Job Discussion Forums

[NoBillyNO]

[doogsville]

[wonderingjoesmith]

[NoBillyNO]

Corporate Responsibility and Corporate Social Responsibility often clash.

[MESL]

I get it. You're OK with eating the crumbs off the rich man's table. But do you have to play spin doctor for the rich man? It's call Stockholm Syndrome. Worse, you play amateur psychologist with me and indulge in psycho-babble.

[choudoufu]

[MESL]

[MisterButtkins]

[LarssonCrew]

Let's be honest here.

Most of us can make a 'comfortable' living here quite easily. 10,000 is not hard to find if you're willing to work a few hours, I can put in 2 days a week and a morning another day and walk away with 10000, 2 houses and 2 airfares, all because when I sent out a shed load of applications to fill my time I ended up with people asking me to work, if you come to me the price goes up.

I got like 180 an hour or something, not great but when I compare that with back home it's almost $30 now, so that's not a bad gig.

HOWEVER, choudoufu sees no problem with bosses absolutely rinsing it.

Let's put it this way.

I've never ever seen an industry that gives the employee such a small slice of a service industry in my life.

I worked my friends kindergarten job for a week, they had an after school club, they had 30[YES THIRTY!] 5 or 6 year olds in an hour long class, I got 180[reasonable I guess] , but then the parents give me an earful for letting them sing, why? Because the boss sold them the idea for 140 a class, that's 4200 RMB the kindergarten made, so I made what? about 4% of the total fees.

Back in the UK my friend runs a soccer coaching scheme, he pays his coaches roughly 30% of the cash paid by parents, 40% goes on renting the pitches and balls/cones etc, he gets the other 30% with which he must pay for advertising etc.

In this case the kindergarten is getting 96% of the money paid. Imagine a hair stylist in an upper class salon getting 30 customers paying $30 each and giving the person $4 for all that work, it wouldn't happen.

Even in McDonalds the staff costs are much higher than 4%.

Imagine if we could get the same 30% as my friend paid in the UK, I would be working away with 1200 per hour at least...

And before you say 'go open your own school.', no, here they lean it towards corruption and 'who you know'. Slide the principle some hard cash and he'll 'force' kids to go.

Also in the middle school I work the kids told me they have one month in the summer 'FORCED' classes. Whereby the standard teachers are asking them to pay 70 an hour [60 students in a class], that is what? Almost 5000 RMB PER HOUR that the teacher can get.

Do I get a slice of this action? No?

Why not?

I'm not Chinese...

[NoBillyNO]

[doogsville]

Okay, if there's anyone here who can give me a concrete example of any business that pays it's employees more than it absolutely needs to, then please share it. Again, I'm not saying it's right. I'm a communist in the true sense of the word. I believe that we are all equal and entitled to an equal slice of the cake. When I was a member of the UK Labour party thirty years ago, before I left because they became too right wing for my tastes, we had a quote from Karl Marx on the back of our membership cards. It said 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need'. Back then I believed that is how a civilised society should work, and I still believe it now.

The reality of the world we live in is very different however. People screw other people over each and every day, and they call it business, or capitalism. I think it's wrong, but I have to live with it. LarssonCrew, it may be the case that businesses outside of China have a much higher wage cost than inside, but isn't that why so many of them come here to do business? Are we going to pretend that Foxconn et al are paying a fare and decent wage? Of course they aren't, and the vast majority of their customers are western companies, not Chinese companies. Gap have clothes that are made by children in Bangladesh and other places. Do they pay those kids a fair wage? Do they cut the price of their clothes to reflect the cheapness of the labour cost? Of course not. Lets get real here.

Is there a business in the west or anywhere else in the world that would not jump at the chance to cut it's labour cost by any means necessary as long as it didn't mean losing business or to bad publicity going to jail? I don't think there is. What I am objecting to in this thread is not the exploitation visited on FT's or Chinese students and their families by corrupt school principals or owners. It's morally reprehensible and should be stopped. What I am objecting to is the way that this one example of the repugnant face of rampant capitalism is being decried on a public forum, when all the other examples that surround and affect us daily are being wilfully ignored. Do an inventory of what you own. How many of those things do you think were made by people living a good life and getting a fair wage? We live and work in a country where we know corruption and unfair treatment of people who can't defend themselves permeates every facet of our lives, day in and day out. But that's okay, as long as we the FT's get a fair share of the money that's being stolen from our students and their families. That is what feel I'm hearing here.

The point of this thread is not that what this guy is doing is wrong, it's that the poor FT that works for him is not getting a fair share of the pot. It stinks of rank hypocrisy and naked greed, exactly the qualities that the OP is accusing the boss of in the first place.

[choudoufu]

[MESL]

[MESL]

[doogsville]