Dark Factories in the UK: underpaid humans out-compete robots

[Winehole23]

“Part of Leicester’s garment industry has become detached from UK employment law, ‘a country within a country’, as one factory owner puts it, where ‘£5 an hour is considered the top wage’, even though that is illegal. Doshi (not his real name) says he has worked in places with blocked fire escapes, old machines and no holiday or sick pay. There are garment factories that follow the law, but a ‘perceived culture of impunity’, as a 2018 government report puts it, has created a bizarre microeconomy where larger factories using machines are outcompeted by smaller rivals using underpaid humans…. And while some retailers blame unethical factory owners, the factories say retail’s relentless push for cheap prices makes it impossible to improve. As a result, what should be a good news story for people like Doshi has become a cautionary tale about how the reshoring of manufacturing jobs can go wrong when the government fails to enforce its own laws. Perhaps the strangest thing about this labour exploitation is that it is an open secret. Central government knows; local government knows; retailers know.”

https://www.ft.com/content/e427327e-5892-11e8-b8b2-d6ceb45fa9d0

[hater]

Humans 1 machines 0

[SpursforSix]

I saw this do entary about this company that was selling paper and they begin to integrate robots to help sell.
And in the end, the human was able to outsell the robot.