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The Forum > Article Comments > Manufacturing in Australia: critical, not terminal > Comments

Manufacturing in Australia: critical, not terminal : Comments

By Celeste Howden, published 8/12/2006

Australian manufacturing industries will need to be clever and innovative to keep up with the competition.

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"And according to you Chinese factory workers have never had it so good, and its getting better for them. You CANNOT BE SERIOUS."

Tao, umm I am actually serious! I am sure that there are huge
amounts of things wrong in China. I am sure there are many
shocking examples. But go back 20-30 years and people were still
literally starving in China. There are good reasons why they fled
the countryside, into the factories. What we now have in many
parts of China is an actual labour shortage, so wages and conditions
are pushing upwards, or workers have the option of going elsewhere.

GDP is going up in China and in general people are far better off
then they were 30 years ago, so yup, they have never had it so good!
Turning the lives of 1 billion people around is not so easy, it
will take time, but things are on the improve and heading in the
right direction, from where they were before. That is my point.

Us buying goods from China not only benefits us, in particular
our poor, but also workers there, whose other option is close to
starvation in the countryside. No wonder they grab the factory jobs.

There is still lots we can do. Consumer pressure on brands to pay
fair and reasonable wages to employees is one way to do it. One thing
that brands worry about is the image of their brand name. Having them
shamed for exploiting labour, is a great way to do it, so there should be more of it by Western consumers.
Posted by Yabby, Sunday, 10 December 2006 8:15:16 PM
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So Yabby, you will be volunteering to work 19 hours a day, 7 days a week for virtually nothing? Oh, thats right, you are not starving so you are not FORCED to do it. Whatever spin you put on it, it is still slave labour.

The flaw in your conception that things will improve is this - if wages and conditions go up, capital will move elsewhere where conditions are worse and profits are better, just like it is leaving Australia and other Western nations.
Posted by tao, Sunday, 10 December 2006 10:33:57 PM
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THANK-YOU Tao :) you just again demonstrated the value of this forum by providing information which I did not have at my fingertips. Onya mate.

YAPPY... :) youuuuu.. grrrr.. so easy for one who does NOT have to work those hours to woffle on about grandiose philosphical economic points.. but in the mean time... people are being dehumanized.

The point I'd like to make is as follows:

1/ (Celeste) Do we feel comfortable with our plazma screens if we know they are manufactured under such conditions ? (actually such items would not be very labor intensive, more automated.) Ok.. it's not all the same.. Clothing..footwear ? yes.. anything where labor is such a big part of the manufacturing process.

2/ WE can make a difference by highlighting such SLAVERY and injustice at the Chinese consulate. (OR.. closer to home and TRAM :).. on the streets of Flinders st Station or Parliament house)

So..lets see.. items for protest now include.

A) 1-Nation/Culture/Race.
B) Chinese Slave labor.
C) Multiculturalism is dead. (if not quite, then lets kill it quick)
D) Brand Clothing manufacturers who STILLLL charge $80 per shirt yet exploit Chinese garment workers, at an obscene fraction of the cost.

They.. are the true villains in todays society.. here is the strategy.

a) Build a brand.
b) Get work done by slaves
c) Sell at a 'designer' prices and reap much slavery based PROFIT.

We consumers don't get the garment cheaper.. we just pay the same and marketing companies get the big bucks.
We should protest outside the HOMES of the managers of such companies !
Posted by BOAZ_David, Monday, 11 December 2006 6:52:07 AM
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Whilst it would seem that Chinese factory workers experience employment conditions which would not be acceptable in Australia, before going evangelical and thumping the our chests in righteous indignation maybe we should ask a couple of questions

1 Are the Chinese factory workers complaining?
2 Would their employment conditions be better or worse without those factories?
3 Does anyone in China want to turn back the clock to the days of Mao and then the gang of four and their style of social benevolence?
4 How do people in North Korea view the factory conditions in neighbouring China?

Yabby uses the phrase “getting better for them.”

Trade based strategies give people immediate employment and more important, they also give them genuine “hope” for a better future.

China has hundreds of thousands of new millionaires who would not be so wealthy except through application of capitalist market economies, millions of others are being elevated from the abject poverty created by enforced socialist doctrines through trade and employment in those factories. Doubtless, as has been seen in other countries, post WWII Germany and Japan for instance, as their skills levels rise, so to will the added value of their effort and their incomes.

It is always good to remember the world is not a perfect place, injustice exists everywhere but so too does opportunity (except where it is crushed by the jackboot of the state).

I believe in the natural goodness and compassion of man. Others believe every man will, by nature, exploit the workers under his control. I suspect we are merely projecting how we, as individuals, would behave given the choice.
Posted by Col Rouge, Monday, 11 December 2006 8:14:24 AM
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The manufacture of consumer and low tech products is problematic. Owing mainly to economies of scale and similarly no large domestic markets, as in the US or Japan. "Buy Australian" just does have the same economic impact and might unjustfly keep an infiencient manufacture in business.

Nonetheless, value adding involving enhanced technologies can prove profitable, such as, rutile sand to areospace metal. That is, we differentiate ourselves in world markets with products requiring enhanced transformation, but assembly is a different story.

We do have many domestic SMEs. But let's fact it, these modest manufactures often are just familial tax dodgers. One might have twelve lines and with only ten showing in the ATO set of books. Free lunches, cars and trips, written off against the company books in fictitious business related activities. It is an oppotunity to have deguised income, independent of declared profit.

Herein, for Australia's benefit, manufacturers might best look at business-to-business production, heavy industry and importantly niche high tech. We might let small buisness stay as hangers-on or employ these quasi-business people (now employers) as employees in more productive endeavours.

The small provider is more a way of life and is a low productivity employer of labour. All-in-all, this might not be the most productive solution. Good for government in the employment stats, though.

Design and consultancy, for offsore manufacture, plus services, is where opportunities exist for a well educated mudium sized country. Here, we must stay advanced on the innovation curve.
Posted by Oliver, Monday, 11 December 2006 1:31:24 PM
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Tao, whilst watching a TV doco about conditions in one Chinese
factory might have pushed your emotional buttons and your sense
of justice, its a long stretch to then assume that they are the
same all over China. To see exploitation (girls held in brothels
for example) you only have to watch our very own current affairs programmes, right here in Australia.

If I was living in North Korea, where the State controls everything,
then conditions in China might well look amazing, thats why many
try to flee over the border into China. Would I prefer the choices
and options in China, compared to North Korea, where I was a slave
of the Govt? Absolutaly!

Fact is the figures show that China is booming and things are
getting far better then they used to be and heading in the right
direction. 7 million new cars were sold in China this year,
compare that to 10 years ago. The best thing that could happen to
your exploited worker, is for somebody else to build another
factory down the road, offer her the option of a better job, with
better conditions. Any employer who trys to force workers to work
incredible hours, is going to have a quality problem with the
products that they manufacture. Tired workers will make mistakes,
fair enough.

Why do you have a problem with capital moving to the third world?
How can they ever develop anything, without capital flowing there?
There is plenty of capital flowing into Australia too, into those
sectors where we have a comparative advantage, like new mining
developments. Wages are at record levels, unemployment say in WA
at record lows, capital investment held up by a lack of employees!
So much for the Chinese stealing our jobs. Fact is, we simply don't
even have the labour to fill the jobs being offered in our competitive industries!

BD, between starting your own online Aussie Church, to take the
true believers local money, you could always start a "rent a
demonstrator" company, as you seem to have a passion for
demonstrating :)
Posted by Yabby, Monday, 11 December 2006 1:40:20 PM
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