Explosion at Foxconn plant

From the Guardian:

A spokesman for the company said people had been injured in a fire at the plant but that it had no details. The company is best-known for producing iPhones and iPads for Apple, but other clients include Nokia, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard and Dell. Employing up to 900,000 people in all, Foxconn has repeatedly been the subject of controversy over working conditions at its vast plants. The affected one is believed to employ up to 100,000 people.

A report on Chinese news portal Sina said the area had been sealed off after a blast ripped through the plant at around the time workers changed shifts. Police in Gaoxin district said they were called to the scene at 7.18pm and that the explosion seemed to have been caused by materials within the factory. A report on the China National Radio website said two were killed and 16 injured, three seriously. (1)

This is just another tragedy resulting from our hypocritical exploitation of the PRC's laissez faire attitude towards worker's rights, wages, representation and safety.

Foreign companies setting up in China should be required - or, better yet, insist on - basic standards of decency, in terms of wages, worker conditions and union recognition. We insist on these things for ourselves, it's absurd that we're happy to ignore them when it comes to the Chinese labour that makes the stuff that lets us enjoy a preposterous standard of living.

Of course, the whole thing's a shoddy trick to get us thinking we've still got it good based on cheap imports and never mind we've got no jobs, so perhaps I'm the one who is absurd for even making the point.

Liberty, equality and fraternity, or cheap vanity-baubles made by Morlock labour in China, who occasionally get blown up? Workers of all lands unite? Or workers of the developed world live like kings on the backs of the third world? It wasn't much of a contest.

1 - "Workers killed in blast at China plant of iPad maker Foxconn," by Tania Brannigan. Published in The guardian, 20th of May, 2011. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/may/20/foxconn-apple-blast-china)

More foulness

Courtesy of The Guardian:

A former Vietnamese Communist Party official was sentenced to eight years in jail Wednesday for posting articles on the Internet calling for a multiparty system and democracy, his lawyer said.

Vi Duc Hoi, 54, was convicted of spreading anti-government propaganda, defense lawyer Tran Lam said. The court in northern Lang Son province also sentenced Hoi to five years of house arrest after he finishes his jail term.

Hoi was accused of violating Vietnam's national security laws by using the Internet to promote a multiparty system and democracy.

"The sentence was too harsh," Lam said by telephone. "Many people who did the same should also have been arrested and imprisoned."

Hoi joined the Communist Party in 1980 and quickly rose to a high-ranking position that involved overseeing the education of upcoming local party leaders. But he started calling for democratic reforms in 2006 and was expelled from the party a year later. (1)

Clearly, the policy of 'engagement' with these totalitarian crackpots is bearing fruit. Still, who cares about Veitnamese democracy when we need cheap trainers? Hell, if the Veitnamese really wanted democracy, they'd take it! They must love working in sweatshops, that's what they do ...

Veitnam has plenty of form for totalitarian repression acting against critics and workers trying to improve their conditions (2). But it's in our economic interest to pretend this isn't happening, or is totally unconnected with our economic involvement in the country, or is 'improving.'

Because other wise, we'd have to face up to the reality of our involvement in repression, totalitarianism and brutal exploitation that would have made ante-bellum slaveowners queasy. They had an economic stake in their property, after all.

1 - "Vietnamese dissident sentenced to 8 years in jail," unattributed article. Published by AP Foreign. Reproduced in The Guardian, 26th of January, 2011. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9469266)

2 - "Clinton arriving, Vietnam arrests bloggers, sentences activists," by John Pomfret. Published in The Washington Post, 29th of October, 2010. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/28/AR2010102806797.html)