Originally Posted by Nouia
Ha, when I lived there, everyone was doing 35 hour weeks and taking the entire month of August off...whenever they tried to push back the retirement age, there were huge strikes. In '03 or '04 I remember all public transport in Paris being down for like 3 weeks because of a strike.
And yeah, in China it really is exploitative. It isn't like most of these laborers are getting the weekends off or living in anything but a single room in a high rise dorm.
My friend's dad was French (living in the US) and I have many fond memories of hanging out at his house and listening to his dad in the next room swearing at the TV and cursing all the lazy workers in France. Hilarious.
I can't speak to Taiwan, but some of China is pretty bleak. It's a damn thorny issue, though - yes, corporations in parts of the world where labor is expensive relative to the company's sales will exploit the fact that labor in some other countries is cheaper. As to whether or not they're exploiting the
workers, I honestly can't say. For some of the people I met/saw there who are living outside the major cities, even a factory job is better than no job.
Now, we can talk about all the hutong being bulldozed and the citizens forcibly relocated to co-op city style high-rise suburbs, but that's for another forum
