i'm curious to get some concrete data wrt to worker rights/labour legislation in prc: is it as bad as it's often perceived in the west? has anything changed recently? there's a weird duality to it in my perception, on one side it's a relatively happy nation, but on the other side there is the crazy 996 work schedule, poor safety net that's largely substituted by investment in housing etc 🤔
Sure! Workers right's in the PRC are stronger than nearly anywhere else in the world. Wages are up 4x in the last 3 decades, homeownership is nearly universal, urban poverty is essentially eradicated, workers right and safety are enshrined in its constitutional documents, unions are strong and regularly get the backing of the government against employer abuses. Mandatory unions and CPC reps in every business above a certain employee number threshold.
The 996 work schedules prevalent in some industries like tech remain a problem to be tackled, but since work hours have been decreasing steadily over the last few years, I think we can be confident that this will be addressed at higher levels.
- The real wage (IE the wage adjusted for the prices you pay) has gone up 4x in the past 25 years, more than any other country. This is staggering considering it's the most populous country on the planet. The US real wage by comparison is lower in 2019 than it was in 1973.
- Workplace democracy in action in the CPC.
- US Life expectancy peaked in 2015, is on the decline, and is now lower than in China. 2
- Wages themselves are forced to rise in the private sector by the CPC (+16% every years, +400% since 1980) who force the capitalists to accept the presence of CPC chapters who represent the interest of the workers, increasing workers control even in the capitalist parts of the economy.
- Eliminated Urban Poverty. On track to eliminate all poverty within a decade.
- CGTN documentary - China's war on poverty
- Trade union laws of the PRC.
- The west views China as one big sweatshop, but the actual working hours aren't much more than anywhere else. The average for a migrant worker (most vulnerable to exploitation as they are traveling from the countryside) is 8.8 hours, little under an hour more than a typical working day. Labor strikes are rarely suppressed, and usually get the support of the PRC.
- The workplace safety standards of China are better than in the capitalist countries of the West like in Australia who have an higher rate of work related death despite having a GDP per capita 3-5 times higher.
- /u/cheezicle - My experience as a factory worker in a Chinese "sweatshop"
- 70% of Chinese millenials own their own home, and 91% as of 2021 plan to buy their own home within the next 5 years.
- In a typical example of proletarian police accountability, the CPC sentences a police officer to death for killing a pregnant woman in a restaurant in southern China.
- The US is losing to China: “Washington is actually far more corrupt than Beijing. If you want to get something done in Washington, you do what you do in Jakarta: just slip some money to the right people.”
- Hudson and Escobar - The consequences of moving from Industrial to Finance Capital in the US
- Hudson and Escobar - China, the US, Russia - Finance capitalism, Industrial capitalism, and rent seeking