China labour market now favours workers
Gone are the days when Chinese companies had a plentiful labour pool to draw on.
“Today China is an employee’s market, no longer an employer’s market,” according to Zheng Qinghao, China head of German company Rittal in Shanghai.
“Workers can easily find another job,” Zheng said. Rittal employs a staff of 1,200 making electrical switchboards and air conditioning systems, as well as cabinets for servers and networks.
“We really have to go out of our way to keep our workers,” Zheng said. Turnover among unskilled staff at Rittal is currently about 13% a year, while other companies have turnover rates as high as 25%.
Capable workers are in short supply, and the shortage is generating problems for Chinese and foreign companies wishing to expand in the growing market.
Previously, Chinese workers all aimed to work for a foreign firm. “That’s no longer the case,” Zheng said. German, Japanese and US companies all enjoyed a reputation as good employers, but Chinese firms have now made themselves increasingly attractive.
Rittal marketing chief Christoph Caselitz said managers in China have to take greater care of their workers than in the West, when it comes to communication and motivation.
“Money is not everything here. The staff has to feel at home,” he said.
Job security, training, promotion prospects, long-term contracts, good living and working conditions and maternity leave are all important, alongside joint activities undertaken with other company staff and sport.
“We are involved in every aspect of the lives of our staff,” said Gu Jiandang, China head of Phoenix Contact, a German company based in Nanjing.
Pay rises of more than 10% are no longer unusual in China. Unskilled workers as a rule earn between 1,500 and 1,800 yuan ($240 to 285) gross, but experienced engineers earn as much as 100,000 yuan.
Costs for social insurance are also rising, as are payments for transport and accommodation. In the larger metropolitan regions such as Shanghai and Beijing, wages are rising along with staff turnover rates.
Marc Wucherer, head of the industrial unit at Siemens in China, said even the renowned German manufacturer is feeling the change. “It’s a hot issue, finding good staff and keeping them,” he says.
“As a company operating globally it’s probably easier for us than for others, but it’s a question of the training programme, responsibility, future prospects,” Wucherer said.
Qiu Hualai, China chief of Festo, an automation concern based in south-western Germany, tells a similar story. “In general it’s not easy to find good people. Quality workers are in demand,” he said.
The company seeks to promote a positive work atmosphere and enjoys relatively low staff turnover rates. “It’s not just a question of pay. It has more to do with a flat hierarchy, staff training and the confidence we show in our staff,” Qiu said.
That is reflected in the loyalty many workers show to the company they are employed by.
“I prefer working for a German company,” says warehouseman Wang, who has been with Festo in Jinan in Shandong province for the past six years. “The work atmosphere is better and relations with senior staff are good.”
Another fastest train for China
A record speed was achieved by a high-speed test train made by China’s largest train maker, Beijing News reported Thursday.
CSR, China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Co Ltd, launched the test train, which can reach speeds of up to 575 kilometers an hour, the paper said.
Liang Jianying, deputy chief engineer at the subsidiary company CSR Sifang Locomotive & Rolling Stock Co Ltd, said the train was in good condition and the speed will be further improved.
The test train aims to promote the development and security monitoring of high-speed trains and will not actually run as a business operation, said Zhao Xiaogang, chairman of CSR.
In December 2011, CSR launched a test train with speeds reaching up to 500 kilometers an hour.
China will continue to increase the speed of trains during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), according to a project of the development of high-speed trains issued by the Ministry of Science and Technology on Wednesday.
The first test train that can reach speeds of up to 500 km an hour stands on a railway line in Qingdao, East China’s Shandong province
Cities get a sinking feeling
A diminishing water table, combined with a growing number of skyscrapers, is causing large areas of China to sink, increasing flood risk and endangering the rail network, according to a survey released recently by the China Geological Survey.
The government has already launched a number of measures to combat the problem and a plan of action was approved by the State Council in February.
Research shows the most vulnerable spots are in the North China Plain, the Yangtze River Delta and the Fenwei Basin, covering a combined total area of 79,000 square kilometers – more than 100 times the size of Singapore.
More than 50 cities in these areas are now at least 20 centimeters lower than they were in the 1970s, the survey said.
The problem is worsening and could spell potential disaster for millions of residents, said Li Tiefeng, head of the group’s geological disaster office.
