A voice of truth, in a world of smoke and mirrors..  Well said Mr. Miller.

  And, frankly understated...  China has a culture so different from the west, that it is difficult for westerners to comprehend.   China is a land of men, not of laws, laws are "suggested guidelines", at best, and people are proud to have found ways around them.   To follow the rules, is felt to be stupid.

  We have a LONG way to go, if we ever will be able to get businesses in China to follow western standards.

  Recommend interested parties read the book "Mr. China"... this is wonderful book on doing business with China, and will open peoples eyes.

  Rudy Sedlak

Rodney Miller <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
  Interesting, but to think this EICC is effective tool is ludicrous....

China is what the US was in the 30's and 40's. That was the time of our
growth to dominance in the world, when we set the stage for what we are
today. It was done with the backs of many US people, toiling and making
a better life. Companies sourcing in china are setting standard by
their greed to set pricing. FoxConn is low cost connector supplier. HP
and others dictate their prices.

You cannot compare work conditions to that in the USA. Everyone has an
opinion, hers is just that...

I have a factory over there. I have fire safety, ingress/egress
standards, strick policy on worker ages and OT. I pay above average
wage for experience level and we provide a clean atmosphere.

Neighboring plants run by Taiwanese or others have less than desirable
conditions, and they are cheaper suppliers... Go figure.

You cannot compare China to US. Policy makers and WTO have a big issue
and it wont be resolved by Nike or HP. China is a developing country,
and has developing country issues. However, they are a solid choice for
manufacturing and have developing infrastructure to support that
objective.

With a booming economy and our lowest unemployment rates in decades,
this demand/supply issue will continue. Its macroeconomics.

When a Logitech mouse sells for $30 and $2 support the manufacturing
facility 1,200 employees and $7 support the California Sales Rep's
alone... You can figure out where the money is.



-----Original Message-----
From: Roland Jaquet [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 3:59 AM
Subject: Stalking High-Tech Sweatshops


BRAVO - AT LEAST SOME PROGRESS - I HAD TO SHARE IT WITH YOU

Very Best Regards
Rol@nd

-----Original Message-----
From: CCG News
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 10:03 AM
To: CCG News
Subject: Stalking High-Tech Sweatshops

JUNE 19, 2006
BusinessWeek

SOCIAL ISSUES

How HP's Bonnie Nixon-Gardiner spurred the industry to police worker
conditions

Bonnie Nixon-Gardiner certainly knows how to throw her weight around.
She's only a middle-level manager at Hewlett-Packard Co. and stands at
just 5 foot 3. But the top brass snapped to attention last year when she
showed up in Long Hua, China, to inspect working conditions at a massive
electronics manufacturing complex owned by a key HP supplier. Executives
from Foxconn Electronics, a unit of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.,
tried to whisk her into a conference room for a PowerPoint presentation.
But Nixon-Gardiner, 46, said bluntly that she wasn't interested.

Instead, remembers Grover Thurman, Foxconn's senior director of social
and environmental responsibility, she demanded full freedom to walk
around the 200,000-employee complex, the waste-treatment center, and the
dorm rooms where workers live. When her hosts resisted, she sat them
down for a talking-to. "Look, this isn't going to work unless you're
totally transparent with me," she told the officials. Within minutes,
she was off, a line of nervous, suit-clad executives in tow. "[We] were
pretty uptight when she took a left turn when [we] wanted her to go
straight," recalls Thurman.

Foxconn had reason to balk. A non-Chinese speaker was wandering around
among 250-ton metal-cutting machines that churn out parts for computers
and cell phones. Perhaps of greater concern was Nixon-Gardiner's
potential impact on the bottom line, despite her unimpressive title of
program manager for HP's Supply Chain Social & Environmental
Responsibility.

