SELWESKI: How can the U.S. compete with Chinese slave labor?
It's clearly not possible for US to compete with people working in such an horrific conditions. They can not degrade their labor laws to such a level.
China if she considers itself an economic power should learn to treat their labor properly and build strong labor laws. My heart goes out for these people.
By Chad Selweski
For The Daily Tribune
While the U.S. seems on the verge of achieving a more level economic playing field with China, it’s time for Congress to face head-on two basic facts: China cheats in the current global jobs competition, and China relies upon a 21st Century version of slave labor to gain an advantage over American workers.
If you doubt the extent of the global tilt, consider this: Apple, perhaps the most innovative and successful company in American history, employs 40,000 people in the U.S. to devise all its innovative, high-tech design miracles that lead to an unprecedented lineup of products. But it relies upon approximately 400,000 Chinese, working in dire conditions for Apple suppliers and subcontractors, to manufacture those products.
Many U.S. officials have analyzed ways to harness the Chinese economic juggernaut to the advantage of the U.S. Macomb County has succeeded in this realm better than most communities across the nation.
Led by a nonprofit group, the Macomb Cultural and Economic Partnership, Macomb has tried to lure Chinese talent here through trade trips to China, sister-city relationships with Chinese communities, and a student exchange program with local schools.
Meanwhile, Congress focuses on Chinese currency manipulation that awards their imports with artificial price advantages. In addition, lawmakers and business competitors scorn China’s elaborate system of subsidies for their domestic companies, ranging from free land to no-interest loans.
President Obama has proposed new tax code reforms that would eliminate subtle advantages for American corporations that outsource jobs.
But another way to fight back against Chinese practices would be to create a U.S. system that exposes those products that are created by 21st Century slave labor.
Decades ago, consumers relied upon the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to guide their purchasing decisions. In 2012, many products boast about the organic or “green” methods used to bring them to store shelves.
Motion pictures routinely assure show-goers that no animals were harmed or abused in the making of the film. Often, animal activists oversee the film production process and provide their seal of approval.
But when humans are mistreated, forced to work in dangerous conditions, there is no warning sign placed on the products these slave laborers produce. I would hope that if companies had to earn a widely recognized human rights seal of approval, Americans’ buying habits would change – and the new system would deal a major blow to China’s inhuman economic practices.
Analysts who study global trade proclaim that China’s cost advantages over the U.S. in manufacturing are slowly disappearing due to a spike in Chinese wages, with pay rising 17 percent per year.
But business consultant Tom Watkins, Michigan’s former state school superintendent, warns that many of his clients whose products are built in China still see a wide wage gap. Worse yet, some who are concerned about rapidly rising Chinese payrolls are contemplating a move to Vietnam or Cambodia where poverty wages are the norm.
Yet, most Americans who strongly support “Made in the USA” business practices don’t realize that the 100 million iPhones and iPads sold last year were all manufactured overseas, according to a recent poll. And they certainly don’t know about harsh labor conditions that China employs to outcompete with America for Apple jobs.
some consumers may be familiar with Chinese wages of $7 to $9 a day. Others may have a vague understanding that China is about 100 years behind the Western world with regard to workers’ rights.
A lengthy New York Times report last week, offering insider details about Chinese factories that supply Apple, found this: employees work excessive overtime, sometimes seven days a week, and live in crowded dormitories; factories employ underage workers; companies improperly dispose of hazardous wastes; and some workers are forced to toil for up to 12 hours a day breathing in unsafe air.
Due to unsafe conditions, last year two iPad factories suffered explosions that killed four people and injured 77. Two years ago 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured when they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens.
These workplaces are remnants of the old communist ways. The U.S. cannot compete with this horrific mistreatment of workers. Nor should it.
Some Chinese production line workers are forced to stand so long each day that their legs swell and, as a consequence, they waddle around the factory floor.
At one company’s dormitories, where conditions are also harsh, a rash of 18 suicide attempts occurred over a 2-year period. At one building, the employer addressed the problem by hanging netting on the sides of the building to prevent workers from jumping to their death.
That employer is Foxconn, one of Apple’s largest electronics suppliers and one of the worst offenders of Apple’s supplier code of conduct.
Yes, Apple, like most large corporations that take advantage of overseas manufacturing facilities, has a code of conduct.
But the Times gained access to hundreds of Apple audits of their suppliers’ factories and found widespread noncompliance. The corporate efforts to police these overseas companies is cloaked in secrecy and overshadowed by the endless Apple drive to quickly redesign and upgrade its products so they feed the American consumers’ appetite for something new every year.
The Chinese factories give Apple maximum flexibility – and astounding profits.
Last year, Apple earned more than $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google.
I’m not suggesting Apple is the enemy – or that dozens of American corporations don’t operate in the same manner. Still, I wonder how that profit margin would be affected if Apple was widely known as a corporation that shuns American workers in favor of a Chinese system of worker exploitation. Would the lack of a seal of approval on Apple products give tech-crazy American consumers pause?
Maybe not.
But if the Chinese have become a 21st Century global economic power, then they must be coerced into embracing 21st Century standards of decency.
It's clearly not possible for US to compete with people working in such an horrific conditions. They can not degrade their labor laws to such a level.
China if she considers itself an economic power should learn to treat their labor properly and build strong labor laws. My heart goes out for these people.
