A Human Rights Problem (© Calvin Voxx)
Page 3 Alex continued to watch the worker stare back at the small flashlight
the doctor held in his hand. Something about the worker's vacant stare made
Alex ill at ease. But then again, he reminded himself, the man probably was not
feeling well if he was in the infirmary. Perhaps he had hit his head, which
would explain why the doctor was testing his neurologic response. Alex had half
a mind to go back to and talk with the man, and he had no doubt that Liu would
have let him, but Alex reminded himself that he had precious little time on the
ground to conduct his survey, and spending his time talking to probable head
injury patients did not seem a productive use of it. Besides, the sight of a
worker getting what appeared to be adequate medical care in what was clearly a
clean and modern on-site infirmary was hardly the smoking gun of a child
manacled to a loom. He would need to refrain from leaping at nothing.
As they descended into the mine via bus, Liu continued his
well-polished pitch. "We see our workers as an investment," Liu repeated. "Unlike many
companies in China, we do not see them as expendable, interchangeable assets.
In fact, because our type of mining requires certain mental skills, we have a
strong incentive to retain our best miners and to keep them happy. Unlike in
the city, where you'll find companies are happy to discard their factory
workers and bring in replacements at a moment's notice, we want to continue to
nurture our workers to improve their performance." Alex watched the buses of fatigued, dirty miners coming off of their
shift pass by heading back up out of the mine as they descended. He tried to
imagine what was in their minds, how they viewed their situation. Was this job
an opportunity or was it exploitative? As a young man, such questions seemed so
simple, but as he had grown and traveled more, he learned that in fact the
answers to such questions were rarely straightforward at all. "—which is why we have a state-of-the-art research facility here, in
addition to mining," Liu was saying. "Our research into production processes
and performance allows us to learn what motivates our best performers, and use
those lessons to incentivize other workers. Since we implemented the program,
the result has been a tremendous increase in performance while decreasing
costs." Alex continued staring out the window, his face betraying no change in
emotion, but his heart quickened. This was why he was here. The mining division
of Xichou Enterprises had shown a three hundred percent increase in
productivity, all while dropping costs twenty percent, in just the last twelve
months. This had all been accomplished without any massive uptick in capital investment.
Suspecting potential worker abuse or perhaps just out-and-out fraud, Alex's
parent company had sent him to investigate. Meanwhile, he knew that teams of
accountants were pouring over Xichou's books back in Shanghai, looking for
irregularities. No one wanted to find out that their products were being
enabled by slave labor, a possible public relations disaster. But perhaps more
importantly, the corporate higher ups certainly wanted to be sure that they
weren't getting ripped off by sub-par components. Such switch-ups had not just
been known to occur, but were all too common. "For us," Liu said, "this is all motivated by profit. The backbone of
Xichou is its workers. You cannot lift a rock with a weakened spine. We must
stay strong, and in order to stay strong, we must take care of our people." Alex nodded. He turned from the window to look Liu head-on. "So what
has your research discovered?" he asked as innocently as possible. "What has
enabled your tremendous performance increases?" Liu launched back into his well-rehearsed marketing pitch about
optimization and understanding worker techniques, but it was clear that he
didn't really understand the underlying technology. Alex let him continue,
half-listening while he took in the broader sights of the mine in action. Once
Liu reached a pause in his pitch, Alex interjected, "Can we see the research
facility once we return to the surface? I'd like to learn more." "Of course," Liu said, with no hint of duplicity in his voice. Alex
nodded, Liu resumed chattering, and they continued the tour. [ Continue to page 4 ] |