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A Chinese labor law is said to have some good-sized marginal effects. This is the first I've read of it, or its alleged impacts there.
The law -- designed to combat forced labor, withholding of pay,
unwarranted dismissals and other abuses -- represents a major victory
for Chinese workers who for decades have complained of companies that
would stop at nothing to wring out profits. It has prompted legions of
workers in recent months to become bolder about quitting and about
staging strikes to demand improvements in work conditions and wages.
For companies already struggling with inflation, high energy
costs, the falling dollar and an environmental crackdown, however, the
new law has been devastating.
It has added to the rising cost of doing business in China --
contributing to an exodus of what is estimated to be thousands of
factories from places like the Pearl River Delta in southern China, for
20 years synonymous with cheap and abundant labor and the engine behind
China's rapid growth.
It may be that labor demand is so strong, that running a sweatship just does not work anymore.
Wang
Erhao, 22, who is leaving his job at a small shoe factory to seek work
at a larger one with better benefits, said he wasn't the least bit
worried about finding a new job. It's an employee's market, he said.
"You quit a job one day, and the same day you can have new work."
Sweatshops are cheap to run. If
you take the sweatshops out of their economy, what is the result?
If this news report is accurate, we may find out. Sensible
maturation of the Chinese economy is good. If they manufacture
quality products, with quality labor, and decent environmental
controls, without currency manipulation, without government owned
companies, and no export subsidies, they can be responsible.
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Sometimes, Western critics are too quick to assume that Chinese workers are docile, uncomplaining and unamibitious. They are people just like us, and they want the same things out of life as we do. Unfortunately for them, they are enmeshed in a system that is sometimes brutally oppressive and enured to human suffering. It wasn't so long ago that conditions similar to those in China today prevailed in American sweatshops. The muck rakers, brave trade unionists, and political reformers helped America escape from that sordid period of our history. We should celebrate those who are engaged in the same struggle in China -- and help them as we can.