Sound Conditions

[thoughtyoushouldseethis-blog]

If you really want to help these workers, start small, focused classes.

To be completely honest, I’ve only just started Leslie Chang’s book, Factory Girls. But the premise is great: rather than focus on the idea that everything that cames out of Chineses factories must be somehow inherently immoral, Chang takes a more nuanced approach, and, shock horror, went to talk to the workers themselves to get their take on their lives and working conditions. The quote above was part of a Q&A at the end of her TEDGlobal talk, in which TED curator Chris Anderson asked Chang what she might say to Apple executives if she had a minute of their time. Full quote from Ben Lillie’s write-up: “The thing about the workers is how self-motivated and resourceful they are.” What they want most is education. They’ll take classes at night. And so, “If you really want to help these workers, start small, focused classes. When you talk to workers, that’s what they say — they don’t want hot water or shorter hours, but education.” Fascinating. (via thoughtyoushouldseethis)

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[design-china]

Affordable Housing by Fangcheng Architects

The Shenzhen government is planning to build 240,000 affordable housing units within a 15.36 million square meter construction area in Shenzhen, China. The current strategy (put together for the 12th five-year-plan for affordable housing in Shenzhen) aims to build outside the urban center. Due to potentially longer commutes and a sense of isolation from the city center, residents have reacted negatively towards the plan even though housing prices will be lower. Via designboom.

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Stylezeitgeist:

From WWD Alexander Wang denied allegations that its factory in New York’s Chinatown was a “sweatshop,” and the company vowed to defend itself against a $450 million lawsuit brought by an ex-employee. Filed last month in Queens County Supreme Court, the lawsuit claims Wang violated New York State labor laws, including provisions covering overtime compensation and minimum wage.  A spokeswoman for the fashion brand, which has yet to be served with the legal papers, told WWD on Tuesday, “The company takes its obligations to comply with the law very seriously, including the relevant wage and hour regulations, the payment of overtime to eligible employees and having a safe working environment for all of our employees. We will vehemently defend any allegations to the contrary.” Forcing employees to work 16-hour days without overtime in an unventilated, windowless 200-square-foot room with more than 15 other workers were among the charges hurled at Wang by ex-employee Wenyu Lu. His attorney said roughly 30 of his former co-workers were added to the case. The plaintiffs are demanding $50 million for each of the suit’s nine charges, including labor law violations, breach of agreement and unjust enrichment.  Lu, who claimed to work 84 hours a week at the designer’s factory at 386 Broadway, said he suffered work-related illnesses, including an eye injury and kidney stones, which resulted in an emergency operation two years ago. In one instance, the 56-year-old Lu alleged he passed out at his station after working 25 hours without a break. Ultimately, Lu, who started at the factory in 2008, was fired on Feb. 16 after complaining about the poor conditions and applying for worker’s compensation for injuries sustained on the job, his lawyer, Ming Hai, alleged. “Bad labor conditions are everywhere in the Asian garment community. It’s horrible,” said Hai, noting that there are more than 20 garment factories in Chinatown.  “A lot of the workers are new immigrants and they don’t speak English,” he said. “They work long hours. It’s like a new kind of slavery.” According to Hai, who regularly tries such employment law cases, most factory owners tend to settle the disputes for fear of bad press.

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patternmaking@central academy of fine arts Beijing

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[psychedelicbits-blog]

Visit Original Link

EPISODE 454:  MR. DAISY AND THE APPLE FACTORY 

Mike Daisey was a self-described “worshipper in the cult of Mac.” Then he saw some photos from a new iPhone, taken by workers at the factory where it was made. Mike wondered: Who makes all my crap? He traveled to China to find out.

“I look up past the gates and the guards. I look up at the buildings, these immense buildings. They are so enormous. And along the edges of each enormous building are the nets, because right at the time that I am making this visit, there’s been an epidemic of suicides at Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer. Week after week, worker after worker has been climbing all the way up to the tops of these enormous buildings and then throwing themselves off, killing themselves in a brutal and public manner, not thinking very much about just how bad this makes Foxconn look. Foxconn’s callous response to month after month of suicides has merely been to put up nets.”

[thoughtyoushouldseethis-blog]

The biggest resistance was an investment in the way things are done today. But I don’t think it’s going to be difficult going forward to dye textiles using zero water.

Eric Sprunk is the vice president of Merchandising and Product at Nike, and I was really taken with this comment, in a piece looking at the sportswear giant’s recent announcement of a bid to remove water from its apparel dying process. Color It Green: Nike To Adopt Waterless Textile Dying details a new partnership between Nike and the Dutch company, DyeCoo Textile Systems, and is clearly a huge deal for environmentalists. Water is already a focal point in our collective fight for survival, and any initiative that can either remove its use upstream (as it were) in the product development cycle, or prevent rampant pollution of it downstream is significant. As this article notes, up to 150 liters of water are needed to process just one kilogram of textile materials; 39 million tons of polyester will be dyed annually by 2015. That’s an awful lot of water, and the pollution levels in China are already horrible: this piece refers to the “countless billions of gallons of polluted discharges into waterways near manufacturing plants in Asia.” 

But look at the quote again. The open admission of the internal resistance to change is really interesting, and an excellent reminder that innovation is never easy, even within those companies such as Nike that are constantly lauded for their innovation prowess. It’s important to remember that every single executive in every single firm meets the same forces, the ones that deliberately—and for the most rational reasons possible—attempt to prevent change. Acknowledging and dealing with these forces consciously and deliberately is the only way to have an impact—both within an organization, and in the world at large.

[Nike announcement via Andrew Zolli; Green Biz story via Adam Aston.]

(via thoughtyoushouldseethis)

[nosuchthingtoday-deactivated201]

“In marriage, keep an eye on your own interests, and return radiant after registration, 1953”

In 1950, China’s New Marriage Law passed, allowing autonomy in regards to marriage and divorce, and was part of Chairman Mao’s campaign to destroy China’s ties to old world mentalities. The issue...

[yaleopiniong]

Rise of China: Beijings Strategies and Implications for the Asia-Pacific

Rise of China: Beijings Strategies and Implications for the Asia-Pacific This book examines every aspect of Beijing‘s stragegies, ranging from political, economic and social challenges, to the Taiwan and Hong Kong issues, to the implications of these strategies in terms of China‘s place within the Asia Pacific, and indeed within the world system. Take Action! Get it immediately!!

[theadventuresofemmy]

China Fact #1.

Beijing Fun Fact: There were no privately owned restaurants in Beijing until 1986; previously even the restaurants were government controlled. Now there are literally thousands of restaurants in Beijing!

[onechineseacre-blog]

Last week I visited two organic farms in the northern suburbs of Beijing, 德润屋 Derunwu and 慈心家园 Cixinjiayuan.

A few pictures of the two of them, and then more of Derunwu later.

‘De run wu’ started 6 years ago. They have 4 greenhouses for vegetables here, as well as several acres of land for...

[oannawan]

“international hotel no. 6” yang fudong

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[thoughtyoushouldseethis-blog]

This photo shows progress underway to complete the second phase of General Motors’ Advanced Technical Center in Shanghai, on track to open in the second half of the year. It was prompted by this interview with GM China president and managing director, Kevin Wale, which is long but incredibly interesting, and filled with insights about how executives are thinking about innovation in that all important market. For instance:

What China does better than any place else in the world is to innovate by commercialization, as opposed to constant research and perfecting the theory, like the West. When the Chinese get an idea, they test it in the marketplace. They are happy to do three to four rounds of commercialization to get an idea right, whereas in the West, companies spend the same amount of time on research, testing, and validation before trying to take products to market. The Chinese have an innovative way of doing innovation, something that the rest of the world is struggling to understand.

Long, but well worth the read.

[Image c/o GM.]

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Editor of Chinese newspaper Global Times joins twitter, has a chat with Ai Weiwei. Most interesting takeout: Believes freedom of speech will inevitable come to China too.