For some reason, I find the chassis + rims hilarious.

As sad as the living conditions are, it looks like those dogs are sure having a blast! (Or choking on fiberglass...I can't tell)

Hey, I think I just found summer jobs for my kids!

...And I bet they offer Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Prada interior trim packages...

I think the funniest thing is our esteemed author's apparent expectations that we would find some sadness in this.

Reminds me of my days at Slingerland Drums (owned by Gibson) scuff sanding drum shells for 7 bucks and hour.. I was lucky though because I had my own apartment. These people are living in the factory? No protective gear? Aww!!

they should have the 100 yard dash through the fiberglass resin barefoot! go olympics!

Hopefully all the hooplah surroounding the upcoming Olympics will show some of the crap going on with labor practices....I play the guitar and theres a whirlwind of legal issues with knockoffs being passed of as the real McCoy on eBay with kids dishing out 1000 bucks for a knockoff that cost 200....where these kids get a grand I dont know but Im sad to say I have a few guitars made in China that were prob made under the same comditions as the workers above

It's like the worlds of Upton Sinclair, Thomas Friedman and Brock Yates have collided. It's pretty sobering to see how the other half lives.

Geez, looks like the Chinese could coin a whole new malady: "Labor-Lung".

I suppose those folks would otherwise be starving to death, but this doesn't seem to good on any level. I sure as shit hope the real Smart factory is more worker friendly, but of course I always picture it being run by Oompa-loompas.

Fiberous Lung Cancer....Official Disease of the 2008 Beijing Olympics!

How awesome would it be to work exactly 2" from your bed, nice commute FTW. And they can have dogs at work, looks pretty damn sweet to me.

@graverobber: this looks eerily similar to both my schools' model making shops. Except for sometimes we wouldn't even wear masks for the Bondo at my first school. The current one is much more careful about particulates and fumes... but still, it's a bunch of design kids trying to get stuff done as fast and as well as possible- health sacrifices are made.

So how do I send them a '57 DeSoto Adventurer along with detailed drawings so they can make me a whole shitload of new ones? There's gotta be a way.

@Bento: That's called Lunch playing with Dinner.

And the chassis looks like something I cobbled together in my basement in an attempt to build a cheap-assed Se7en kit.

Frankly though, this factory doesn't even look bad. Traveling through the most rural of regions with my father who teaches manufacturing engineering at WPI, I've seen far worse places to work at, including the one my uncle used to work for (before smashing his fingers in a freak accident and nearly losing them, but that's a different story). And while it's not a convincing argument to say, "oh this isn't bad because there are worse out there", it cracks me up equally for bleeding-heart Westerners to paint China as the backwards Red Menace ChiComs we've been led to believe. I'm surprised to see it here at Jalopnik.

Pay me now or pay me later. After enough environmental issues the Chinese will probably petition the UN for environmental remediation funds from the US and other major consumer countries. By then the Chinese business owners will have disappeared and the Waltons, et al will be sourcing cheap electronics from say the Sudan...

@CBR2200: "...And they can have dogs at work..."

Yeah, their names are "Lunch" and "Dinner"...

bleeding heart wasn't the intent, merely here it is and it should be better. as an avowed capitalist, i know what this depicts is simply market driven conditions, but the limited regulation there is part of the reason the jobs flow out of this country. if equal labor laws were in place, perhaps we wouldn't be up a creek without a paddle now.

Chances are, your IPod, my SonyEriccson and your Pioneer Plasma were all built in some Pacific Rim factory with a Jazz-club, solder-smokey atmosphere.

And still the world turns.

@CBR2200: also, a 0" commute is pretty sweet.

So when they ramp up production it is really just a ramp up to production. I bet that would increase productivity instead of using the stairs. I realize now I should start a Chinese factory of some kind.

@P161911: Dammit, you beat me to it...! I posted before I had read yours; obviously great mind think alike...

Jeezum crow. After seeing the absurdly un-crashworthy faux-Isuzu Rodeo, I can't even imagine how poorly the faux Smart will fare in a collision. You'd be safer in an old Datsun with a bad master cylinder and steak knives poking out of the dash.

+ Watch video

So when they ramp up production it is really just a ramp up to production. As opposed to stairs which would take longer.

this place is going crazy double post!

@charles_barrett: Yeah, looks like someone brought some stuff from the cafeteria back to the dorm for a fresh snack later.

Something to keep in mind is that for many people in China besides from these kind of jobs there aren't many other alternatives (a nation of more than a billion people will do that to a country). If you are lucky, then you might land a job in a factory with better working conditions. This is what happens when there is pretty much no regulations for safety in the workplace. So what needs to change are stronger government regulation of both safety and work hours.

As for living in the factory, that's standard practice. Most people come from other far regions in China to work in factories and if they didn't provide the living quarters, the costs (both living and transportation to the factory) will be way too high for their meager wages to cover. This kind of system allows them to work and send money back home and maybe go back and visit for the holidays without worrying about making ends meet at the place they are currently working at. The pay is usually substantially better than working in their home region because they no longer have to worry about living costs while working, which is why there is still a large number of migrant chinese working at such factories.

