What can we do to stop the companies from exploiting the Chinese laborers?

Well, to solve the problem with the exploitation of Chinese laborers, you must first look at what is creating the issue and then try to work out what can be done about that. In my text Why is there exploitation of humans in China? I have found three major problems that I believe to be the ones causing the situation in China. The first problem is that there is a large part of the Chinese population that are poor and they cannot get out of poverty because of the Hukou system and the factories attempts to put them in debt. The second problem is that the companies do not care about their Chinese workers or anything else but money. Lastly there is the issue with the lack of education in workers rights and international standards. So, to attack the issue with the exploitation of Chinese laborers, you must first try to solve these sub problems.

In order to sort this situation out, I believe that you need to get the Chinese workers out of debt. Starting with the factories systematic way of putting their workers in debt. When the workers are in debt, they have no chance of putting away money for the future and therefore they have no opportunity of getting out of the viscous circle of exploitation. I think that the solution to this is to make it harder for the factories to find loopholes that make it possible for them to fine their workers. You must legislate laws that make it illegal for the factories to fine their workers for the time they are missing from work. Sure, the workers are not entitled to their pay if they do not work, but they should not have to pay additional money to the factory for each minute that they are missing. Neither should it be allowed for the factories to keep the first payment of a worker. I have a hard time believing that this could be legal in China, but the problem is not that the authorities are unaware of the problem. The issue is that they know about this and they chose to do nothing. The authorities probably also know that the taking of the first payment is a crucial part of putting the workers in dept and thereby keeping the system of exploitation running. The state has done nothing about it because they want the exploitation to continue. The cheap labor is what is giving China so much business. Therefore I do not believe that this will be solved by informing the Chinese state of the problem, because everyone involved in this already knows about it. My solution would be to make those who are not involved aware of the problem. Revealing this to other countries and to human-rights organizations so that they can put pressure on China to scrutinize the factories and make sure that they follow the laws. The problem with this is that countries and organizations must already be aware of this. How could they not if I know this? What they might not see though, is the connection between the taking of the first payment and the continuing of the exploitation in China. Emphasizing that this is one of the key factors in all this might be what has to be done.

The second thing concerning the debt problem is the Hukou system. Due to this system, the workers get even more indebted. The poor people in the country side must move in order to have any chance of finding an employment. Most of the jobs are in the cities, but if they move there, they lose their rights to medical care and education. Free medical care is important, because if you get sick and you have no free healthcare you will have to pay medicine and hospital bills with your own money. We all get sick sometimes, so these expenses are basically inevitable. Additional expenses are not what the laborers need! The other problem with the Hukou system is that when you move you also lose your right to education. Education usually leads to a better job and the chance to make a career. When you lose the right to free education and you have very little money, studies are not what you normally prioritize. With no further education the possibility of you getting a well paid job and getting out of poverty is not likely. Therefore, in order to help the laborers not to attract debts, the Hukou system should be abolished. I think that the initial purpose with the Hukou system was to stop some of the urbanization, but today it serves as a system to put the workers in debt too. That is why it is not terminated even though it is very damaging for the rights of factory workers. The thing to do here is to inform countries and organizations about this and make the world put pressure on the Chinese state to abolish the Hukuo system. Though, I have a hard time believing that enough countries and organizations would care to make China change. Another solution could then be to lend money to these laborers, to start up a little bank for the poor. Organizations interested in helping could lend out enough money for the laborers to get an education or to pay of debts.

