Workers Poisoned Making Touchscreen Hardware 260
SocResp writes "A chemical called n-hexane has been poisoning the nervous systems of Chinese workers who assemble touchscreen devices for Apple and other companies, an investigative journalist from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports. It's scary to think that people are being damaged to pursue high production rates. For companies with soaring profits and share prices, and elaborate product development and marketing, it seems they should be all the more culpable if they fail to take care of the production workers."
It's a WalMart world after all (Score:4, Interesting)
That's what happens when you have a population feeling that they need 54 inch TVs, enough food to kill themselves with, clothes they wear twice before they pitch them in the trash or out grow them, every Pixar film in their home library and two of the biggest three video game consoles for each child.
People have made a choice between quantity and quality and China is taking the brunt of this along with the spoils.
Re:Someone mod down this jerk (Score:2, Interesting)
There's over 7 billion people on Earth. I've been contemplating this:
If you had a company with a concentration camp business model and assuming word never got out, I think you could literally work people to death an never run out of workers - ever. And I would expand that further. If every manufacturing company did that, I think the population of the World would stabilize.
It's just a game I play to try to fathom how many people there are on this Earth - all wanting to live like Americans - consuming like Americans - wanting jobs like Americans ...and in the meantime, businesses have learned to produce with less and less workers ... the wealth of the US is spewing out of her .... see where this is going?
Worker safety in China (Score:2, Interesting)
chemistry of n-hexane (Score:5, Interesting)
It's pretty common in production facilities, particularly manufacturing lines, to start out with good chemical control: a fireproof safe from which people have to check out material, and over time, as the manufacturing process evolves, people keep finding they need to wash stuff up at one step and pretty soon a jug of solvent just gets left there and people start splashing it around. Gloves get in the way, or get caught in machinery, so people stop using those, too. Then, in the US, OSHA makes more and more drastic rules about allowing solvents of any sort, to try to prevent this happening, and manufacturers have to find another solvent, which then gets used in the same way with the same results.
Point being, it's not particularly OSHA that's the problem: they're trying to stop people poisoning themselves. The issue is manufacturing processes with unanticipated problems, and production workers who find ways to overcome the problems without realizing that they're endangering themselves. In China there's less concern over workers endangering themselves than in the US, although the difference is primarily in degree, but the same general problem is seen in most manufacturing environments.
modern china is slavery (Score:2, Interesting)
the citizens have no right to elect their own government, and so they are basically slaves to a few grumpy technocrats in beijing
and the shame is, americans are happy to support this human rights quagmire, because they get cheap plastic crap in the bargain. all the while, they let their own manufacturing sector rot and their economy go to hell, because slave labor is obviously cheaper
who cares about human rights, who cares about my own country's economy, as long as i get my fucking shiny smartphone
blame corporations all you want
i blame the fat, lazy, ignorant american consumer
Re:Apple.... and those others. (Score:4, Interesting)
You know...when ever there's a news story about a portable music device they automatically refer to the Apple iPod, which is irritating as hell.
The same thing happens with tablets now.
It's nice that they still drag Apple into a conversation like this...but it's still bullshit.
Quit saying Apple, ipod, ipad, etc unless it is a story actually about just them.
Whenever I mention something about Apple being subject to the laws of business like any other company, people often come out of the woodwork to say something like, "Oh no you dint! Apple is the largest purchaser of in the WORLD, and they can do it faster, cheaper, prettier... etc. etc."
So, since Apple be the largest X of Y in the WORLD, and first in market share and mind share, I find it entirely appropriate to drag Apple's name into the negative aspects of consumer electronics, including suicides among poorly treated workers, and outright poisoning of them. After all, with the Zune's laughable market share, how many workers could be dying assembling them?
Re:modern china is slavery (Score:3, Interesting)
its true
we waste our young folk's lives and trillions of our dollars to ensure the stability of the oil supply... for the growth of china
the usa has become nothing but the thug enforcer for china
Re:This is part of why offshoring is cheaper: (Score:3, Interesting)
The powers that be in China basically view the working class as economic cannon fodder. They couldn't care less what happens to those people because they don't think their lives are important. In other countries, someone is expected to provide health care to people as a consequence of this, but in China it is OK if they die because the only externality they have to consider is a loss of productive capacity (and they don't presently have a shortage of that).
The solution is not that US companies should take their business elsewhere, that's not how the system is supposed to work. The solution is we should take our business elsewhere, because we are the ones who care about the human cost. We can't afford to be so complacent. There will come a day (or perhaps it is already here) when our "leaders" will view us the same way. This is a situation that can not be tolerated.
Re:This is part of why offshoring is cheaper: (Score:3, Interesting)
So, what is the solution? What should I do in order to improve the lives of factory workers in China? Please be specific.
"Stop buying Chinese consumer products" might sound good, but I'd make two points: I buy relatively few consumer products that are made in China, and if we (the West) stop buying their products it will cause their labor conditions to *decline* not *improve*.
When I got on this anti-China high horse a while back I did some investigation. I ended up with a shirt made in Thailand, an oil filter made in Israel, printer cartridges made in Ireland, food grown in California, Texas, and Ohio, it just went on and on -- all the stuff I assumed was made in China, wasn't. I was shocked.
Re:chemistry of n-hexane (Score:3, Interesting)
The issue is manufacturing processes with unanticipated problems, and production workers who find ways to overcome the problems without realizing that they're endangering themselves.
