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Chinese workers pay a price for no Labor Unions.

At the risk of continuing an existing theme with your topics, will you be providing evidence that these workers committed suicide because they are not in a labor union?
 
carlitos said:
At the risk of continuing an existing theme with your topics, will you be providing evidence that these workers committed suicide because they are not in a labor union?
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So are you saying that working conditions were likely to have nothing to do with the deaths at the factory?
 
Of course there is always the possibility that some or all of the workers might have gone out the windows against their will, but I have no evidence of that -- but you have to wonder, 10 jumpers in 5 months.
 
DOC said:
So are you saying that working conditions were likely to have nothing to do with the deaths at the factory?
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No, I am not saying that. What I said is in the little box that says "carlitos" at the top. I know that it's your trademark, but are you going to start with logical fallacies right away?

You asserted that union membership would have prevented these suicides, correct? Could you please provide evidence for this?
 
carlitos said:
At the risk of continuing an existing theme with your topics, will you be providing evidence that these workers committed suicide because they are not in a labor union?
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Since you used the word "risk" are you criticizing my other threads?
 
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I am criticizing your mis-use of logic and evidence in them, yes.

You titled the thread "Chinese workers pay a price for no Labor Unions." You posted a story about 10 workers committing suicide. Will you be providing evidence, such as suicide rates for union vs. non-union workers?
 
carlitos said:
You asserted that union membership would have prevented these suicides, correct? Could you please provide evidence for this?
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Actually I didn't assert they would have prevented all of them, but it is just common sense that 10 alleged suicides (in 5 months) by jumping off a company building is outrageous. And it is also common sense that if the working conditions and pay were better at the factory this number of alleged suicides would be less or possibly none at all.

And who is more likely to have better pay and working conditions (especially in a Communist country), a union member or a nonunion member.
 
DOC said:
Actually I didn't assert they would have prevented all of them, but it is just common sense that 10 alleged suicides (in 5 months) by jumping off a company building is outrageous. And it is also common sense that if the working conditions and pay were better at the factory this number of alleged suicides would be less or possibly none at all.
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Right. I never said, nor meant to hint, that "all" of these suicides would be prevented, nor do I think it's anything less than outrageous. But, since I have no idea why people are jumping off this particular building, whether this is some bizarre Chinese cultural phenomenon, or whether the cafeteria is spiking food with hallucinogens, I guess I'll just wait to see some more evidence and then decide.

DOC said:
And who is more likely to have better pay and working conditions (especially in a Communist country), a union member or a nonunion member.
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I have no idea. Could you post some evidence, one way or the other?
 
1) there is in average in the population of china something like 99 death per 100000 (WHO stats) people per year.
2) There are 30000 employed in foxcon. So One would expect about 30 death this year per suicide among foxcon worker.

Conclusion the 10 is *NOT* surprising.

What is surprising is that the media took that up.
 
carlitos said:
Not really. "Apple Corporation Chinese sweatshop workers jumping to their deaths" is a pretty sexy headline.
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Ok let me correct that. I ain't surprised that yellow-fox-like-sewer journalist took that over to sell more "prints". Neither I am surprised that some of the more "researching" traditional media degraded to the point that they too took that story over.

What surprise me is that nobody called them on it.
 
DOC said:
This is outrageous. 10 workers in 5 months.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...a-Foxconn-factory-conditions-10-suicides.html
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This comes up from time to time. [Last year, it was France Telecom and Renault.]

It's not appropriate to compare suicide rate per 100,000 employees to the region's general population: the general population contains babies and older adults. These factories seem to have a disproportionate number of young adults and adolescents - a demographic with the highest suicide rate in most cultures.

We want to look at comparing the employees' suicide rate to a demographically identical non-employee baseline.

I'm not saying that it's impossible that this company is doing something horribly wrong that is resulting in suicides... but just that at this point, I don't see strong evidence of that yet.
 
Aepervius said:
1) there is in average in the population of china something like 99 death per 100000 (WHO stats) people per year.
2) There are 30000 employed in foxcon. So One would expect about 30 death this year per suicide among foxcon worker.

Conclusion the 10 is *NOT* surprising.

What is surprising is that the media took that up.
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Yes, but all of them jumping off the factory roof? That kind of sends a message, don't yout think? I wonder if they left notes behind though. If they were really pissed at the company, you would think they would. Of course, I doubt China would want those notes to be seen by anyone..
 
My thoughts on this:

The issue isn't so much one of work conditions; as Steve Jobs said, the factories are actually quite nice, with good facilities, etc. Nor is the work environment physically dangerous; safety measures are quite good.

The issue is the psychological pressure. Staff are pushed to work far longer hours than their contract stipulates (contract says 8 hours, they end up working 12 hours or longer). There's no 'official' policy that people have to do this; no bosses who tell them they have to stay; but everyone knows that employees who don't demonstrate their loyalty to the company will not get promoted. Overtime work generally is not paid, because the company doesn't officially 'require' it (the staff are considered to be voluntarily contributing their time to the company's efforts).

In addition to this, failure is punished severely. So there's the huge pressure that if you make even a small mistake, you could find yourself docked half a month's salary, or even fired.

Also, it should be noted that this is actually a Taiwanese-run factory. Taiwanese suicide rates are higher those of China...and there's a reason for that. They push their employees damn hard, the psychological pressures are enormous. They are bringing the same policies to their factories in China. And let me point out that Taiwan has labor unions...yet they engage in exactly the same practices that they do in the Chinese factory, and actually have higher suicide rates.

I'd also point out that Canada, the U.S., and Taiwan all have higher suicide rates among men* than China does. So having labor unions, and/or being a democratic nation, doesn't seem to have a correlating impact on decreased suicide rates.

So DOC's attempt to tie this the to absence of labor unions would seem to be rather lacking in actual evidence...at least, evidence that extends beyond his own personal opinion (sadly, in most cases, his own personal opinion tends to be the only 'evidence' that he requires to reach a conclusion).



*In regards to suicide, China has one rather unique -- if disturbing -- distinguishing factor; it is, so far as I'm aware, the only country in the world where suicide rates for women are higher than suicide rates for men.
 
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Actually, if one wants to make sweeping generalizations based on poor evaluation of available evidence, we could take the higher suicide rates in countries like Canada and the U.S. as evidence that "North American workers pay a price for having labor unions". And it'd at least have more statistical support than DOC's claim does.
 
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