China Workers Striking For Higher Pay

Maybe it means that we will get flooded by cheap american products in the near future?

You maybe flood by the products but doubt they will be cheap.

What we usually do is find another nation to replace them until they catch on. As it seems the Chinese people have started to.

The strikes are by the more skilled laborers.

Your basic laborers are supplied by the gulags. As long as the inmates are supplying labor needs for many companies in China, we'll have a long time to wait for them to catch up to us in wages.

But that's exactly the kind of work we want coming back home, isn't it?

We don't seem to have a lack of unskilled labor...

Well, until they shut down the southern border anyway. (fat chance)

Hooker

Since globalization started gutting American manufacturing... labor history will always repeats itself. At some point laborers realize that the products don't get produced without them. It was easier in our country for labor to organize, but I do think at some point if people think they are being taken advantage of, somebody eventually tries to organize them and get them to realize the power they have. It will, also, eventually happen here with what is considered "cheap" labor, primarily from Mexico.

This is all very unfortunate. The middle class in this country took a big hit when manufacturers decided to replace them with cheap labor. But I know at some point the cheap labor will want a standard of living better than cheap rates provide -- especially if living in this country. Most people like to progress in their lives. For companies to think cheap labor will last forever is naive and tragic, in that, they helped wreck so many American lives only to find that the cheap labor will not be cheap forever.

I did some work for the Quality Division of a company that supplied parts to a big box store that used to have a slogan "lower prices every day". This customer of theirs came to them multiple times a year to tell them what the new price would be. They went from Mexico to Taiwan to China to Vietnam for outsource manufacturing by the time I worked with them. The combination of higher labor prices as everyone moved along the same path and a consumer expectation that prices should go down over time was painful.

All the laborers in other countries know that people in the United States were getting paid more for the same type of work. However, there is a big difference in cost of living expenses.

In China, for years they were getting paid what they were told they were getting paid. Now that the Government is letting the companies keep some of their profits, that has opened a whole new door. About 10 years ago I had the opportunity to have a speaker from China talk to us. He was one of China's first new millionaires since it became communist, and he made his money through an Amway program called Quikstar.

The people know their companies are making more money and keeping it, since they have become major players in the global economy and commerce so it is only natural they be compensated a little more fairly.

The people in China are not socially repressed like you would think from our media. Yes they've had a couple big incidents but they recreate and do everything we do in their daily lives. For every incident that has taken place over their against their people I can come up with something from here in the USA to match. Their lives aren't much different from ours.

Absolutely agree. Although my previous post implies it I didn't intend to say that workers where the cheapest labor is (today) are necessarily repressed economically or socially (although many times they are). Because of the cost of living and living conditions, working for an outsource manufacturer can be an attractive position relative to other local options. Also, as you state, as they see what is available to their non-local counterparts their expectations change and wage pressure increases. As friction related to communication, capital movement, consumer goods decreases the time related to changing expectations decreases. Then there is pressure on infrastructure (e.g. roads in Shanghai when lots of people bought cars at once).

If they could only read your post!