This is how the Chinese make products so cheap.

This video was passed around at work today via email. It shows a stamping plant in China with at least a half dozen workers sitting on the press bed feeding parts into the stations of a transfer die while the press cycles. Their hands move in unison in and out of pinch points like an octopus. If you have ever worked in the metalforming industry, this video makes you shudder. That die has probably claimed more appendages than an Alabama corn picker. I suppose China probably has an unending supply of replacement workers willing to work in these conditions for next to nothing. I read somewhere the minimum wage in China is something like 58¢ an hour.
We would never be able to make parts like that in this country. We use expensive safety devices like light curtains and two handed controls. Adding those two devices to the press in the video would cost close to $8000 in parts alone. I have never had my employer question the amount of money I wanted to spend for safety, in fact, if I write the word "safety" on a request, it almost guarantees it will be approved. That's how i got my ultra safe 52 inch flat screen Plasma TV.
Next time you shop at Wal Mart and see their safety conscious signs urging you to watch out for falling prices, think about where that product came from. Somewhere between the overpaid autoworker suckling up to the union teat and the oppressed Chinese laborer is Joe Sixpack, just trying to put food on the table.