Tom's Hardware Visits PCPartner In Dongguan, China

[Guest]

I implore anyone here to actually visit a place like China. And get away from the tourist spots. Take a van to the inner areas of China and see what it's like. The places where these manufacturing factories are located are literally in the middle of nowhere. There is NO local economy. The factory is everything. And it pays twice as much as working at a retail store. People need to get their facts straight. And no, Gizmodo is not a real "source." Talk to some or better yet, go to China. You'll realize that if you grew up in China, were a single female, you'd go through the roof if you landed a job like this. Many of these females make as much as an entry level college grad.

 

[FloKid]

I feel sad for those people working there. It makes the industry so less impressive, and electronics like video cards less exciting. I almost feel like I should never buy PC stuff at all... Such slavery it's sickening.

 

[beeboy]

Just echoing what others have said....
Please lose the "read more" thing. Please.

 

[mariush]

For as long as I can remember, folks complained about the previous layout, which forced refreshing the page for every picture. I pushed and pushed and got the dev team in France to fix that. Now we have this one, which isn't perfect, but is still significantly better.

I'm trying to keep the writers working on captions that are short enough so as to not overflow, causing the "Read more" prompt. Many of the captions for this piece don't. For the ones that do, sorry!
Best,
Chris

As long as you talk to the developers, please also tell them to fix the email notifications and the whole message system below articles.

Now, i get notified new posts are made on this article/image gallery and the links are something like this :

tomshardware.com/picturestory/573-zotac-pcpartner-factory.html#t5614

There is #t5614, which would make the browser scroll down to that specific post, IF the post is on the first page. Right now, this particular post is on the second or third message page so nothing happens when people click on the link in the email.

Also, the messages posted in the forum don't mix with the ones posted on the article page - I get notified someone posted a message yet the message doesn't appear in the article comments. I have to click on the link "Read the forums" or something above the article comments.

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

I implore anyone here to actually visit a place like China. And get away from the tourist spots. Take a van to the inner areas of China and see what it's like. The places where these manufacturing factories are located are literally in the middle of nowhere. There is NO local economy. The factory is everything. And it pays twice as much as working at a retail store. People need to get their facts straight. And no, Gizmodo is not a real "source." Talk to some or better yet, go to China. You'll realize that if you grew up in China, were a single female, you'd go through the roof if you landed a job like this. Many of these females make as much as an entry level college grad.

I am in China.
For the moment and yes the pay level is actually much higher than one might say.

Around 4000rmb.

 

[aaron88_7]

If there wasn't already a good reason why we (US) should not be doing business with China this article gives an excellent reason why. Our manufacturing jobs cannot possibly compete with a government that allows companies to enslave their employees, keeping them away from their families on company grounds.

Sure, this job might be great if you live in China, but in America we call this slave labor and nobody would accept those living conditions. This is why we need to eliminate free trade agreements that ship our manufacturing jobs over seas where unions and high quality of life just don't exist.

The next time you go shopping look to see where it's made. It's almost impossible to find things made in America, but at least buy things made from countries that have democratically elected leaders. Don't send your money to a country that enslaves their workers while their government engages in cyber warfare with the rest of the world.

 

[Guest]

Have you noticed the bracelet with wire at the hand of worker (pic19)?
It measures heart beat.
If worker dies, central computer registers that there's no signal anymore from particular place, and they can quickly replace the worker,
so the factory does not suffer from outages.

 

[slicedtoad]

[citation][nom]user13[/nom]Have you noticed the bracelet with wire at the hand of worker (pic19)?It measures heart beat.If worker dies, central computer registers that there's no signal anymore from particular place, and they can quickly replace the worker,so the factory does not suffer from outages.[/citation]
Heartbeat? looks like an anti static bracelet.

 

[mindbreaker]

I don't understand you people. Slavery? Get real...they chose to work there and they can chose to quit if they like. It looks like a clean factory and what is wrong with 8 hours or even 10? Consider that we have long commutes that we are not payed for and you have to dive to somewhere for lunch or take a sack. That stuff adds time and frustration. A little more work, but just as much free time. The job is monotonous enough you can daydream the whole day. I think manufacturing is beautiful. I guess we should just close-up all the rest of those "horrible" auto factories and every other factory in the USA...you are imbeciles. Heck, I think I would really enjoy factory work. Service jobs...now those suck. How about running the returns counter at Wal-Mart, selling shoes, or data entry?
Oh, I am so sure they had it better before...trudging around on some farm walking in buffalo crap in bear feet, doing everything they are told by daddy. Fetch that bucket sew those seeds. Which is slavery...you tell me? I envy the sense of accomplishment they must feel at the end of each day...like I said production is beautiful.
It might be nice to rotate jobs...but who knows...maybe they do.

