All the Prerequisites

Ok, today we’re off to the Canton Fair, hopefully. If you’re not from around here I’ll let you know the main expressway from Dongguan to Guangzhou is closed for repair, seems it’s mostly an elevated highway, and one of the support piers sank by about a meter on the northbound side. So, you have to take trusty National Road 107 all the way up. Turns a 45 minute drive into a 2 plus hour drive. Fun for all.

Anyway, today’s subjects. All the stuff that has to be in a blog about China in one easy post. These subjects have already been covered to death elsewhere, so I'll just mention them in passing.

New Labor Law: Attended a seminar given by the British Chamber of Commerce on this subject, I need to get a copy of the PowerPoint presentation, but what it amount to is mostly enforcing employment contracts, and giving the workers more protections. Also lays out the work days and hours, and states employees get time off after a year, etc.

Seems, as stated by the Britcham folks the big multi—national corporations and the large factories are already following, for the most part, these laws, and other than a couple more HR people, won’t be having the 30 to 30 percent labor increase a lot of factories are crying about. I do know one of my previous employers followed the laws very closely, and I don’t see where it would increase their cost much. They already paid well above minimum wage, and followed the contract law closely. Another former employer, well, that would be a different story. Office hours 12 hours a day 6 days a week, etc. They’re gonna have higher costs.

Funny thing, an expat like me, who is pretty much “local” gets covered by the same laws possibly. See how that one works.

So, seems that the factories that are complaining about higher costs weren’t following the rules to begin with, and now may be forced to. Forgive me if I don’t’ shed much of a tear, I’ve seen factories like that and I don’t mourn their loss.

I’ll probably write more later on this subject, but it gets it out of the way for now.

Next subject Tibet

Ok, first, when a large part of the population starts with rioting, looting, and such, uh, you send in the troops to quiet it down. You don’t say “oh, it’s Tibet, and it’s a shame to send in the troops because they feel oppressed, lets just let them be and let them burn businesses, cut off people’s ears and burn people in their houses” You Tube, as prolific as it is, tends to cut through what ever censorship issues a government ma have, and the videos showing rioting aren’t staged. Any country experiencing rioting on that scale would do the same. I seem to remember the Rodney King incident in LA….

What didn’t work was the China PR after word, they could really use a better spin doctor. Not being used to being under media scrutiny, local and state officials haven’t gotten the PR thing down yet. I hear Carl Rove is looking for work.

Ok, enough for now, off to find out how to get someplace when the maps are inaccurate. Usually out of date by the day they are published. Plus, the maps are in Chinese.. which I can’t ready mostly.

All for now

Uncle Bob