Statistics for Cangzhou in Hebei province, for example, show its average surface level has sunk 2.4 meters since the 1970s, mainly due to the excessive reduction of the water table.
The city’s low-lying location has made it vulnerable to urban flooding during rainy seasons since the 1980s.
Unlike Cangzhou, Shanghai is suffering land subsidence due to dense high-rise construction. You can see the cracks in the streets in front of the building and all along the streets in Shanghai Pudong.
In February, a crack about 10 meters long appeared between the 492-meter tall World Financial Center and the under-construction Shanghai Tower with a designed height of 632 meters.
“The frantic building boom has contributed a lot to Shanghai’s ground sinking,” Li said.
There are about 65 buildings higher than 200 meters in Shanghai, while Tokyo has 45, according to Emporis, one of the world’s leading providers of building statistics.
A study released by the China Geological Survey in 2008 showed that total economic losses due to land subsidence reached nearly 333 billion yuan ($53 billion) from 1956 to 2008 in the North China Plain.
The plain covers an area of 140,000 square kilometers, including Beijing and Tianjin.
The situation may become worse with the construction of high-speed rail, Wu Aimin, director of the geological survey and technology department at the China Geological Environment Monitoring Institute, told the Economic Herald.
As China enters a boom period for high-speed rail construction, authorities should monitor subsidence near railways, such as the high-speed rail linking Beijing and Shanghai.
“If the ground sinks, even by a few millimeters, it will threaten the safety of high-speed rail,” Wu was quoted as saying.
However, the government is taking measures to tackle the situation with the first national land subsidence control plan from 2011-20 approved by the State Council in February.
It includes a nationwide survey, the establishment of monitoring networks in affected areas and increased control over underground pumping.
A land subsidence research project will be completed by 2015 in key areas such as the North China Plain, the Yangtze River Delta and the Fenwei Basin in Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces, especially areas with high-speed rail, according to the plan.
Han Mukang, a retired professor at Peking University who has studied the issue for decades, said controlling underground water extraction is an urgent task.
Authorities of the affected areas are combating subsidence by recharging groundwater and reducing pumping.
Shanghai Water Authority said that in 2015 the city will reduce extraction to 10 million cubic meters from more than 13 million cubic meters in 2011 and the water table recharge will reach 20 million cubic meters in 2015.
Beijing is also planning to recharge groundwater to avoid further land subsidence when conditions are proper.
First TCM medicine OK’d for EU market
A Chinese traditional medicine has been authorized for sale in a European market for the first time, the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced on Wednesday. Finally the rest of the world is opening up to Chinese medicine.
Industry experts said the approval would lead the way for Chinese traditional medicine to enter the mainstream European market.
Ninety-three-year-old Hu Yisong, a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, teaches a student from Pakistan how to distinguish TCM materials at a drugstore in Nantong, Jiangsu province, in March.
Di’ao Xin Xue Kang, a well-known herbal medicine produced by the Chengdu-based Di’ao Group, received marketing authorization from the Medicines Evaluation Board of the Netherlands, making it the first Chinese traditional drug to be identified as a therapeutic medicine in the European Union.
“This is an important step for TCM to enter mainstream markets of developed countries,” Health Minister Chen Zhu said at a news conference organized by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing on Wednesday.
This first success was “proof that Chinese firms are capable of producing top-level medicines”, he said.
Bai Chunli, president of Chinese Academy of Sciences, urged TCM research institutions to increase their focus on the European market now.
“As well as strengthening research, I hope they can also study the authorization requirements of different countries, so that more and more medicines will have access to the high-end market,” he said.
Sang Guowei, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, said that TCM could finally enter European “rightfully”.
The certification of Di’ao Xin Xue Kang follows an EU ban on traditional Chinese medicine in May 2011, imposed to prevent unlicensed herbal medicines being sold as food supplements.
“This new authorization marks the first time that Chinese traditional medicine steps into the mainstream health market,” said Zhang Boli, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and president of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences.
Zhang said another seven or eight Chinese TCM firms were trying to get access to the EU market.
“Maybe one or two of them will receive authorization next year. And this may lead to more applicants, as the influence of TCM expands on international market,” he added.
