From Salon.com. In this May 26, 2010 file photo, staff members work on the production line at the Foxconn complex in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, southern China (Credit: AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Strengthened?  Well, kinda sorta.  Union strengthening in China is off to a slow start.  The mighty Foxconn has bowed to union pressures to reduce mandatory overtime from the normal 15-20 hours per week (sometimes exceeding 40 hours per week during busy seasons) to the national standard of only 9 hours per week.  And this is progress?  It’s as if the proverbial fox has authorized slight improvements in conditions for the hens, but it’s still the fox guarding the henhouse.

At Apple’s request, Foxconn’s unions strengthened – Salon.com

And reports are that some of the workers are upset with these reforms because it means that they get smaller paychecks, since they’re working less overtime.  It is widely reported that people WANT to work AS MUCH AS THEY POSSIBLY CAN, so that they can earn as much money as possible during their time at the factory. That they want to earn enough to send money home to their families.  That they don’t have much of a social life or life outside of the factory anyway, so if they’re not working they’re not making money.

But remember that historically labor unions have been about more than controlling life on-the-job.  They’ve also been about enriching life outside of the job.  In the United States and other “developed” nations, the 8-hour workday represented a neat division of the day into three major slices of life:

• 8 hours for work
• 8 hours for sleep
• 8 hours for “what-you-will”

It is possible to balance work and family and personal needs so that all are satisfied.  Given the brief narrative in this Salon.com piece and the accompanying video interview, it seems that consideration of these greater quality-of-life issues isn’t yet entering the picture in Foxconn’s China.

But it will one day, as workers realize that they are more than mere cogs in the machine, that they are people, with rights to a life outside of work.

Planetary Resources, Inc (PRI), The Asteroid Mining Company, is seeking qualified and enthusiastic candidates for paid cooperative education positions to assist in the development of new systems and technologies for the commercial robotic exploration of near Earth asteroids in our Bellevue, WA location. Applicants should have an interest in space systems design and application and should expect a hands-on, intense and dynamic work environment.  PRI is currently reviewing candidates for a start of employment in January, 2013.

We are now to the point where serious venture capitalists are investing serious money in for-profit space ventures.  In this case, PRI is looking to bring trillions of dollars worth of water and heavy metals into orbit around our planet.  Once in orbit, the idea is that they can be exploited as raw materials.  Most, if not all, of the remote work of finding and dragging the asteroids to our neighborhood will be done by robotics.  Humans won’t come into the picture until the asteroids are close to home.

This is yet more evidence that the workplace is moving into space.  We should start thinking about regulations and requirements for space workers today, so that when the jobs materialize tomorrow we have worked through the labor issues in advance.

Are you afraid of the robot that threatens to replace you or a co-worker?  Are you worried that that big, hulking, fast-moving machine will inadvertently whack you in the face if you happen to be standing too close, in the wrong place, occupying “meat space” a little too inconveniently?   Never fear!  Now, Baxter the robot is here to allay your fears!  He’ll smile at you with googly, red eyes whenever he senses you’re near, and he’ll slow down so he won’t be moving so quickly as he replaces your (co-worker’s) ass on the factory floor.

This story was originally reported in a recent NYTimes.com article, linked here:

A Robot With a Delicate Touch – NYTimes.com.

A company called Rethink Robotics has designed a factory-floor robot named Baxter.  Baxter is designed to be your friendly co-worker.  He’s designed to fit right into your workshop area, your packaging area, working away right next to you.

“The next generation of robots will increasingly function as assistants to human workers, freeing them for functions like planning, design and troubleshooting.”

In fact, he’s so co-worker friendly that you’re not supposed to notice that he’s replacing the flesh-and-blood co-worker that used to be standing next to you!  He’s easy to program and re-program to do those simple, repetitive tasks that used to be delegated to “that new guy.”  Teach Baxter once, and he’ll perform that task endlessly, until the end-of-time.  No need to bother with re-teaching actual humans how to do a job.  No need to make pointless chit-chat with your newbie co-worker.  Truly, show Baxter how to do something ONCE, and then you can de-humanize him and assume that he’ll do that job without complaint until the end of time.

Baxter doesn’t need bathroom breaks.  Baxter doesn’t need lunch breaks.  Baxter doesn’t need cigarette breaks.  Baxter doesn’t need rest.