A big chunk of Foxconn's $25 billion in sales come from HP, which buys
$67 billion worth of electronics every year. So, a lot was riding on
whether she gave the thumbs-up. On a bigger stage, Nixon-Gardiner has
been a key behind-the-scenes catalyst for an ambitious new effort by the
high-tech industry to improve working conditions at suppliers like
Foxconn around the globe. "HP has taken the lead on this, and Bonnie did
a lot of it on sheer passion," says Kevin O'Mara, vice-president at
consultants AMR Research.

Back in 1999, as HP and other tech companies began outsourcing
production of printers, motherboards, and laptops to the same low-wage
countries that make Nike shoes and T-shirts sold at Wal-Mart, she began
setting down strong anti-sweatshop policies for HP suppliers. By 2004,
Nixon-Gardiner and her counterparts at Dell, IBM, Intel, and other
companies had agreed to create the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct.
The EICC sets out basic labor and environmental standards for the
industry's contractors.

Modeled broadly on other industrywide groups such as the Fair Labor
Assn.
(FLA) founded a decade ago by Nike and other footwear and apparel
companies, the EICC is a first for the tech industry, which is rarely
associated with sweatshop issues. Still, it only goes so far. Unlike the
FLA, for instance, the EICC isn't an independent body and to date
doesn't conduct random inspections of member companies' overseas
factories. The EICC simply spells out abuses -- from child or forced
labor to excessive overtime -- that the companies agree are unacceptable
on the part of their contractors. It leaves the inspection and
enforcement of these standards to each member company.

Still, just getting hypercompetitive tech companies behind a unified
effort is an accomplishment, say some. "It's too early to assess [the
EICC's] success, but they've developed an industry approach that makes
sense," says David Schilling, director of the corporate accountability
program at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility in New
York.

JUMPING ON BOARD
Nixon-Gardiner isn't waiting for the perfect solution. A New Jersey
native raised by a single mom, she grew up with a strong social
conscience. At HP, she has set up a 70-auditor system that has inspected
200 factories owned by 150 key HP suppliers -- more than any other EICC
member. HP says allegations of labor problems contributed to its
decision to break with three suppliers that didn't make the grade,
including South Korea-based Trigem Computer Inc. Trigem says it wasn't
aware of this issue. She is also trying to educate local suppliers. On
June 1, HP announced a new training program to help Chinese
manufacturers prevent labor and environmental abuses; Brazil, Malaysia,
and India could be next. "My 10-year vision is for [consumers to know
that] when you touch a technology product, you are guaranteed it was
made in a socially and environmentally responsible way," she says.

HP's workplace crusade began in 1999, when workers at a printer unit in
Vancouver, Wash., that had been sold to a supplier raised concerns that
the new owners weren't upholding HP's worker safety policies. HP tapped
Nixon-Gardiner, then a consultant, to benchmark how other corporations
kept tabs on suppliers. By 2002, HP had rolled out sweeping rules for
suppliers.

Then, in 2004, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, a
human-rights watchdog group, issued a withering report, alleging "dire
working conditions" by overseas contractors serving the computer
industry. That gave her an opening to sell other companies on a common
code as a way to avoid confusion among suppliers producing for several
buyers. By June, IBM, Dell, and five large contract manufacturers had
formed the EICC, and Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, and Sony jumped on board
soon after.

Clearly, HP's activist has moved social responsibility up the high-tech
priority list, even if the changes are taking place one plant at a time.
During that first Foxconn audit, Nixon-Gardiner decided that the
machinery was too loud. So Foxconn bought employees some flimsy orange
earplugs. Not good enough. Six visits from Nixon-Gardiner later, the
company had spent tens of thousands of dollars to put enclosures around
the gear, change the blades, and give workers top-of-the-line ear
protectors. Now, says Thurman, employees are complaining about how hot
their ears get. Dealing with Nixon-Gardiner, he says, "is like being
kissed and slapped at the same time. It can make you psychotic -- but it
needs to be done." That message is sinking in with the rest of high
tech, too.

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