Labour | CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

06/09/2012

* Beijing Updates Parables, ‘The 24 Paragons of Filial Piety’

NY Times: “Reading it now, six centuries after Guo Jujing wrote this paean to parental devotion, “The 24 Paragons of Filial Piety” comes off as a collection of scary bedtime stories. There is the woman who cut out her own liver to feed her sick mother, the boy who sat awake shirtless all night to draw mosquitoes away from his slumbering parents and the man who sold himself into servitude to pay for a father’s funeral.

While the parables are even more familiar to most Chinese than Grimms’ Fairy Tales are to Americans — the text remains a mainstay of educational curriculum here — they have understandably lost much of their motivational punch.

But when the government, in an effort to address the book’s glaring obsolescence, issued an updated version last month in the hope that the book would encourage more Chinese to turn away from their increasingly self-centered ways and perhaps phone home once in a while, it wasn’t quite prepared for the backlash.

Compared with its predecessor, the new book brims with down-to-earth suggestions for keeping parents happy in their golden years. Readers are urged to teach them how to surf the Internet, take Mom to a classic film and buy health insurance for retired parents.

“Family is the nucleus of society,” intoned Cui Shuhui, the director of the All-China Women’s Federation, which, along with the China National Committee on Aging, published the new guidelines after two years of interviews with older Chinese. “We need family in order to advance Chinese society and improve our economic situation.”

So far, those good intentions appear to have prompted mostly ridicule. But they have also unintentionally kicked up a debate on whether the government, not overextended children, should be looking after China’s ballooning population of retirees.

In a fast-aging nation where hundreds of millions of people have left their former homes in the countryside in search of jobs, “The New 24 Paragons of Filial Piety” strikes many as nearly as out of touch with the problems of modern China as the old parables.”

via Beijing Updates Parables, ‘The 24 Paragons of Filial Piety’ – NYTimes.com.

See also: China’s aging population

Posted in Affluence, China alert, Migrant workers, One-child policy, Population | 1 Comment »

Tags: China, Chinese culture, Filial Piety, Government of the People's Republic of China, Parent

27/08/2012

* $135 – $12 = the pay gap the West can’t bridge

The Times: “We can’t compete with China on wages and are living beyond our means. We must retrench before we grow again

Two numbers — $135 and $12 — explain why Britain’s and Europe’s economies are stagnant or shrinking. Pundits and economists have lined up with suggestions about how to stimulate our economy: more quantitative easing; clever schemes such as “funding for lending”; while others say enough of austerity, let’s stop the cuts. But all that assumes that growth is the natural order of things.

None of these proposals will solve our problems because they ignore the two numbers $135 and $12. The first is what the average worker in the West earns per day; the second what the average worker in urban China earns.

This inequality in pay is the main reason our economy is in peril. What entitles the rich world’s 500 million workers to salaries ten times greater than the 1.1 billion workers in urban bits of the developing world who toil and study so much harder, let alone nearly 100 times greater than the 1.3 billion adults who live in rural poverty?

In the global marketplace it is now impossible to preserve well-paid jobs for Westerners. Many of those jobs have gone or are going south or east. In the 1950s the most successful company by market capitalisation was General Motors. In 1955 it employed nearly half a million Americans and 80,000 foreigners. Today Apple, the world’s biggest company, employs 4,000 Americans and more than 700,000 overseas contractors. And in jobs that have not moved, wages are under severe downward pressure: US high- school dropouts now earn less in real terms than their dropout grandfathers.

It was not always like that. For 55 years after the Second World War annual growth in jobs in Western economies was about 2 per cent and real wages grew by about 3 per cent year after year. The idea that we would all earn more without having to work harder, and that there would be jobs for our children, became a democratic “right”. But this right is now broken because, starting in 1990, developing nations ditched the failed socialist and Marxist policies that kept them poor. Since 2000 China’s economy has quintupled — while jobs, wages and GDP growth over the cycle for Western economies was, with few exceptions, negative.

For the first time in centuries we have to compete on a level playing field. We cannot compete on wages. Do we have other advantages that will protect our living standards? Aren’t Europe’s workers better educated? More creative? No: 10,000 science PhDs graduated from Chinese universities last year. In 1995, global patents granted to China amounted to 0.5 per cent of the total; in 2010 it had reached 9 per cent and is rising exponentially. Our best universities are educating many future business leaders and scientists of developing countries. Our advantage in physical and intellectual capital is eroding fast. What the developing world does not create, it can steal; the global value of counterfeit and pirated goods is forecast to rise by $1.5 trillion by 2015.

Most importantly, we consume more and invest less. China’s investment levels (however misdirected some of those investments may be) have risen to almost half of GDP, while the West is at about 15 per cent and falling. The truth is that Western nations have been living beyond their means. Our build-up in total debt — corporate, individual and government — has now become an enormous overhang. The UK is more indebted than Greece, Spain or Italy and only Japan and Ireland’s total debt per head is greater than ours.