In order to solve the problem of the exploitation the issue of the companies' capitalism must be tackled. The companies care most about profits, sad but true. This is one of the factors that contribute to the exploitation problem. If money is all the companies care about, you must make profits the factor that will bring on the change. How can you do economical sanctions against the companies? If media starts to pay a lot of attention to the issue of the exploitation, maybe the rest of the world would react and put pressure on the companies. But then again, media has already payed attention to the exploitation of humans, and thing has not changed more then a little. I do not think that people care all that much about what is said in the media. You always hear of disasters and injustices in the news. One more bad piece of news gets forgotten and overlooked because it does not stand out. The media is therefore not the answer, we need to get the information out in ways that gets to people. If we were to do a project where we involved writers and movie makers, that might be the answer. I believe that when people get emotionally connected to things, they are more keen to get involved. Movies and book are all about getting people emotionally involved in a story. I believe that this would benefit both the exploited workers, since they would get attention from the world and hopefully help with that, and the writers, because people care more for stories who are based on truth. With the attention gained, the companies would have to do something about their production to get consumers to continue to buy their products. Bad publicity for a major company can be devastating and severely lower the sale rate. If the companies do not take action to improve the workers' conditions and show the world the betterment people will stop buying what they sell and they will lose all they have. They need to care about their workers in order to not go bankrupt.

The third problem that I believe that we need to solve, is the one about education. Uneducated do not have the same chance of making a career as well-read people. But how are we to get China to work harder for their people to receive an education? As things are right now, the state is benefiting from people having little education. The answer is to remove the factor that is making it beneficial for China to have no education and thereby an abundance of cheap labor, which is the demand for it. Changing the way that the companies and we consumers think, so that we no longer want masses of cheap products is a hard thing to do. What might be easier to do is to upgrade the Chinese way of production. We could give China a better alternative to exploiting humans. The thing I am thinking of is to start up projects to help China develop their use of industrial machines. One part of it might even be to donate machines to the Chinese factories. This will of course deprive a lot of the factory workers of their job, but that might not be a bad thing. Those who do get to remain as staff in the factories will probably get much more in wage, since they are less workers there but they still have the same production rate. The ones who become unemployed will probably move back home where they are entitled to free education. With no jobs at hand, the only thing there is to do is study. Once you are educated you will be able to take employments that you were not able to before your studies. Also, the jobs you can get, thanks to an education, is almost always better paid then those employments who do not require a scholar background. The ones who have a job will have a much better economical situation and if one group in today's society get better standards of living other groups tend to follow. Since those who have a job have more money than before, they will spend more than before. If people spend more money, the people that they are purchasing services and goods from get a higher income. When these merchants get wealthier they will in turn start to buy more, and so on, and so on... Of course this is not a radical process that will happen over a night. It is not like the introduction of industrial machines into the Chinese factories is going to fix every ones economical situation in the blink of an eye. It will take some time. One thing that might speed things up a bit is the possible abolition of the Hukuo system. When people no longer migrate to the cities in masses, the need for the Hukuo system might not longer be necessary. If the people no longer have to move to the cities to work at the factories the increase in urbanization will level out. The point of the Hukuo system is to slow down the migration into cities and since it has already decelerate, you could get rid of it. This will create security for the entire nation, and I am sure that the number of employments required within the medical- and education-sector will increase, once everyone has access to free healthcare and education. When the level of education and the standard of living get higher in a nation, the nativity rate often go down.

I believe that in order for China to develop, things must get worse before the can get better. The unemployment will first rise, due to the introduction of the industrial machines, and a lot of people will be desperate for a job. Poverty and economical depression will expand. The employments that do exist requires an education and these unemployed people will therefore have to study in order to be hired. Once they have received an education they are entitled to jobs with much higher salaries then before and they will have a much better situation economically. When they have money they can afford birth-control pills and other protecting supplements preventing a pregnancy. The nativity rate in China will start to go down and so will the population increase. In the main time, the people with higher wages starts to purchase more and more, thus simulating the national economy and thereby generating more jobs. So as the population decreases, the number of employments increases.

There really is no simple solution to the problem with the exploitation of factory workers in China. For there to be a change there must be a conjoint effort from the Chinese government, other countries, organization and the exploited workers themselves. These solutions that I have given is just that, my solutions, or rather my theories about what will lead to the solving of the problem. Others might come to different conclusions. But I think we can all agree that the most important thing, if there is going to be a change, is that there has to be the will to make alterations. The Chinese government, the other countries, the organization and the exploited workers must want to make a change and we, the world, have to help them.