Earlier reports said that the Guangzhou Qixing Pharmaceutical Company, the Foci Pharmaceutical Company in Lanzhou, and Tongrentang in Beijing are also striving for the EU market.
“The medicine is also the first herbal medicine that has entered the EU market from a country outside the EU member states,” said Li Bogang, president of the Di’ao Group.
Li said the group took six years to obtain the certification from the Netherlands, although the medicine has been sold in China since 1988.
The group carried out two years of research on active substances in TCM drugs with the help of the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research.
“Without the help of the research organization, the application could have taken longer,” Li said.
“Di’ao Xin Xue Kang contains only a single portion of traditional medicine, which makes the research much easier than for a compound medicine, so we decided to use it in our first attempt at the EU market.”
Chen Keji, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and chairman of the Chinese Association of Integrative Medicine, said identifying the active substances is essential when applying to enter the EU market.
“In China, we currently do not have so strict requirements on the study of active substances, especially in compound medicines,” Chen said. “For example, a TCM doctor may add or take out some herbs in prescriptions for different patients.”
“However, the healing principle is similar in TCM and Western medicine, so it’s best we find out the effective parts in all medicines.”
Liu Jun, chief engineer of the research department of Guangzhou Qixing Pharmaceutical Company, said the basic research into active substances started in 2011, and will take at least another year to finish.
“We are likely to promote our Xiaoyaowan and Biyanpian medicines next. Both are compound medicines,” Liu said. “Compared with Di’ao Xin Xue Kang, the compound medicine is more complicated, so it takes time.”
US strategy boosts visas for Chinese
The United States, hoping to rev up its economy through greater travel from China, is on the way to meeting President Barack Obama’s 2012 goal of a 40 percent boost in the processing of visas from the country. # years ago it was very hard to get a visa to the United States. I figure 6 out of 10 got one. now a days it looks like 9 out of 10 get visas to the United States.
US consular officials in China issued more than 453,000 visas in the current fiscal year’s first half (October-March) compared with 310,000 during the first six months of fiscal 2011, a 46 percent increase, the State Department disclosed on Wednesday. They have figured out the Chinese go to the United States to go shopping, The average China consumer will spend between 5-7,000 USD on their trip to the United States.
As part of its “Jobs Diplomacy” agenda, the department has been stepping up visa processing because travelers are an important economic engine for the US.
Earlier this year, Obama called for a national strategy to make the US the world’s top travel and tourism destination, to generate jobs and revitalize the still-recovering economy. Now a days it looks like the US consulate is rubber stamping everyone to the United States. The economy in China is better than in the United States. Everyone wants to go shopping and then go home to China.
More than 1 million US jobs could be created over the next decade if the US increases its share of the international travel market, officials estimate.
Among other initiatives, the State Department has cut the average waiting time to five days for Chinese applicants seeking an interview for a US visa. The department is also considering the addition of visa-issuance services in Wuhan.
To further streamline processing, the department recently dispatched its first group of “consular adjudicators” to consulates in China to help regular Foreign Service employees. The new hires undergo similarly rigorous security screening as the more traditional diplomats but are recruited based on their Mandarin-language skills.
The Chinese mainland is on its way to becoming the leading source of cross-border tourism in the world, according to a report last week by the National Tourism Administration and China Tourism Academy.
Mainland tourists made 70 million trips to foreign countries, as well as to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan last year, up 22 percent from 2010.
Jiang Yiyi, director of China Tourism Academy’s International Tourism Development Institute and one of the main compilers of the report, said that figure was 1.2 times the number of US citizens who traveled abroad in 2011.
“The US’ visa application process was really inconvenient in China, particularly for those who do not live in Beijing and Shanghai,” Zhao Jie, 28, who has lived in New Orleans since 2008, told China Daily on Wednesday.
“My friends used to waste their flight tickets back home in other cities because the visa application interview got delayed in Beijing,” she said.
“US citizens should not only take Chinese tourists’ money but also furnish more convenient and comfortable conditions to win over Chinese tourists’ hearts,” said Cao Xi, a 28-year-old Beijing resident who chose the US for her honeymoon destination three years ago.
“I would like to visit the US again to celebrate our marriage anniversary this year if the visa application could be much easier,” she said.
The State Department initiatives also include Brazil. US consular officials in that country issued more than 555,000 visas in the first half of fiscal 2012, a 59 percent increase from the same period a year earlier.
