After Foxconn Suicides, Scrutiny for Chinese Plants – NYTimes.com

A compelling article from today’s New York Times about the steep price Chinese workers pay to produce cheap goods.

I’m increasingly disturbed by the situations in these Chinese factories.  It reminds me of America and England at the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Something is very wrong in this dynamic.  These workers are paying a heavy price to produce cheap products so Americans can have a lot of stuff they don’t need.

Here is an excerpt from the article.  I encourage you to click the link, at the bottom, and read the entire article.

The body of a 19-year-old worker named Ma Xiangqian was found in front of his high-rise dormitory at 4:30 a.m. Police investigators concluded that he had leapt from a high floor, and they ruled it a suicide.

His family, including his 22-year-old sister who worked at the same company, Foxconn Technology, said he hated the job he had held only since November — an 11-hour overnight shift, seven nights a week, forging plastic and metal into electronics parts amid fumes and dust. Or at least that was Mr. Ma’s job until, after a run-in with his supervisor, he was demoted in December to cleaning toilets.

Mr. Ma’s pay stub shows that he worked 286 hours in the month before he died, including 112 hours of overtime, about three times the legal limit. For all of that, even with extra pay for overtime, he earned the equivalent of $1 an hour.

After Foxconn Suicides, Scrutiny for Chinese Plants – NYTimes.com.