On Sunday, September 04, 2005 1:44 PM [PDT], Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> if a worker has a lot of skills (or inside knowledge) and uses a lot > of machinery that China has (and so has high productivity to > compensate for the high wages or salary), or the job is very > expensive to export, then the job will stay in the US. The latter is > one reason why the in-person service sector is providing most of the > jobs these days. When I worked at Seagate Technology they had no qualms about hiring unskilled labor to perform my job, precision mechanical inspector. The Thais they brought over for training didn't even have word in their language for dial indicator or lathe. We taught by rote... demonstration. There were translators but they were only proficient in conversational english, again, no word in their language for dial indicator and we were trying to teach them how to measure parts and make test & measurement judgement calls to .0001 (2.5 microns). They had NEVER SEEN A MICROWAVE OVEN! (or the bag of popcorn... Magic!) Further, Seagate had no issue with shipping machines, techs(really, glorified set-up operators), every statistical paper related to the most minute process, whatever, back and forth, and back again on Royal Thai Airways. Typically we'd do short production runs in 50pt lots, stabilize the process, unbolt EVERYTHING. The fixtures the machines... all papers and docs, ship them to Thailand where they'd proceed to try to run the process at 500 - 1000 parts a day. The whole operation would crash and burn, they'd send in the techs, right... everything would return stateside after a few weeks, and shortly thereafter the Thai workers would show up to help pump out more than 50pt runs. It took five of them back at the facility in Thailand to do my job, but it was still a percieved economic advantage. Some of the company directors (Ken Wing is one) owned Discovery bus line that brought our trainees(really, guest production workers) to work... took them home to housing that was owned by... some of the directors. Took them to Disneyland.... billing Seagate (read seagate investors) all the way. (my speculation). They were mostly farm girls who had been displaced when Seagate built a compound in the middle of their rice paddy and the Thai government bitched that seagate had ruined their livelyhood and needed to supply the DPs with jobs and hard currency. I believe this had been aranged prior to construction. Couldn't keep those girls from staring into the 'wave to watch the popcorn pop. Eventually, Seagate treated their Thai workers so badly they tried to unionize, and the majority of the operation moved to Singapore, a police state. Leigh www.leighm.net