ATV boss takes rap over Jiang gaffe
Asia Television’s major shareholder Wang Zheng – who denied being the source of the station’s false report on the death of former president Jiang Zemin last year – is headed for the exit. Hong Kong – ATV’s major shareholder Wong Ching and executive director James Shing Pan Yu may bow out after the station misreported the death of former PRC president Jiang Zeimin last year.
The Broadcasting Authority, which fined the troubled broadcaster a record HK$300,000 in December, is still investigating the blunder which stunned the nation – but it is understood the authority will not wrap up its probe prior to its merger with the Office of the Telecommunications Authority to form the Communications Authority.
This “super regulator” will take up the ATV saga in one of its first major tasks next month and the station could well be held responsible – giving Wang no alternative but to step down, according to a source.
Despite being the major investor in ATV, Wang is not eligible to run a broadcaster under current regulations.
But media reports have speculated that Wang – who describes himself as a “consultant” to his cousin, executive director James Shing Pan-yu – is directly involved in day-to-day operations.
It has also been alleged that an unnamed investor has interfered in ATV’s news department. After reporting the death of retired state leader Jiang Zemin last July, ATV retracted the broadcast following a strong denial by the official Xinhua News Agency. All of this has not yet been proven and so far it’s all hear say.
On the day of the broadcast, the station also changed its orange logo to gray with Wang’s approval. But Wang, said to be a relative of Jiang, said later he learned about the purported scoop only after the news cast.
Two senior news executives – senior vice president of news and public affairs Leung Ka-wing and his deputy, vice president Tammy Tam Wai-yee – resigned from the station shortly after the hugely embarrassing blunder. They did not name any names on the way out.
Refusing to take responsibility, Leung said at the time he made an “all- out effort” to stop the broadcast.
He refused to disclose who in management had insisted that the report be aired, but he hinted that the person who actually relayed the news was “just a messenger” and that someone more senior was behind it.
But executive director Shing said senior management – including himself, Wang and vice president Kwong Hoi- ying – were not the source.
Announcing the fine last year, the regulator said it was senior vice president Kwong Hoi-ying who pushed the news team to broadcast the report of Jiang’s death. The authority’s chairman, senior counsel Ambrose Ho Pui- him, will chair the new watchdog.
An ATV spokesman denied that staff had held a meeting yesterday to discuss Wang’s impending departure.
China to phase out prisoner organ donation
BEIJING — China will abolish the transplanting of organs from executed prisoners within five years and try to spur more citizens to donate, a top health official says.
Rights groups call transplants from condemned prisoners a form of abuse and allege that the government, which executes far more people than any other nation, pressures them to donate organs. The government, however, says prisoners volunteer, and that the change is being made because prisoners are less healthy than the general population.
The official Xinhua News Agency quoted Vice Health Minister Huang Jiefu as saying Thursday that prisoner organ donations are not ideal because condemned inmates have high rates of fungal and bacterial infections.
“Therefore, the long-term survival rates for people with transplanted organs in China are always below those of people in other countries,” Xinhua paraphrased Huang as saying.
Organ donations from condemned prisoners will be abolished within five years, Xinhua quoted Huang as saying at a conference in Hangzhou in eastern China.
Xinhua said hospitals will instead rely on a national organ donation system that is being set up. It said trial systems have already been launched in 16 provinces.
China refuses to say how many prisoners it puts to death each year. Amnesty International estimates it is in the thousands, far more than the executions in all other countries combined. The San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation estimates that China executed 5,000 people in 2009. They should not stop it only because they committed a crime and now they should help society out and give something back.
China dismisses Bo Xilai as head of party in Chongqing
BEIJING — Bo Xilai, a man recently seen as headed for the center of power in China, was removed from his office as the Chinese Communist Party chief of the mega-city of Chongqing, a stunning turnabout for one of the nation’s most controversial politicians.
A terse statement posted Thursday morning on a website run by the official Xinhua news service said that Bo would be replaced in Chongqing by the nation’s vice premier, Zhang Dejiang. It did not specify whether Bo also would lose his seat on the nation’s 25-member politburo.
Bo’s dismissal appeared to be part of a power struggle beneath the surface of China’s ruling elite. Bo was widely seen as a leading candidate to be appointed this year for the standing committee of the politburo, a promotion that would have put him at the center of power in the second-largest economy in the world.