Baxter doesn’t need the camaraderie and inter-personal support of a Union.

In fact, Baxter doesn’t need YOU.

Today, you teach a Baxter robot with an iPod face how to do your neighbor’s job.  Tomorrow, Baxter replaces YOU, because we don’t need YOU any more.

Welcome to the workplace of the automated workforce. Starting today.

Paul Sakuma/Associated Press, as published by the New York Times.

On the one hand, I think it’s great that robots can be used to replace humans for dangerous, repetitive work.  On the other hand, at what cost to the working people of the world who are being replaced?

In today’s New York Times, a story about how robotics is changing the face of global industry.

New Wave of Deft Robots Is Changing Global Industry – NYTimes.com.

Perhaps most interesting to me is the Comments Section below the story, where people seem to have immediately grasped the ramifications of this trend:  if the robots take the manufacturing jobs, what will all the people do?  Do the factory managers care?  Consider this quote from a Foxconn Chairman Terry Guo, as reported by the Xinhua news agency from January 2012:

“Foxconn has not disclosed how many workers will be displaced or when. But its chairman, Terry Gou, has publicly endorsed a growing use of robots. Speaking of his more than one million employees worldwide, he said in January, according to the official Xinhua news agency: ‘As human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache.’”

So, there you have it.  If you’re reading this with a product produced by Foxconn, which means most Apple products and many others, then you’re reading this on something made by “animals.”   While we may celebrate “retiring the animals” from the tedious labor of pulling a plow in the fields or dragging a wagon of coal through the coalmines, this comment shows what we’ve long suspected from out-of-touch corporate leaders for quite a while:  they don’t consider workers as people, only as functionaries.

Unions are, and have always been, struggles to declare the humanity of labor.  Think about that as you tap away on your iPhone.

An in-space fuel depot to house pre-processed lunar propellant.  Source:  MSNBC.com

The mining industry is not apt to ignore the potential riches to be mined from various terrestrial resources.  Now, a story from Space.com and MSNBC.com reveals recent activity to extend this reach to extra-terrestrial resources.

Space Mining Could Reap Riches And Spur Exploration – MSNBC.com

A Space Resources Roundtable meeting was held recently in Golden, Colorado, which by no coincidence is the home of the Colorado School of Mines.

In summary, there are wealthy people talking about expanding our terrestrial economy by trillions of dollars by exploiting extra-terrestrial mineral and fuel and water resources.  They are discussing how, specifically, to accomplish this, and how to do so profitably.  Capitalism is moving into space.

And with this move, workers are moving a few steps closer to living and working in space.

If these consortiums of mining interests are planning on building “cis-lunar highways” that include fuel depots along the way, it follows that they intend that there will be armies of construction workers to build them and at least legions of people to staff and operate them.  The human workplace is making definite progress toward space.  Workplace and labor laws need to be worked out in advance to ensure that workers are kept both safe and appropriately compensated for the risks of working in space.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGulbY_Vkrs

This American Life Retraction of Episode 454

The retraction of the story didn’t really change the substance of the description of working conditions at the factories that make Apple products like the iPad and iPhone.  Retraction | This American Life.  Sure, Mr. Daisy was caught embellishing his stories by blending conversations, making up colorful asides, and making assumptions that he perhaps should not have made.  After all, this tale originated as a monologue to be delivered to a live audience.

TAL took his story, which was intended to raise awareness of Chinese labor conditions while entertaining the audience, and turned it into “journalism.”  After they released the story, and after it became one of the most downloaded podcasts that they ever ran, they did some after-the-fact fact checking and found some discrepancies.  This week, they devoted Episode 460 to retracting Episode 454.

Notably missing from the retraction, though, was a denial of the stern labor conditions inside the factories.  As Mr. Daisy described, “The Chinese work hour is a full hour:  60 full minutes, made up of 60 full seconds, routinely running 12 to 16 hours per day.”  With supervisors and cameras watching every move looking to squeeze maximum efficiency from each second.  No talking allowed.  No breaks allowed.  Endless repetitive motions, resulting in countless repetitive motion injuries.  Swollen legs resulting from long hours standing.   Inspections pre-announced, so that the managers have plenty of time to shuffle the players to the pre-planned satisfaction of the inspectors.

