The Last Gasps of Slavery? Slave Labor Builds The Last Two Large Nations On Earth

It is no secret that Europe and America were built on slave labor. Today, China and India are being built on today’s equivalent of slave labor. The details of the story vary but in the end, human beings work 12-16 hour days 6-7 days per week. They are given a place to sleep at night, a place to occasionally wash, 3 basic meals per day and no wage or a very low wage, such as today’s equivalent of $6 per day. If a worker gets sick, their medical expenses are typically paid for. Before we continue, think about that wage for a moment: USD $6 per day.

Now let’s switch gears for a moment before continue our discussion about today’s slave labor in China and India, and talk about a famous, well known international industry where people today also work like slaves for 12 hours per day seven days per week. What industry am I referring to? the cruise ship vacation industry. However, there is an enormous difference between the intense labor demands of cruise ship workers and workers in China or India; the monthly wage.

A typical ship kitchen crew member is hired from the Philipines or Central America. As part of a cruise ship’s hotel operation they will work per agreed contract 12-16 hours per day 7 days per week for six months with a six week rest in between contracts, roundtrip flight home also paid for. They are provided a decent shared cabin bunk, plenty of good food to eat in the crew canteen and full medical coverage. When they are not working, they are sleeping because they are exhausted. During my contract providing entertainment services last year with Royal Caribbean Cruise line, I realized that while ship crew were able to get off the ship for several hours to visit the ports, they were simply too tired and needed to sleep instead; they rarely got off the ship.

However, this typical ship kitchen or housekeeping crew typically earned around USD $1200 per month, paid cash in hand. In comparison to a similar sounding story for China and India’s modern day factory workers, the workers at the “currently in the news suicide story FoxConn” factory were being paid about five times less than that, about USD $180 per month. With a recent sharp increase in worker suicides, FoxConn’s CEO, who has become a billionaire on the backs of his slaving workers, increased wages by 30%.

It needs to be mentioned that FoxConn’s workers are not allowed to speak to one another during their standing only 12 hours shift each day.

Let me get this straight. Does a 30% wage increase focus on the problem? Let’s say this is my job. My job is to stand for 12 hours, perform a monotonous assembly line task, during which time I am not allowed to speak to fellow workers, which might create a nice atmosphere in which to work and I am paid $180 per month plus meals and a place to sleep and shower.

What is mostly making me miserable and considering suicide? At first blush it is the working conditions and certainly not the low wage. Looking more closely at the low wage, in fact the USD $180 per month wage, when one assesses the cost of living in China, is actually the equivalent of around USD $720 back in the United States. That is my personal estimate based on my living in China for the past 11 years. And let me remind you that last week I had a terrible headache for which I went to the local hospital and got a CT scan for USD $20. So please believe me when I tell you that the daily cost of living in China reflects typical expenses at 3-10 times lower than in North America or the Europe Continent.

It is more than obvious to me that the misery is in the daily working conditions. How does a $50 monthly raise help my daily misery? On a cruise ship, the kitchen crew is also workin 12-15 hours per day 7 days per week. If they are fortunate, they are moving around from task to task, breaking up the monotony, rather than say, peeling carrots for 12 hours. And at the end of the month, they are paid a relatively generous paycheck and benefit package. Think about how many typical middle class American employees can put USD $1000 per month directly in the bank each month after expenses. Very few. And so, even though their daily life is tough, even though their quality of life leaves plenty to be desired, their progress in wages, in saving for the future is clearly meaningful and significant.

With the western economies facing distress and potential disaster in one form or another due to the growing sovereign debt problem, we easily see that China’s private and public debt level is far less leveraged. Corporate and state profits are plentiful with hundreds of millions of lower and middle class employees taking home slave labor wages. Combine these two factors and see the current window in which China and similarly, India, are able to make rapid economic progress and increase their economic power.

Today across the globe, the fury and frustration is growing, is becoming more and more visible on a daily basis. As this applies to the labor situation in China, the tide is turning. As we saw in the west, over the coming years, the progress of modernizing societies will be inflationary with higher and higher wages and better working conditions and terms feeding the inflationary progress. As in Europen and America, slave labor in China and India will soon enough come to an end.

Mario Cavolo reporting from Shanghai.

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