So how do we get out of this mess?

…”

By Jon Moynihan, , 15 August 2012 | PA Consulting Group

via The Times – $135 – $12 = the pay gap the West can’t bridge, 15 August 2012 | PA Consulting Group.

Posted in China alert, Economics, Labour, Salaries | 3 Comments »

Tags: China, Economic growth, United States, West, Western world, World War II

15/07/2012

* Google Tries Something Retro – Made in the U.S.A.

NYTimes: “Etched into the base of Google’s new wireless home media player that was introduced on Wednesday is its most intriguing feature. On the underside of the Nexus Q is a simple inscription: “Designed and Manufactured in the U.S.A.”

The Google executives and engineers who decided to build the player here are engaged in an experiment in American manufacturing. “We’ve been absent for so long, we decided, ‘Why don’t we try it and see what happens?’ ” said Andy Rubin, the Google executive who leads the company’s Android mobile business.

Google is not saying a lot about its domestic manufacturing, declining even to disclose publicly where the factory is in Silicon Valley. It also is not saying much about the source of many of its parts in the United States. And Mr. Rubin said the company was not engaged in a crusade.

Still, the project will be closely watched by other electronics companies. It has become accepted wisdom that consumer electronics products can no longer be made in the United States. During the last decade, abundant low-cost Chinese labor and looser environmental regulations have virtually erased what was once a vibrant American industry.

Since the 1990s, one American company after another, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Apple, has become a design and marketing shell, with production shifted to contract manufacturers in Shenzhen and elsewhere in China.

Now that trend may be showing early signs of reversing.

It’s a trickle, but some American companies are again making products in the United States. While many of those companies have been small, like ET Water Systems, there have also been some highly visible moves by America’s largest consumer and industrial manufacturers. General Electric and Caterpillar, for example, have moved assembly operations back to the United States in the last year. (Airbus, a European company, is said to be near a deal to build jets in Alabama.)

There is no single reason for the change. Rising labor and energy costs have made manufacturing in China significantly more expensive; transportation costs have risen; companies have become increasingly aware of the risks of the theft of intellectual property when products are made in China; and in a business where time-to-market is a competitive advantage, it is easier for engineers to drive 10 minutes on the freeway to the factory than to fly for 16 hours.

That was true for ET Water Systems, a California company. “You need a collaboration that is real time,” said Pat McIntyre, chief executive of the maker of irrigation management systems, which recently moved its manufacturing operation from Dalian, China, to Silicon Valley. “We prefer local, frankly, because sending one of our people to China for two weeks at a time is challenging.”

Harold L. Sirkin, a managing director at Boston Consulting Group, said, “At 58 cents an hour, bringing manufacturing back was impossible, but at $3 to $6 an hour, where wages are today in coastal China, all of a sudden the equation changes.”

The firm reported in April that one-third of American companies with revenue greater than $1 billion were either planning or considering to move manufacturing back to the United States. Boston Consulting predicted that the reversal could bring two million to three million jobs back to this country.”

via Google Tries Something Retro – Made in the U.S.A. – NYTimes.com.

This cost difference is continuing to erode away as China has been increasing its basic wages by between 10-15% per annum for the last 10 years and intends to continue doing so in order to improve the standard of living of the working person thereby passing on the benefits of the improving GDP.

* Chinese Migrant Workers Unrest Flares

NY times: “A fight between a teenager from a migrant worker family and a local boy in southern China escalated into rioting and protests this week.

The unrest, which followed the teenagers’ fight on Monday and the subsequent beating of the migrant boy by local villagers, occurred in the area of Shaxi in Guangdong Province. Migrant protesters smashed storefront windows and overturned cars, including police vehicles and ambulances, according to photographs of the rioting posted on the Internet. Caijing, a Chinese news organization, also reported that hundreds of riot police officers clashed with villagers in the Foshan area of Guangdong on Tuesday after the villagers protested illegal land seizures.”

via China – Migrant Unrest Flares – NYTimes.com.

See also: Have not’s patience

Posted in China alert, Economics, Labour, Migrant workers | 5 Comments »

Tags: China, migrant worker, Riot, Riot control

30/05/2012

* First batch of 20,000 North Korean workers in China

Hong Kong ’s Singtao Daily reports: According to South Korea ’s “Korean Daily”, the Chinese government is issuing work visas to allow 20,000 North Koreans to work in the three Northeast provinces.

The Korean paper cites diplomatic sources in Seoul, that in order to ease the labour shortage in the three Northeast provinces, the authorities have decided to let in 20,000 North Korean labourers to work as “industrial study students”. An enterprise in Tulin, Jilin Province has recently employed 29 North Korean women and another batch of 160 North Korean women will be sent to that area. Sources say the monthly pay for a North Korean worker exceeds US$150.