What TAL did not address in its retraction was a simple fact that many Chinese friends say is obvious to them:  If you’re a Chinese laborer, and you tell a Western reporter the truth about conditions, and you are later contacted by the authorities and asked if you REALLY told the truth, what are you going to say?  You’re going to say that you never said those things, that the Westerner must have gotten it all wrong, because you know full well that there is an implied threat in the fact that you’re no longer anonymous in the Chinese system.  Words are dangerous things in China.  It is not surprising that Cathy (the translator and tour guide in the story) would change her story to “save face” for the Chinese system at the expense of the Westerner.

The fact that TAL has retracted the story should not be interpreted as a clean report card for Apple and its suppliers.  Apple should still work to demand that the workers that created Apple’s $98 billion cash-in-the-bank fortune enjoy decent working conditions and the standards that all unions work for:  a living wage, a safe workplace, and the freedom to enjoy life outside of work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/science/space/24astronaut.html

While they’re perhaps the most prominent of NASA’s employees, the astronauts are really a small fraction of the workers who have put us into space in a real and productive national program.  I’m hopeful that the private space industry will be able to ramp up operations as quickly as possible to create “private” employment situations for the thousands of NASA employees who will soon be forced to retire early if they can’t find work in the privatized space industry.

The wait is over, folks:  the private, for-profit space business is now looking for “Pilots – Astronauts” at the following link:

Careers | Virgin Galactic

It’s been a long time coming, and they’re still not completely operational.  A story published on AVWeb on April 13 provides a little more detail about what they’re looking for.  Normally, it might be a little difficult to find experienced pilots with their ambitious experience requirements, but as the article points out, this is good timing for Virgin Galactic because NASA is winding down the space shuttle program that it’s been running for the last 30 years or so.  Quote:

“Virgin is ready to select three candidates, one to start now and the others to come on board as needed. The pilots will participate in the ongoing test-flight program for WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo in Mojave and later will help launch commercial operations and train new pilots at Spaceport America in New Mexico. Virgin is looking for graduates of test-pilot school with experience flying high-performance jets and large multi-engine aircraft as well as “low lift-to-drag ratio glide experience (e.g. simulated flameout landings) in complex aircraft.” Their ideal candidate would have spaceflight experience as well — a criterion that might not be so hard to meet as NASA winds down its shuttle program, leaving their astronaut corps grounded.”

So, if you’re leaving NASA and are looking for work, the skies have just opened up these new possibilities. Good luck to you.  I look forward to flying in your spaceship some day.

This is positively creepy.  As pointed out in an article on Salon.com today, the majority of life-like robots that we see have Asian (or Japanese) characteristics.   A graph of the Uncanny Valley, Karl F. MacDorman and Takashi Minato in Android Science, is presented below.

From Karl F. MacDorman and Takashi Minato in Android Science.

This new one, Geminoid DK, is based on a Danish researcher (hence the “DK”).   Check out this brief video clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZlLNVmaPbM

Now that you’ve seen this robot being “exercised,” or put through its range of emotional motions, pretend that it’s really the front-end to Watson the know-it-all computer.

Then, realize that it’s going to be someone’s boss some day.

Back in the Age of Dilbert, we dealt with The Pointy-Haired Boss.  Coming soon to a timeclock near you, we’ll have the Uncanny Boss.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TFDxIyaiCE

It’s understandable why the corporate world would want to use Watson as their Customer Service Rep whenever possible:

• It’s cheaper in the long run, since it works 24/7/365 and never needs a bathroom break.
• It knows nearly everything, and what it doesn’t know it can hand off to a human.
• It can handle huge swings in the workload, thereby minimizing the wait time for callers.
• There are probably dozens of other valid business reasons to employ Watson rather than human call center workers.

But, oh, the humanity!  Working in a call center, answering customer service calls and moving through menu-driven problem solving trees is a job that many people can do when they can’t do other things.  It doesn’t require driving skills, or a college degree, or physical strength.  It can be done by people who have limited mobility and/or are confined to a power chair.  It can be done by people who are young, old, or in-between.  It can be done by college students, as I did when I was in college in the 1980s.

But now, it’s about to be done by Watson, and people who take these jobs for granted today will be out of work tomorrow.

The only bright side is, when you now yell and curse at the Customer Service Watson, it won’t hurt any real feelings.