even when it is "business?" When a person's negotiating position is so bad that they use suicide to opt out, I feel sympathy, and I suspect that humanity might me better off if their position were improved by non-capitalist intervention of some kind.
- ars 15y agoThat's called the "Fallacy of the excluded middle", or a "False dilemma". They don't have to suicide. They can also quit and work somewhere else.
- 15y ago