There was widespread speculation that Bo’s rise made some senior Chinese Communist Party leaders nervous. He was famous, or infamous, depending on the audience, for launching a populist political campaign in Chongqing that combined both anti-corruption crackdowns and a revival of Mao Zedong-era culture.
On Wednesday, Premier Wen Jiabao warned that unless the nation continued to pursue political reform, it risked sliding into turbulence like that of the Cultural Revolution, a chaotic period sparked by Mao that displaced, injured or killed millions beginning in 1966.
Those highly unusual remarks by Wen — the Cultural Revolution is rarely discussed openly — appeared at the time to in part be a condemnation of Bo’s approach. That impression was cemented by the announcement Thursday morning.
Bo’s ascent to power had taken a heavy blow in early February after his former police chief showed up at an American consulate, spent the night and, perhaps, sought asylum. The former security head, Wang Lijun, was placed under central government investigation. A separate Xinhua item on Thursday morning said the central government had also decided to remove Wang from the position of vice mayor of Chongqing.
Bo’s political fate remained uncertain in the aftermath. He made the journey to Beijing for the annual rubber stamp National People’s Congress this month and, except for a missed meeting, gave no obvious signs of being on the way out.
Bo’s political fate remained uncertain in the aftermath. He made the journey to Beijing for the annual rubber stamp National People’s Congress this month and, except for a missed session, gave no obvious signs of being on the way out.
At a news conference on the sidelines of the People’s Congress last Friday, Bo said he was surprised by the events surrounding Wang Lijun and acknowledged poor management on his part. Bo said he wanted it known that he was not under investigation and that he had not offered to resign. He also sought to clear up other reports that he said were false, including his family’s wealth and sightings of his son driving a red Ferrari.
Bo also warned that the widening wealth divide in China could mean the nation going down “a wrong road.” He extolled Chongqing as an example of a place that was seeking to address those dangers.
On Wednesday, Wen Jiabao also referred to problems like income disparity in China and their links to social tensions. But he, and other Chinese leaders, apparently did not think that Bo, who favored a resurgence of Maoist culture, was the right man for the job.
Probe after formula report raises fears in China
A REPORT by a Hong Kong-based research firm that said a brand of infant formula failed Chinese mainland standards for protein content has sparked an investigation in Shanghai. China’s track record on baby formula is very bad.
The city’s Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision told Shanghai Daily it was investigating because the report had raised fears among local consumers. The fear their only child is not getting the right safe food is very scary.
In its report, CER Research said tests showed that a sample of Abbott Similac Stage 1 purchased from a Hong Kong supermarket in December contained much lower levels of whey and higher levels of casein than allowed on the mainland China.
The firm released the details on its website with the headline: “A first step towards malnutrition.”
Its report said excess casein could lead to diarrhea, intestinal bleeding and kidney problems alongside malnutrition.
The report aroused public concern over the weekend as many Chinese parents purchase formula from markets outside the Chinese mainland. It;s hard to even get the right formula in China. After the incident in Japan with the release of nuclear material in the air. Japan baby formula may not be that safe either.
However, Abbott China hit back, calling the report “utterly and deliberately misleading.”
In a lawyer’s letter sent to CER Research, it said: “The claim that Abbott formulas do not meet the mainland standards is simply unfounded and false. Abbott products sold in the mainland meet all regulations. Each batch of Abbott infant formula sold in the mainland has been cleared by all government tests.” China standards are not like world standards.
Hong Kong, unlike the mainland, has no standards covering the ratio of whey and casein.
Abbott has demanded an immediate public apology and removal of the report from CER’s website. The formula producer also warned it would take legal action against CER for jeopardizing its trust among consumers and harming the reputation of the brand.
Mainland standards rule that the whey to casein ratio in infant formula should be 60 to 40 percent with whey content being no less than 60 percent.
In response, CER Research said that its samples “were tested by one of the world’s top food testing laboratories in Germany” and cited “comments from named top experts.”
However, five of the six Chinese and foreign doctors and nutritionists said by the report to have endorsed its conclusions have now accused CER Research of misleading them when they were asked for comments.
