DECEMBER 14 — The recent exposes on the oppressive living conditions of factory and construction workers remind me of a conversation my late grandmother had with my aunt.
My aunt saw one of my cousins (a relatively big kid) beating up another tinier cousin, absolutely trashing the guy. As expected, she (my aunt) scolded him and gave him a “sermon” about non-violence blahblahblah.
Know what my grandmother said? “Aiya, until he himself kena beaten up by a bigger boy he won’t change one lah!”
Doesn’t that just describe the state of our political economy?
I mean, c’mon, news about some of these factories came out many months ago. The whole world was fully aware that some of these companies had a dodgy record when it came to the treatment of their factory workers.
And yet their share prices remained strong. Even when their share prices fall, they only do so for one or two days. After that, it’s business as usual.
So who are we kidding by comparing people and profits?
We’ve got big boys doing pretty much whatever they want and spilling hurt and harm into the public domain, and not only do they barely get their knuckles rapped, their stars (not to mention their bank accounts) shine even brighter.
The little people are exploited and even fired if they dare to complain but all the VIPs suffer from is (maybe) a prolonged press conference and some awkward questioning.
And knowing the 24/7-flux state of social media, 90 per cent of the people who are upset now will forget about these abuses the moment news about one celebrity dying or being divorced pops up.
Because the way I see it, you can run a million stories about companies like these and the most “pain” their owners will endure is a 14.7 per cent drop in share prices on a Tuesday. By the following month, the price is back up and everything’s forgotten.
Because the history of the corporate world tells us that big-ass organisations (Note 1) can pretty much abuse their workers and society with impunity. If there was any real punishment from corporate abuses, then many huge companies would have shuttered already.
But no. These and other similarly powerful companies will continue producing impressive annual reports on the backs of thousands and thousands of workers.
And they will continue producing these amazing corporate results no matter what’s written and what’s reported because guess what: The only thing that can take down huge abusive corporations is if these players take a dump on the state itself.
This is why only companies like Enron and Worldcom — which committed the unforgivable sins of accounting and financial crimes — end up being buried.
These kinds of frauds are anathema because they constitute a breach of trust between corporations and the bigger boys; if you do that, the powers that be will get you.
However, if you put 20,000 workers in shitty dorms and risk them all being infected with an incurable disease? Oh, well. We’ll settle it later, I guess.
So will people ever matter more than profits? You, and the KLSE, already know the answer to that.
* Note 1: Check out books like Naomi Klein’s No Logo (London: Picador, 1999) and the corporate accountability sections from groups like Amnesty International. There are tons and tons of such stories from many a famous brand.
**This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
