Hendrik, I can only relate the two places I saw such business activities take place:
Dominican Republic - industrial park where goods are assembled, such as clothing. I worked with a supplier who was responsible for power production in a large industrial park outside of Santo Domingo, in the Distrito Nacional. Companies such as Levi Strauss used facilities at this park to have local labor take cut cloth and sew it into finished goods, which were then shipped to the US and other points of distribution. The area around the park, prior to it being completed, was typical DR - the very poor and indigent, living in squalid conditions, often without running water and proper facilities. Illness was rampant, children rarely attended school, and the life expectancy was (I assume) fairly low as a result. When the industrial park was built and the companies came in, all multinational corporations like Levi Strauss, Abbott Labs, Eli Lilly, etc., they put roughly 10,000 locals to work. DId they make subsistence wages? Probably. However, they had money, the employers provide health care and built housing off site, and the general condition of those in the area improved vastly. Was it enough to make them capable of moving up? Probably not. That being said, you have to consider that these countries have no middle class to speak of. You are either poor or very rich. To suggest that their being paid a living wage that allowed them to improve their lives, have good and regular meals, establish a place for their families to live and schools for their children to be educated is inadequate is hardly germane, as there is nothing for them to aspire to - creating that middle class will take several generations, and would not be a result of them being paid higher wages. I also had a customer that was a Nike plant in a rural area of southern Mainland China, not far from where some of the largest Foxconn facilities are today (this was in the late 1980s, early 1990s.) Running water was unknown at the time the plant was built, and nearly everyone who lived there was a subsistence farmer. Nike employed many of the locals, and while I am sure they weren't paid much, again, the income they did receive far exceeded what they would make from what little they sold off of their farms. I know that Nike has taken some hits for their manufacturing policies in the third world, but again, you have to understand that there is no cultural or social structure similar to what we have in many of these places. Even if you paid these folks in excess of what they would ever expect to make, they wouldn't know what to do with it nor would there be a mechanism for them to spend or dispose of it. The means for spending it in a manner that would benefit them simply doesn't exist. Having said that, the situation with current day China and manufacturers like Foxconn is very different due to many of the fairly recent changes in the Chinese government and culture. But - consider where many of these laborers come from - rural villages where they or their families are subsistence farmers. There was an interesting discussion on National Public Radio (similar to your CBF) the other day about this, and it pretty well went the way I described it. They also drew parallels to the US in the late 19th century and early 20th century, when the Machine Age was beginning and people were moving from the farms and an agrarian society to the cities and becoming workers. There was no middle class at that time, either, although our society wasn't quite as stratified as it is in some of these countries. What is taking place in China and other Third World countries like it is similar to what took place around the turn of the last century in America. And like that time in history, as the workers develop more influence and become a larger part of the society, they will, G-d willing, begin to alter the environment much the same way as the labor unions did in the US. Dan On Jan 30, 2012, at 6:41 PM, Hendrik & Fay wrote: > Perhaps you could elaborate on this a bit. > Are these workers paid a sustenance wage or a get ahead wage? > Businesses are in the business of making the most money they can > http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1110094--olive-why-caterpillar-has-the-upper-hand-in-london-plant-lockout > > Hendrik > who is not making much money > > Dan Penoff wrote: >> >> That being said, I have seen with my own eyes the benefits such >> manufacturing has for the workers in such places as southern China and the >> Dominican Republic. >> >> Dan >> > > > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