Professor Chen Yuming, a pediatric doctor at the Public Health and Nutrition College of Zhongshan University in Guangzhou City, said he had been asked to comment on a nutritional topic and was not aware of the report and its findings. “I was used deliberately,” he said.
Andrew Day, a pediatrics professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand, told Guangzhou Daily that his name and comment were used without his knowledge.
He told the newspaper he was not aware of any objective data to support the title or the conclusions of the report.
Apple factories are better than the garment factories in China
Apple iPad plant conditions better than the norm: agency
Working conditions at Chinese manufacturing plants where Apple Inc’s iPads and iPhones are made are far better than those at garment factories or other facilities elsewhere in the country, according to the head of a non-profit agency investigating the plants. Apple is under the gun because they are one of the most successful companies doing business in China. So many other factories have worse conditions but are not famous so they under the microscope. As I noticed before the government would never allow slave labor now a days. If you don’t like the pay you don’t have to work.
The Fair Labor Association (FLA) is beginning a study of the working conditions of Apple’s top eight suppliers in China, following reports of worker suicides, a plant explosion and slave-like conditions at one of those suppliers, Foxconn Technology Group.
Auret van Heerden, president of the FLA offered no immediate conclusions on the working conditions, but he noted that boredom and alienation could have contributed to the stress that led some workers to take their own lives. Everyone in the world is not satisfied with what they are paid.
In addition to Foxconn, FLA investigators will later visit facilities of Quanta Computer Inc, Pegatron Corp, Wintek Corp and other suppliers, who are notoriously tight-lipped about their operations.
After his first visits to Foxconn, van Heerden said, “The facilities are first-class; the physical conditions are way, way above average of the norm.”
He spent the past several days visiting Foxconn plants to prepare for the study.
“I was very surprised when I walked onto the floor at Foxconn, how tranquil it is compared with a garment factory,” he said. “So the problems are not the intensity and burnout and pressure-cooker environment you have in a garment factory. . It’s more a function of monotony, of boredom, of alienation perhaps.”
He noted that the organization has been dealing with suicides in Chinese factories since the 1990s. The factories run well, it’s just the Chinese that are not use to working hard, they don’t like the system, they want more money than other factories pay because they build I pads.
“You have lot of young people, coming from rural areas, away from families for the first time,” he said. “They’re taken from a rural into an industrial lifestyle, often quite an intense one, and that’s quite a shock to these young workers.
“And we find that they often need some kind of emotional support, and they can’t get it,” he added. Factories initially didn’t realize those workers needed emotional support.”
Van Heerden dismissed the notion that his organization might paint a cursory and positive picture of Apple’s suppliers.
Companies that join the FLA abide by rigorous commitments, and their interests are balanced by non-governmental organizations and more than 200 universities that sit on the board of the organization with the corporations, he said.
FLA evolved from a group originally convened by U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1996 with the goal of reducing sweatshop labor around the world. Its board includes executives from sneaker companies Nike and Adidas.
“Apple didn’t need to join the FLA,” he said. “The FLA system is very tough. It involves unannounced visits, complete access, public reporting.
“If Apple wanted to take the easy way out there were a whole host of options available to them,” he added. “The fact that they joined the FLA shows they were really serious about raising their game.”
RESPONSES ENTERED ON IPADS
Some 30 FLA staff members are visiting two Foxconn factories in Shenzhen in southern China and one in the central city of Chengdu. Each plant has about 100,000 workers, although not all work on Apple products.
Over three weeks, some 35,000 workers will be interviewed about 30 at a time to answer questions anonymously, entering their responses onto Apple iPads.
Questions will include:
* how the workers were hired
* if they were paid a fee
* if they were offered and signed contracts and whether they understood them
* the condition of their dorm rooms and food
* if complaints are acted upon
* their emotional well being
The data will be uploaded immediately and consolidated, and an interim report will be made public in early March.
The eventual FLA report will identify areas the suppliers need to improve and offer suggestions, van Heerden said.
“There might not be a clear policy on hiring, that could lead unwittingly to discrimination against hepatitis B sufferers,” he said as an example.
“There might not be adequate documentation that could lead to the risk that workers get hired with fake documentation, that underage workers come in . We can recommend very specific actions they can take.”
There is also the thin line. Once they pay to much to the workers and the factories are not competitive, production will move out of China to other countries.
