E os sujos segredos do sucesso:
For wages of up to 1,940 yuan per month (€230, or $285), the young man from Henan province spent his 12-hour shifts shoving plastic pieces into a machine that formed casings for Apple computers. Then he went home to sleep with nine colleagues in a room of one of the many dormitory blocks on the factory complex.
(…)
These opportunities for diversion don't change the fact that Foxconn workers have to spend their lives almost entirely on the complex. One cargo truck after another delivers components and carries away finished products. There are no warehouses at Foxconn. Once workers assemble a mobile phone or a laptop, the device goes straight to customers. This flow of products can't slow down. On Foxconn streets, workers are allowed to walk alongside each other only in pairs. If there are three of them, they must form a line.
(…)
The men and women in white uniform coats and bonnets are forbidden from holding personal conversations. This rule is printed on the flip side of their corporate IDs. The only sound is a whistle and hiss from the machines where they push green circuit-boards for laptops or credit-card readers. On eight different conveyor belts, they finish work on eight different products for several different world markets.
28 de maio de 2010
19 de maio de 2010
Open Letter to the President of Brazil
Don't misunderstand me. Brazil was already en route to democracy, but you helped give it a final, decisive push.
Something similar was happening in Poland, in South Africa, and in South Korea, where worker-based organizations and independent trade unions that rejected communist and capitalist cruelties were created and helped open the way to the great democratization of the last quarter century.
That is why it is with the most profound sadness that I see you embracing the incarnation of everything that denies human rights, social justice and all the good that liberation trade unions stood for. The picture of you alongside the Iranian tyrant, President Mahmoud Ahminedejad, as if he was the best friend of democratic Brazil, has shocked all democrats around the world.
Something similar was happening in Poland, in South Africa, and in South Korea, where worker-based organizations and independent trade unions that rejected communist and capitalist cruelties were created and helped open the way to the great democratization of the last quarter century.
That is why it is with the most profound sadness that I see you embracing the incarnation of everything that denies human rights, social justice and all the good that liberation trade unions stood for. The picture of you alongside the Iranian tyrant, President Mahmoud Ahminedejad, as if he was the best friend of democratic Brazil, has shocked all democrats around the world.
15 de maio de 2010
Labaredas
Interessante como prédios públicos “pegam fogo” fácil aqui no Brasil, né? E geralmente são incêndios devastadores, que queimam um monte de coisas… como papéis, arquivos… e evidências. Basta lembrar do famigerado prédio do Detran em São Paulo, que já teve mais incêndios do que fábrica clandestina de produtos inflamáveis.
7 de maio de 2010
Como criar dificuldades para vender facilidades
Acho que vocês já devem ter ouvido falar desse lance que está rolando da tal conexão entre o filho do Romeu Tuma e um contrabandista chinês, né?
Bom, coisas parecidas com essa a gente sempre tem ouvido, de tempos em tempos. E sabe qual é a essência deste mar obscuro de inconsistências e bandalheira? É esta:
No Brasil a carga oficial de impostos de importação + impostos em cascata locais sobre produtos para o consumidor que tenham o mínimo de tecnologia é imensa, acima mesmo até de nossos conterrâneos como Uruguai e Argentina (o Chile então, nem se fala). Quem quiser fazer pela forma legal vai ter que arcar com uma papelada monstruosa e vender o produto final por até 3 vezes mais do que ele custava lá fora. E é justamente no meio disso que o contrabando alimentado pelas conexões paraguaio-chinesas prospera.
Num país sério, ao menos reduziria-se os impostos de importação sobre estes produtos e deixaria-se o processo de importação mais rápido, desburocratizado e transparente. Mas aqui, pelo jeito…
PS: o Reinaldo Azevedo comentou mais a respeito deste caso, ontem.
Bom, coisas parecidas com essa a gente sempre tem ouvido, de tempos em tempos. E sabe qual é a essência deste mar obscuro de inconsistências e bandalheira? É esta:
No Brasil a carga oficial de impostos de importação + impostos em cascata locais sobre produtos para o consumidor que tenham o mínimo de tecnologia é imensa, acima mesmo até de nossos conterrâneos como Uruguai e Argentina (o Chile então, nem se fala). Quem quiser fazer pela forma legal vai ter que arcar com uma papelada monstruosa e vender o produto final por até 3 vezes mais do que ele custava lá fora. E é justamente no meio disso que o contrabando alimentado pelas conexões paraguaio-chinesas prospera.
Num país sério, ao menos reduziria-se os impostos de importação sobre estes produtos e deixaria-se o processo de importação mais rápido, desburocratizado e transparente. Mas aqui, pelo jeito…
PS: o Reinaldo Azevedo comentou mais a respeito deste caso, ontem.
5 de maio de 2010
São Paulo, Moscou
Trecho desta matéria do site da Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:
A chronic dilemma facing Moscow planners and the city's nearly 9 million residents is gridlock. Cars in another chronically clogged city, New York, travel at an average speed of 38 kilometers an hour. In Moscow, the number is just 21, and it's only set to get worse -- Russia's Transportation Ministry predicts the number of cars in Moscow is set to double to 8 million by 2015.
The Genplan includes numerous plans for parking garages and improved traffic flow. But critics like transport expert Mikhail Blinkin say that for now, the city's mania for knocking down buildings and constructing bigger ones in their place outpaces any practical strategy on traffic management, and that there is simply no room for the capital's cars and trucks.
"I'll give you the simplest example. We demolish five-story buildings from the Soviet times and put up a 30-story building in their place. The surrounding transport network, for cars and public transportation, we leave unchanged," Blinkin said.
"I always make this comparison: if we try to pour five liters of water into a three-liter jar, it will overflow. But that's what we do every day."
The Genplan last month prompted a rare confrontation between city officials and the Public Chamber, a state oversight body. City officials walked out of a Public Chamber debate on the Genplan after chamber members attacked the plan.
Speaking at the meeting, Marat Gelman, an influential gallery owner and former assistant director at Russia's Channel One broadcaster, said the plan was motivated by greed and indifference. "For us, Moscow is love," he said. "But for Luzhkov, it's a vegetable plot to harvest from."
A chronic dilemma facing Moscow planners and the city's nearly 9 million residents is gridlock. Cars in another chronically clogged city, New York, travel at an average speed of 38 kilometers an hour. In Moscow, the number is just 21, and it's only set to get worse -- Russia's Transportation Ministry predicts the number of cars in Moscow is set to double to 8 million by 2015.
The Genplan includes numerous plans for parking garages and improved traffic flow. But critics like transport expert Mikhail Blinkin say that for now, the city's mania for knocking down buildings and constructing bigger ones in their place outpaces any practical strategy on traffic management, and that there is simply no room for the capital's cars and trucks.
"I'll give you the simplest example. We demolish five-story buildings from the Soviet times and put up a 30-story building in their place. The surrounding transport network, for cars and public transportation, we leave unchanged," Blinkin said.
"I always make this comparison: if we try to pour five liters of water into a three-liter jar, it will overflow. But that's what we do every day."
The Genplan last month prompted a rare confrontation between city officials and the Public Chamber, a state oversight body. City officials walked out of a Public Chamber debate on the Genplan after chamber members attacked the plan.
Speaking at the meeting, Marat Gelman, an influential gallery owner and former assistant director at Russia's Channel One broadcaster, said the plan was motivated by greed and indifference. "For us, Moscow is love," he said. "But for Luzhkov, it's a vegetable plot to harvest from."
4 de maio de 2010
3 de maio de 2010
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