Working Conditions: The Persistence of Problems in China's Factories - China Real Time Report - WSJ

Police riot squad outside an iPhone factory

China's proletariat - whose dictatorship is the declared form of rule - labors under lamentable conditions.  Despite formal legal protections many work under sweatshop conditions, shortchanged on wages, health, and social insurance by law-breaking companies.  Prominent are those that make our favorite gadgets like iPhones.  I often look at China and see what Gunnar Myrdal called a "soft state" in his classic Asian Drama.  Workers rights are declared in China but are unreliably enforced. - GWC Working Conditions: The Persistence of Problems in China's Factories - China Real Time Report - WSJ: "By Stanley Lubman

A riot involving 2,000 workers at a factory in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan on Sunday night has once again shined a light on conditions at factories owned by Apple Inc. supplier Foxconn. The cause of the riot appears to have been a fight between workers that somehow escalated into larger-scale unrest. While the precise dynamics that led workers in the factory to run rampant remain unclear, it’s noteworthy that news of the incident comes with Apple recently announcing that advance sales of its iPhone5 have broken all previous records. The success of the iPhone and similar products means competition among companies like Apple and Samsung, both of which rely heavily on Chinese factory supply chains, is likely to increase. This increase in competition, in turn, will crank up pressures in factories whose workers are already struggling under harsh conditions"

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