Ryan Pyle Blog: Work Conditions Getting Worse

Hello.

Much fuss was made last year when China unveiled a series of labor laws that seemed to better protect the average worker. Now an URBAN debate continues to rage on whether the labors laws just protect the unproductive or whether they are really useful, and timely.

But what about the migrant workers? Are they protected under the labor law and have their lives improved? Well, the labor law, see article, seemed to be focused in the right places but no one was expecting a financial crisis - which led to a demand crisis - which led to a Chinese export crisis - which led to a Dongguan crisis - which led to most employers throwing the new labor law out the window. What a series of chain reactions!

LINK: New York Times: Despite Law, Job Conditions Worsen in China

David Barboza for the New York Times writes an interesting feature on the plight of one family, in one factory and how that relates to the industry at large. I photographed the portrait of the family in question under very tense conditions just a few steps away from the factory where their son had been killed.

Having spent so much time in China, I've seen my fair share of factory floors and I had been under the impression that things were improving. Over the years working conditions have improved, even if wages and living conditions haven't. But workers still work too many hours, too much overtime and in poorly lit conditions - which leds to exhaustion and avoidable accidents, sometimes fatal.

My intention for this blog is to raise awareness that the financial crisis is causing cut backs not just in the US and Europe but also on the factory floors of southern China; and those cutbacks have led to more dangerous working conditions the for the most exposed portion of China's population - it's migrant workers. Please do read the article, it's a good one; I am very glad I was able to be a part of it.

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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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Ryan Pyle Blog: Moving Up the Value Chain

Hello.

According to the Economist, a few weeks back, China is moving up the Intellectual Property value chain. The article in question discussed patents and how Chinese companies have been rapidly increasing their applications for patents both in China and in western countries where they operate.

There were a few high profile cases of late where foreign companies had to pay out significant sums to Chinese companies for patent violations in China. It is a relatively new and novel idea in China that if you create something, and then someone copies or uses it for their own profit, that they'll need to pay you. In a country where everything is copied instantly, there has been little incentive for people to create anything unique; especially when a quick and comparatively easy profit can be made by copying someone else's work.

This stage we are in at the moment is, by all means, an education process for China. Patents were not officially allowed in China until the mid-1980s and even then they weren't ever enforced until 2006. And they still have a long way to go. But if there is a corner out there, they are beginning to turn it.

For years us China watching folks have talked about China's need to beef up IP law to save the domestic music, movie and software industries; the three industries that suffer the most from IP infringement. Stricter IP laws will add value to the production of higher end products; so that China can move away from the low-tech manufacturing that migrates from poor country to poor country in search of low production costs; today it's China. Tomorrow it's Vietnam and Bangladesh.

Does that mean that China will completely move away from low end jobs, such as the image above of a young man working in a toy factory in Dongguan, China? Absolutely not. There are still millions of people in China willing to work for next to nothing, and that will never change. In a country of 1.3 billion people there will always be people to do low paying jobs. In saying that, China will slowly over time become known for not only the label "Made in China" on your sneakers or tee shirts, but also for that same label on your computers, servers, routers, telecom equipment, mobile phones and electric cars; and the companies making these products will not just be western firms exploiting low production costs in China, they will be Chinese companies producing domestically and exporting to global markets. Mark my words, I am an optimist, China will go up market in a very big way. Companies like Lenovo (Computers) and Huawei (Telecom Equipment) are setting the pace already. And with more IP law the future could look very bright indeed for innovative and creative individuals and firms in China.

As an aside, one question that hasn't really been answered is how much as the lack of IP protection cost China? Well, that is a riddle I would love to see someone, much smarter than me, solve. The government always stands by the official line that you have to copy before you can learn. But it is clear that this prolonged period of copying has stunted intellectual, artistic and innovative development inside the country. Why write a book, that is widely read and enjoyed, if you can't feed your family from the sales because it's been copied and widely distributed? Why write a song, if it will be enjoyed by millions, and you still can't afford to pay your children's school fee's? I'm not saying that we create only for profit, but creation needs to, in this modern day and age, cover our basic costs; especially if you have a family or other dependants to provide for. This is simply a fact of life.

China's laid back attitude towards IP has annoyed the more mature economies in Europe and North America. But as the Economist article points out, in the 18th century a very young United States of America copied just about everything they could get their hands on, mainly machines from England and Germany, in an effort to industrialize and become a manufacturing powerhouse. Everyone has to start somewhere, it's just rough luck for China that we live in a world of instant information and communication; it makes these growing pains much more public, painful and embarrassing.

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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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Ryan Pyle Blog: Losing 12,640 images at US$7 per Image

Hello,

I know this topic has already made it's way around the blogs, but I'm still disgusted by the ruling. The "A Photo Editor" Blog reported a few weeks back that photographer Chris Usher was in a legal battle with Corbis, who somehow misplaced some 12, 640 negatives. Now, it turns out this Chris won this case in November 2007, and the exact compensation was supposed to be declared at a later date, but it was ruled that Corbis was at fault. Well, the compensation decided was US$7 per image; in other words Chris lost his appeal for greater compensation.

While US$7 per image, or US$88,000 may seem like a lot of money to some folks, it is peanuts for what 12,640 strong images can earn in the right image archive over 10 or 20 years. It's not uncommon to sell a stock image for US$200 to a publication, and then the next month sell it again for US$150 to another publication. So the life span of an image, and the income a photographer can earn from that, is a long long time. Which is one reason why we work so damn hard.

This ruling now basically gives precedence to any further ruling of a similar kind. That basically means that any magazine, newspaper or agency that asks you to hand over your negatives can neglect to care for them and basically get away with it with a slap on the wrist, or US$7 per image - which is peanuts.

I can't tell you how disgusted this ruling makes me feel. Everywhere I turn in the last few months I just see photographers taking a shit kicking.

I've had magazines in the past ask me for my negatives and I've blatantly refused on every occasion; and this kind of case just reinforces my decision. My negatives are my negatives, and if a court of law isn't going to bother protecting a photographers negatives from poor business practice, poor organization and complete disregard, then you should never hand them over - ever.

No one is going to care for your negatives as well as you do, so passing them over to someone else just opens the door for an accident to happen. Hold your negatives dear to your heart, and never let them go unless someone is willing to pry them out of your cold, dead hand. Isn't that the slogan from the National Rifles Association?

Extreme, perhaps. Like I said with my opening, I'm disgusted by this ruling, and it's embarrassing to an agency like Corbis which was created to protect image rights and share in the profit, with photographers, of properly managing the rights to large image archives.

Blackstar have a some great background on the case on their BLOG. Enjoy the read. And, do you know where your negatives are tonight? Bloody nightmare.

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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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