American imports, Chinese deaths: A Tribune Special Report

[sltrib]

This thread is for discussion of our series running October 21-24, 2007 in print. It can be read in its entirety, including photos and graphics, at www.sltrib.com/china

About the series:
Veteran reporter Loretta Tofani's most recent investigative project took her to China, where over a 12-month period she visited more than 25 factories and observed first-hand how Chinese workers routinely risk their health and sometimes their lives making products for export to the United States and other countries.

Tofani, who from 1992 to 1996 was The Philadelphia Inquirer's Asia correspondent based in Beijing, examined thousands of U.S. import documents for this story. With a travel grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington, D.C., she interviewed Chinese workers in hospitals, homes and outside their factories as well as dozens of attorneys, business leaders, government officials and labor activists. She also reviewed medical and legal records, medical journal articles, government reports and other documents.

The Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley, Calif., also helped fund travel for the project with a grant from the Dick Goldensohn Fund for International Reporting.

Tofani won a Pulitzer Prize in 1983 at The Washington Post for a series documenting gang rape in a Maryland jail. She lives in Ogden.

[shelley_utahjazzfan]

I wonder where the Chinese workers would they be without those jobs?

They stopped allowing children to work in factories there because of American protests of "sweatshops" and "child labor" and it is now reported that young girls become prostitutes because they can't find legitimate work. Which is worse?

This reminds me of those on Schindler's list. They were a Jewish slave labor force, but he saved them from the Concentration camps. Where would these Chinese workers be without these jobs?

This series just illustrates the horrors of living under communism. Be grateful you live in America. Even with our problems this is an amazing place to live.

[Etmaus]

As Americans, reading about present day conditions in China, this is like going backwards 75 years when we, as a culture, experienced similar conditions. Hence the union movement in the US gained momentum at that time despite that many US companies (as in China today) hired "thugs" to bully workers.

There, however, is where the comparison ends. It almost seems like they face the worst of both systems. They endure a unique form of "economic slavery" to the ultra-capitalist US/Western society and a political and societal slavery in their own repressive communist system.

The only hope for these people lies in their own hands. As westerners, we can become indignant and try not to buy Chinese goods (good luck...) and/or our companies can try to pressure the Chinese government to improve conditions which hasn't, according to the article, yet been successful.

I was listening to an interesting radio show (I can't remember...maybe npr) where they discussed how Wal Mart is gaining momentum opening stores in China. I certainly hope they treat their workers more fairly than Chinese businesses. Ironically, we see Wal Mart here as being a somewhat "nowhere" kind of employer where in China maybe it actually provides a more progressive environment. However, Wal Mart does use in China, as in the US, it's steamroller distribution/low prices system to inflict damage on small local retail entities.

I would assume that there are other economic entities, tourism, retail, and other service sectors, in China, that they may thrive now. Maybe those who work in those industries don't face such difficult and dangerous conditions as the people in factories. Maybe even, they can help to produce a middle class population which can strive for change...I don't know. Also, if the factory workers can educate their children, those children can see what is happening and work towards making improvements.

[ink]

Chinese workers need to organize.

It's a "right to work" country at the moment: the "right" to work for a pittance while the bosses make all the money.

[Simba]

This is an excellent article but what would you expect from a Pulitzer Prize winner. I'm glad that Loretta Tofani is a Utah citizen, we need more people like her.

My heart goes out to these Chinese workers, I cannot be so callous as Genco Mine Service owner Glenn Sebring when he said.

"It's up to China -- not him -- to figure out how to protect factory workers from occupational diseases and injuries. If China someday increases his costs by buying new machines or by providing workers with better protective gear, Sebring may do business elsewhere to remain competitive. Next maybe it's Micronesia," he said.

My question would be "Remain competitive with who? Other China Importers?"

I see this as a moral and spiritual problem. As long as people are brought up in the predominant religion around here where the Sunday sermon is about keeping your lawn mowed and other fine points of how you look to your neighbors across the street, as long as this is the point, people will continue having a hand in the oppression of the poor almost as if it is their religious duty to do so. And these kind of religious institutions attract vultures that believe that they somehow are entitled to do so with impunity.

In China where you are as likely to have a post natal abortion as live if you are unfortunate enough to be born a baby girl, there are at least 32 million single men out of work. These people are just happy to have a job. Go out and try a little subsistence farming in your back yard and see how long you last.



BTW the above photo release from one of China's most bearable factories deemed as being a decent place to work.

http://www.mazm.com/2007/09/19/38.to...a-25-pics.html

[jason yeaman]

Originally Posted by Simba

I see this as a moral and spiritual problem.

lol.....right....

[lovinfreedom]

Is not their blood on our hands when we purchase Chinese Imports? Our fellowmen across the continents are still our brothers. More often we are more concerned with our savings than with saving them. What an eye opening article. Would that we could all enjoy peace and freedom. wwunited.org
Uniting the world to end poverty and inequality. One world, one solution, one people, one day.

[ink]

Originally Posted by DanseMacabre

I think there's some logical fallacy rule that speaks of limiting choices in an argument.

False Dichotomy.

Conservatives love false dichotomies, especially "America: Love it, or Leave it".

[shelley_utahjazzfan]

Just another "sweat shop" using "child labor:"

EXT. TRAIN YARD - AUSCHWITZ - DAY

Schindler, standing at the end of the platform stone-faced,
watches the women whose names he is "stuck on," whose clothes
are slashed with red paint, climbing onto the cattle cars.

As the cars fill, a train on another track arrives. The
"fresh" ones Schindler turned down. As the gates are closed
on the women's cars, the gates of the others are opened and
the people spill out.

A horrified cry suddenly breaks through the noise of the
engines. One of Schindler's women, locked in, has seen her
son among those coming down off the train on the opposing
track.

Another cry erupts, and another, another, as the women spot
their children, confiscated from the Brinnlitz factory,
brought here.

Schindler becomes aware of what's happening and, passing
over other children, tries to corral these particular boys,
many of whom have noticed their mothers now and are echoing
their tortured cries with their own.

Schindler manages to gather them together, the fifteen or
twenty boys, and, in the middle of the crowded platform,
appears to a guard:

SCHINDLER
These are mine. They're on the list.
These are my workers. They should be
on the train.

He points across to the women's train, then down to the boys.

SCHINDLER
They're skilled munition workers.
They're essential.

The guard glances from the frantic gentleman to the anxious
brook around him. These are essential workers?

GUARD
They're boys.

SCHINDLER
Yes.

Schindler is nodding his head, trying to think. The women
are shrieking their sons' names. The guard, who heard it
all, every excuse imaginable, is just turning away when
Schindler thrusts his smallest finger at him.

SCHINDLER
Their fingers. They polish the insides
of shell casings. How else do you
expect me to polish the inside of a
45 millimeter shell casing?

The guard stares at him dumbly. This he hasn't heard.

EXT. BRINNLITZ CAMP - DAY

Like a mirage in the distance they appear -- the women, the
children, guards, Schindler, marching across a field toward
the factory.

At the perimeter of the camp, at the wire, the men watch the
approaching procession. It appears to them that the women
are covered in blood -- or -- could it be paint? They're
walking, they're fine, some are even smiling.

Liepold isn't smiling. Neither is Schindler; at least not on
the outside.

[Utah Alumnus]

China is slowly progressing toward a more open society. It will take time, but these types of issues need to be addressed. The best way to address them is to put pressure on American companies to insist on better conditions in order to continue to purchase the products.