No, the issue is that companies put profits above safety.
If workers remove their gloves, they should be fired. If an inspector finds a worker not wearing gloves, the company should be fined big-time. The employer is in charge of the workplace, and so they are responsible for what happens, period.
If you set your policy any other way, then this is what happens: Official rules go up on the walls - all workers shall wear gloves. Oh, but every week the two slowest workers are fired. Workers find out that gloves slow them down, so they stop wearing them. The company looks the other way, since they don't actually care if workers give themselves cancer, but they do care about making more widgets. If inspectors come in, the company points to the rules and say that they're providing gloves.
In such a working environment, workers who are safety-conscious get out-competed. The solution is to level the playing field with regard to safety. If employees are caught not wearing gloves by an inspector, then it is automatically a finding against the company and they get fined so much money that any savings from cutting corners is minuscule in comparison. The company realizes this, and so they do spot checks and any employees caught not wearing gloves get treated worse than those caught sleeping on the job. Now, safety becomes encouraged by management, and workers don't have to compromise their health to keep their job.
Re:This is part of why offshoring is cheaper: (Score:4, Interesting)
There's much truth to what you say. Yet talk of populist uprisings are met with sounds of derision by the Birchers (the Glenn Beck set) as well as the religiousiters. Phrases like "workers of the world unite" are viewed dimly by most governments.
So what does one do? I'm asking this question in all earnestness.
The sheep need shepherds, but egads, what shepherds?
Without secondary shepherds the choice is very simple: become your own shepherd or fail to prosper. It so happens that being your own shepherd is the very best way to influence others by your example, while trying to coerce them only encourages defiance. The best implementation of this known to me is the minimal government that can protect civil rights but does not ever isolate anyone from the results of their decisions. It's fertile ground for what could be called enlightened self-interest.
Properly understood, it's an attempt to benefit the whole by doing what is best for the individual. The real problem with even the well-meaning political ideologies of today is that they put the cart before the horse. They amount to a variety of spectrums and schemes that try to benefit the individual by doing what is best for the collective. What are called Liberalism and Conservatism share this flaw. Though it isn't called that, any such collective or group identity is like a corporation in that it takes on a life of its own and seeks to justify and perpetuate its existence. That life it takes on is larger-than-life and tends to overshadow any individual voice.
Improperly understood, it's every-man-for-himself manifested by ruthless competition. This caused the terrible working conditions, exploitation, child labor, etc. of the early Industrial Revolution and causes the same in sweatshops today. It's all about the bottom line because that competition is first and foremost.
All the debates about "regulations vs. free-market" are tainted by the many who incorrectly view that as two opposing sides seeking to settle this question. There is no opposition or contradiction and the reason is simple. Any regulation or lack of regulation comes from an understanding of how it really should be. The concept of how it should be is not derived from the regulations, what the letter of them states and what loopholes one can get away with. Rather, any regulations are kept as simple as possible and come from an enlightened self-interest view of how things should be.
An understanding of this would reveal that the sheep should transcend the need to remain sheep instead of trying to find the ideal shepherd. Without that understanding, the whole world is divided into two opposing factions. It's Left vs. Right, Democrat vs. Republican, Regulation vs. Free-market, etc. None of them ever have a complete and completely sustainable solution. That's how you recognize a flawed understanding.
Re:This is part of why offshoring is cheaper: (Score:4, Interesting)
The powers that be in China basically view the working class as economic cannon fodder.
What exactly is it that makes you think that the powers that be in the USA are any different? Did you forget about shooting veterans on the white house lawn? Did you forget about the mass graves of Panamanians on the military base in Panama, people killed in our name? Have you forgotten that only a few of us have strong labor laws (union members) while the rest of us are being pushed further towards poverty by an economy which includes ever more part-time and ever fewer full-time jobs? Did you notice that the banks received bailouts instead of the creation of public works projects which would actually have produced genuine benefit instead of simply permitting execs to take home huge bonuses, bonuses which will be converted to foreign currencies as rapidly as possible?
We can't afford to be so complacent. There will come a day (or perhaps it is already here) when our "leaders" will view us the same way. This is a situation that can not be tolerated.
You're tolerating it right now.
Giving bailouts to the bankers is WAR
Dumping currency to produce inflation is an act of WAR
Putting you on the watch list for your political views that's WAR
Exporting our pollution to China is a strategy of WAR
You don't even fucking know that you're losing the WAR.
It's lonely out here in the left-of-left position, but at least I can't be conflated with half-asses.
Re:Someone mod down this jerk (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe instead of the straw man about how we shouldn't be dictating other countries' policies, we should think about our own moral obligations. I may not have a moral obligation to change China's policies—in fact, I have a moral obligation not to—but I certainly have a moral obligation not to enjoy the fruits of their ill-gotten labor, and not to enrich and empower them for the privilege.
Discretion in one's own behaviors is far from revolutionary, and it's also far from hegemonic. It's frankly a pretty basic foundation of minimal human decency.
We all have to walk a rather fine line in this regard, particularly as most of us (commenting on Slashdot) depend on violating this basic decency in some form or another for our own livelihood—as a matter of operating in an economic environment that's largely out of our immediate control—but it's not a matter to take lightly or dismiss with conveniently naïve rationalization. And it's not a matter that we can take greater responsibility for without a much more honest and sobering look in the mirror.