[The following post comes from Bill Doolittle. It should be posted under his byline but I’ve forgotten how to do that. It needs to be said, so I’m posting it now. Sorry, Bill! — Chuck]
The cruelty leaves me breathless. Millions of displaced Chinese workers are struggling to survive in “enterprise zones” sprinkled around China. These are the people who, for tiny wages, make most of the stuff we use in the United States.
The Chinese government wants to lift their standard of living so they turn to unions, the self-same social instrument that created the middle class in the United States.
So what is the response of U.S. companies in China? They are trying assiduously to block the Chinese government’s mandate to factory owners to establish of unions and collective bargaining. The lords of the tech revolution who are worth billions, want to deny the down-trodden Chinese factory workers an elementary right to lift themselves out of near poverty despite working long hours, enduring rampant pollution and living in postage stamp apartments squeezed against the same factories they work in.
I’ve been there twice in recent years. and have seen it with my own eyes, The situation there is Dickensian.
As for the companies trying to clamp the capitalist boot ever tighter on the necks of the erstwhile Chinese peasants, like Dell, Google and Microsoft, burn in Hell.
There's no need to go to China. See for yourself on YouTube. Here's a workers video direct from China that takes on a Disney factory. You'll have to register on YouTube to watch it, (some of the factory injuries shown are graphic), but at the end of the video, there's a pitch for the Union. Times are changing fast!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsVtXPaHing