Predators

Avedon Carol at The Sideshow has a story on union-busting in China. She quotes a JohannHari article that goes into detail about the exploitation of Chinese workers and the support that US business has given the Chinese government in its exploitation.

Yes, since businesses cannot actually keep slaves here, many are willing to collude with governments that do the next best thing.

WalMart sells a lot of things made in China. I avoid them. When people buy cheap Chinese goods, they are colluding with the abuse of Chinese workers *and* making sure that their own job market will not come back from the dead. And yes, manufacturing in the US is pretty dead.

I have another policy that I uphold. If I get a call from any organization that is using a foreign call center, I disconnect immediately. Call centers used to be in the midwest, but India is cheaper. Foreign call centers make their employees take an Anglo work name like "Mark" or "Dave" when they call. That may be considered "convenient" since clients are not likely to pronounce Goparaju, Prasadram or Ptumporn Supakitvilakakarn comfortably. On the other hand, one cannot help but think that it's transparently fraudulent as well.

My take is that I will not support Kansas jobs that have been outsourced to Bangalore -- period.