@CBR2200: No commute and I get to stay loaded on resin fumes all the time? It's a nguyen-nguyen!

So if this is bad, immagine the factories for knock offs of say- medical equipment or brake pads or food manufacturing or toy manufacturing...

This is the reason people die from bad or counterfit products...

This is why I hate Chinese import crap. It isn't that they aren't capable of doing their own stuff - they are. But China's industries have made such a science of riding the coattails of the success of others that I automatically resent everything they make. I don't have anything against the Chinese culturally, but sociopolitically they can all kiss my hairy ass, just as soon as someone European does it well enough that they think it should be imitated for $.83 per hour by some sweatshop slave.

@badco/LoJ: Okay, Thats COTD if I ever read one

@FrankGrimes: COTD!

So, let the UAW organize them and the next thing you know they'll be demanding 4 dogs per day!

And China hating/fearing as an art form is the latest fad in America...

All countries have gone through this stage through their industrialization process. China will eventually get better working conditions too.

These guys have a good sense of humor. They tried to throw us off the trail of their Smart mimicry by installing a BMW-style kidney grill. Clever!

@Unevolved: Seriously? We get cheap products and they live in squalor. I'd gladly pay more, and often do, for American or European made products. Every nickel we send to China is likely to come back at us in the form of Cyber-crime, or its increased military capability. "The belief that China is not just after war, but is after a new world, a global China, may inspire some Chinese. According to Marxism-Leninism, China's world war will not be fought to enslave or exterminate enemies, but to liberate them (hence "the People's Liberation Army"), to make them part of a new world - a global Chinese paradise."

Well, these workers are helping bring the Chinese goal of a global Chinese Paradise into reality.

Perhaps you should feel for these people and maybe even wake-up and understand China's intention: help you join their glorious Chinese paradise pictured above. Dress warmly.

@smokeydog001:
I've been wondering if unions will help in China, but the problem is there is enough demand for the job that they can fire and replace you fairly easily. The US industry doesn't seem to be doing too well too with all the unionizing either. I think the better first step is for the government to step in to set a minimum wage and maximum hours. But the factory/company owners and government officials are usually in bed together (not unlike our own government with all the lobbyists) so I don't see that happening soon. There really needs to be some sort of government support for conditions to improve. These problems aren't so easily solved.

You know if they imported them here, we'd eat that shit right up. Sad, but unfortunately, few people care. Theyd rather save a buck than think about something like the economy or labor conditions.

@mosqueda:
"Every nickel we send to China is likely to come back at us in the form of Cyber-crime, or its increased military capability."

No that's not true, every nickel you spend is most likely to go into the pockets of every corrupt government official and/or company/factory owner in China. For products made in China for companies in the US, most of the profits go to the companies in the US, only a fraction of the cost goes to China.

"According to Marxism-Leninism, China's world war will not be fought to enslave or exterminate enemies, but to liberate them (hence "the People's Liberation Army"), to make them part of a new world - a global Chinese paradise."

You apparently still live in the Cold War Era...that kind of ideal died long ago when China opened their markets for unbridled capitalism. Now the main goal is to keep the economy churning so those on the top can keep making more and more money on the backs of the laborers on the bottom. Communism has long died in China and I don't see much chance of a revival.

You can buy one, but an hour later you'll feel like buying another!

I'm sorry. I truly am. Please don't hit me.

@stopcrazypp: "Communism has long died in China and I don't see much chance of a revival."

Only the government is still communist. The markets, people, and everything else is decidedly capitalistic. It's only a matter of time until something happens that causes the government to collapse, or is overthrown by corrupt big-wigs who made BILLIONS in their factories, and are tired of the government intrusion. (Read "having to pay bribes to get what I want").

I think those factory jobs would be quite decent living for the workers, compared to what else people of their level of education/skill could get.

And as you might tell by my name, I'm quite sympathetic to conditions in China.

@stopcrazypp: Reference China's attempts to buy into US tech companies (3COM via Huawei Tech) or repeated efforts at attacking our CyberSpace ([www.theregister.co.uk]).

The article I reference is from 1-24-08 ([www.newsmax.com]) so, this is pretty recent stuff.

And yes, I was a Cold Warrior. I also have a degree in Russian/East European Studies with an emphasis on International Security. I worked at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and have worked with the Chinese on attempts to get them to participate in nuclear reduction talks and "Confidence and Security Building Measures," which they reject. In fact, we watched the Chinese attempt to spy on us through their participation in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Chinese Communism is alive and well. Deng long ago dropped Mao's ideals, but they understand they can cherry pick parts of capitalism and still run a command economy (it's called Fascism). So, these workers live in squalor. The money does not go to corrupt politicians (they get executed - do some reading). It goes to the PLA who owns hundreds of companies (surreptitiously).

I'll tell you what, I'll play the part of Nathan Jessup, you be the whiny attorney: "we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Stopcrazypp? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. . . . And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because, deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline."

Get real and open your eyes. Everytime you buy cheap Chinese junk, you enslave the people and empower the PLA - you do it Stopcrazypp.