 

[aaron88_7]

[citation][nom]mindbreaker[/nom]I don't understand you people. Slavery? Get real...they chose to work there and they can chose to quit if they like.[/citation]
Yea....they can choose to work at this factory with god knows what kinds of hazardous materials exposed, or they can choose to starve to death. What wonderful options these people have!

 

[spookyman]

And this company gets to ship its goods to the USA with not paying taxes. Add in poor treatment of workers and environment.

 

[Guest]

Get off your high horses. Bottom line is, do you want to pay $50 dollar for your video card for $150? If you want your card made in an American factory with workers having full medical and dental benefits, insurance, 401K, $25/hour union wages, get ready to fork over triple the cash for your computer parts. You may not mind, but 99% of consumers do. That's why made in China is the only way you can compete. Made in USA will go out of business because consumers will not choose to be patriotic in exchange for a significant drop in their purchasing power. Save the environment? Joe and Jane would rather have a few extra shirts, a bigger flat screen and a few more gadgets.

 

[baddad]

2000 RMB 310 us, 4000 RMB 621 US, that's not a week that's a month.

 

[Guest]

I have visited factories in US and I work in factory in China. Honestly, the workers are working similarly. I think US worker are even more dedicated and hard working. China workers are relatively not as good (believe it or not, that is what I saw).

China operators do work long hours but in general, they do not feel bad. They are happy with the OT pay they get. It may be not a good job by US standard but can be worst if they are out of work.

I heard that Foxconn squeeze the performance of their staff (for example, production supervisors) so the supervisors in order to perform, they are hard on the workers. They paid their staff better so to keep their people and their operation is effective.

I know many will say I am bullshit but I just stated the facts. It is how people interpret it. I must say I don't like Foxconn myself.

 

[Guest]

nice

 

[Guest]

As we westerns call Asians slaves they call us lazy and sometimes dumb but for now they rather call us just consumers. No western could ever try to adapt to their working conditions, match their productivity or even creativity. When I say Asians I also mean Japanese/Koreans who are smarter than Chinese as they have to develop new products that we haven't even imagined yet like online gadgets and now even robots (we could be seeing those on this site 10 years from now). As Japanese/Koreans are the brain behind it the Chinese are the muscle which is why they get a much smaller paycheck. They're not slaves but simply workaholics that never complain, That's how most Asians are.

There are Asians who would rather leave their jobs and come overseas hoping to get a better life but then they would face job discrimination and be forced to work on even worst conditions to help sustain an economy of a foreign country. So importing those workers instead of their products to replace the less productive Mexicans could solve your economy problem but they could send all your American money back to their home country where their family live. Their family could come live with them to spend your money on your country but then all the Chinese would come to live and work here but most Americans don't want that. That's why some have built borders. That's your dilemma.

I don't think getting oil and money from abroad and using to buy Chinese products will make any difference on your economy crisis. Maybe trying to buy your own products with your own money could help but then you would be paying more for less quality. Unless people try to work like "Chinese slaves" but that would sound more like "communism" than "free trade" which would make another American dilemma.

It's funny how our so beloved "free trade" laws feared by the eastern from the past have became now a world wide trend. And those who feared before, now worship and have became experts on how to use it to their own advantage. If eastern ever saw "fair trade" as a threat so then maybe this threat is now turned back against us. It's all a small price to pay for a global economy under development. No white or black political leader could change what is happening in the world which is why the Chinese don't mind about electing their own leader.

All we can do now is to adapt to it before is too late. That's right I mean work like "Chinese slaves" or at least wait till the Japanese start selling those robots to do all the hard work for us but then we would be without jobs and where we would get our money from? That's another long story

I sure would like to see a robot manufacturing process made by robots in here 10 years from now. But then some people might complain about the robot working conditions.

Till then I will keep buying cheap hardware from china so then I don’t have to work hard like a Chinese to buy a computer

 

[blotter56]

When you think of China you must remember there are 3billion chinese. We can not compete against a workforce that huge. That's why labor cost are so low, they just have to many people in their workforce pool they can hire from.