In my previous posts on Sino-North Korean and US-North Korean relations, I said that China would be benefited from North Korea’s isolation in exploiting North Korea’s cheap labour and rich natural resources. It seems this process has now begun on quite a large scale.

From China Daily Mail blog: First batch of 20,000 North Korean workers in China.

North Korean Women Are Being Sold Into Slavery In China (businessinsider.com)

Posted in China alert, Economics, Labour, Manufacturing | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, North Korea

29/05/2012

* Chinese wages see double-digit growth

Xinhua: “The average annual salaries of urban Chinese workers at non-private companies hit 42,452 yuan (6,717 U.S. dollars) in 2011, up 14.3 percent year on year, statistical authorities announced Tuesday. After taking inflation into account, wages actually grew by about 8.5 percent, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics NBS.

Meanwhile, the annual salaries of workers at privately-owned businesses in urban regions grew 12.3 percent after deducting factor of inflation to 24,556 yuan in 2011, NBS data showed. The data was based on a survey of 1.48 million non-privately owned organizations and 620,000 private companies, the NBS said.

Wages for workers in the nation’s more developed eastern regions and major cities were the highest, while the central provinces of Anhui, Henan and Hubei ranked lowest, according to the NBS. The finance, telecommunication, computer service and software development sectors offered the highest salaries, the NBS said.”

via Chinese wages see double-digit growth – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

Chinese wages have risen higher than GDP consistently for over five years. The accusation of low-wages beating foreign competition is becoming less true each year. So much so that reverse outsourcing is beginning to happen for some companies and countries.

Tags: China, National Bureau of Statistics of China

30/03/2012

* Apple hit by China Foxconn factory report

BBC News: “An independent investigation has found “significant issues” among working practices at Chinese plants making Apple iPhones and iPads. The US Fair Labor Association FLA was asked by Apple to investigate working conditions at Foxconn after reports of long hours and poor safety. The FLA says it has now secured agreements to reduce hours, protect pay, and improve staff representation.Apple said it “fully accepted” the reports recommendations. “We share the FLAs goal of improving lives and raising the bar for manufacturing companies everywhere,” it said in a statement.

The findings emerged as Apple CEO Tim Cook visited Foxconn facilities. Mr Cook toured Zhengzhou Technology Park, where 120,000 employees work, on Wednesday. A string of suicides at Foxconn last year put the spotlight on working conditions at its factories. Last month, the company announced it was to send independent inspectors from the FLA to audit the facilities.

The investigation – one of the largest ever conducted of a US companys operations abroad – found employees often worked more than 60 hours a week and sometimes for seven days running without the required day off. Other violations included unpaid overtime and health and safety risks. Average monthly salaries at the three factories ranged from $360 (£227) to $455 (£289).

Deutsch: Foxconn Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Foxconn raised salaries by up to 25% recently. The FLA said Foxconn had agreed to comply with the associations standards on working hours by July 2013, bringing them in line with a legal limit in China of 49 hours per week. The company will hire thousands more workers in order to compensate for the move, Reuters reports.

The BBC’s Adam Brookes in Washington says the report has been much anticipated as embodying a new and transparent approach to an old problem: that of cheap but popular consumer goods manufactured in poor conditions in developing countries. However, he says, a telling line in the report is the one which notes that the Foxconn workers did not have true trade union representation. The authorities in China are very wary of unions and are likely to remain so. Before the report was released, labour unions expressed doubts that the company was committed to improving standards. “The report will include new promises by Apple that stand to be just as empty as the ones made over the past 5 years,”

SumOfUS.org, a coalition of trade unions and consumer groups, said.Foxconn employs 1.2 million workers in China to produce products for Apple as well as Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and other companies.”

via BBC News – Apple hit by China Foxconn factory report.

Good news: Foxconn workers to be treated fairly under Chinese labour laws. Bad news: having incvreased pay by 25% recently and now having to increase it further, China’s 1.2 million workers at Foxconn (a Taiwanese company) better be prepared for layoffs in the medium term as Foxconn turn to countries with cheaper labour; and there are plenty of these around. The latter follows the “law of unintended or contrary consequences.”

Posted in China alert, Economics, Good news, Illegal practices, Labour, Manufacturing, Technology | 1 Comment »

Tags: Apple, apple ceo, apple iphones, China, Fair Labor Association, Foxconn, ipads, IPhone, Occupational safety and health, Tim Cook, unpaid overtime

28/02/2012

* Indian strike hits banking, transport sectors

The Hindu: “Public sector banking operations remained paralysed throughout the country while transport services were hit in some States as the nationwide 24-hour strike called by 11 major trade unions evoked a mixed response.

…

Central trade unions have sponsored the strike demanding guarantee of labour rights, end to the contract labour system, bringing workers in the unorganised sector under the social security net and pension benefit for all workers.”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/other-states/article2941303.ece

Posted in India alert, Labour | Leave a Comment »

Tags: contract labour, labour rights, labour system, pension benefit, strike, unorganised sector

CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon

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