I don't know what the conditions are at other Chinese factories but at the Pearl River factories they work an eight hour word day, 240 days a year, about what we work here in the USA. Plus free medical, mid-day meal, transportation to and from work, paid vacations, and retirement. The average worker has the same purchasing power of a worker doing similar work here. The actual dollar amount is less, but the everything is a LOT cheaper in China. Any worker that wants to is free to seek work somewhere else, nobody forces anybody to work where they don't want to. I've been there, and I know. Mark Wisner (A grateful employee of Pearl River Piano) -----Original Message----- From: Ric Brekne <ricbrek@broadpark.no> Sent: Oct 1, 2005 4:11 AM To: pianotech <pianotech@ptg.org> Subject: Chinese Hi David Thanks for adding that point to the discussion. I am not sure how good all the service / guarantee departments for the various asian manufacturers are over there, but here on the piano mentioned in my last post it took the dealer 4 months to get it sorted out. But its good you bring it up. But, like I said... no doubt with time and experience the Chinese instruments will come along nicely... at least some of them. There are an estimated 40 million young Chinese piano enthusiasts... so clearly there is a market. Its no small secret that even Steinway is investing in Chinese production and are setting up training programs for techs and factory workers. One thing that I think everyone should be a lot more conscious about is the working conditions for humans around the globe. Easy... far to easy to simply put aside the thought when one sees extremely low prices. But personally, I have a very nasty feeling in my stomach when I buy something I know is produced by humans recieving a sub-substanance salary for and are forced to work 12-18 hours a day 6-7 days a week for nearly the whole year. Not that I am accusing any particular piano manufacture of this sort of policy... tho I could... but just to point out that before one hops all over the eurphoria of buying <<acceptable quality>> for ridiculously low prices each of us should take more then a token effort to find out just what lies behind the glossy front cover. Heck... even in todays Japan folks*_ must _*work far more hours then even US norms would tolerate. And Japan is by far not an extreme case. Add to that the fact that domestic manufacturers are struggling to the point of extinction... I think Joe Garret raises a point all should think on to a far greater degree then seems evident today. A comparison between two recent threads .. this one and the B382983 (or whatever it was) is one I find interesting in this regard. But thats JMO Cheers RicB ------------ Just a reminder our good friend Mark Wisner is Pearl River's USA service manager....he's famous...picture in the Journal ads... David I.
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