As Canada lowers its tariffs and imports more electric vehicles from China, an upcoming report from New York-based labour rights researchers is making new allegations of forced labour practices at the world’s bestselling EV manufacturer, BYD.
China Labor Watch (CLW) received a complaint last fall from one of the thousands of migrant workers brought to Hungary from China to help build BYD’s first European plant in the city of Szeged — a $6-billion investment intended to supply the European market with around 300,000 vehicles per year.
The non-profit organization launched an investigation and provided CBC News with an advance copy of its findings, set for publication later this month.
“It’s important that consumers know what’s really behind some of these electric vehicles, and the labour conditions that are behind the production of these cars,” said project officer Elaine Lu.
“Chinese workers who are being brought in to work on these sites are being employed in quite horrible conditions.”
…
The report describes potential violations of Hungarian labour and migration laws, including:
- Seven-day workweeks with no days off to rest, with workers telling CLW they were instructed to lie to inspectors about their working hours if asked.
- Shifts of up to 12 or 14 hours, with only a short meal break and no paid overtime.
- Delayed wage payments of up to three months, with final payments withheld until workers returned to China.
- Steep recruitment fees used as a form of debt bondage, with low-income workers saying they were forced to stay despite poor conditions because they can’t afford to default on their contract.
- Workers entering on business visas instead of authorized work permits, leaving them vulnerable to abuse and unable to access services like health care for workplace injuries.
…
Just conveniently ignoring all the reporting and lawsuits about it in an attempt to bait people?
Oh, someone said bad things about a Chinese company so the tencent army had to raise their head.
C’mon out of the shadows woth me @AGM@lemmy.ca you seem to have words about pushing back against assholes.
Hey mods fuck your civility and kick out the vote manipulating cunts!
@AGM@lemmy.ca is only one of several sock puppets or sock puppet-like accounts that frequently spreading authoritarian propaganda, false facts, and engage in absurdly primitive insults against others. Just look at their post history,
A list of thier sock puppets
Vote history for @lamdelille@ttrpg.network
https://lemvotes.org/user/lamdelille@ttrpg.network
Hey @lamdelille@ttrpg.network why don’t you say what’s on you mind?
@lamdelille@ttrpg.network Ibsee you stalking me you fucking panty waste loser.
@eerongal@ttrpg.network pretty sure you have a vote manipulation account here stalking me. I know that that violates your instances rules.
@battousai@lemmy.zip say something for once puppet.
https://lemvotes.org/user/sxybaka@lemmy.cafe
Vote history for @sxybaka@lemmy.cafe
Yes, please read my post history. It is one post long. After that, I encourage anyone to read my comment history and evaluate for themselves. By all means, then proceed to look at Scotty’s post and comment history and evaluate his account on the same basis.
You and your sock puppets are trying to justify the worst crimes against humanity, and you engage in the same kind of second-hand intimidation while spreading false narratives.
Lmao that’s rich claiming sock puppets coming from you. I don’t know if you interact with your other accounts or not, but lmao
Lol. Your sockpuppetry is well documented on here, Scotty. I encourage people to look it up, and yes, I encourage people to read my history and to evaluate for themselves on it too. It’s all there in public, including prior debates we’ve had where you’ve been utterly shredded. I really hope people read those.
As for me, I have one single account on here and just post for myself. That’s it.
You have either sock puppets or are part of an orchestrated propaganda campaign. There are too many accounts here with a very similar spin, both regarding content and the behaviour of insulting others. That’s no coincidence.
No, Scotty. You’re wrong. That’s bullshit. And, I’ll keep encouraging anyone who reads this to just evaluate on the evidence. It will be pretty evident to anyone who looks at my history.
Anyone who looks at your history will find something that looks quite different.
Funny how I picked up 3 haters after engaging with you.
Guy acts like a jerk in public. Guy finds people don’t like that. Guy blames others for not liking how he acts.
Oh, see I was invited to act like this by your sock puppet Sicilian.
Guy says “I had no choice but to be a jerk! The world deserves my toxicity! I was downvoted!!”
shakes fist at sky while tears running down cheeks are lost in the rain from the permanent storm clouds over his head
For posterity, @HikingVet@lemmy.sdf.org is acting like an unhinged nut who can’t handle being downvoted. Anyone else dealing with this insanity from him in this thread?
Cool, so you were told what I thought and then decided to try and pull the victim card on behalf of Sicilian who is obviously a troll because you don’t like my tone.
Hey @sxybaka@lemmy.cafe and @battousai@lemmy.zip I see your vote manipulating asses.
Oh looks like I really ruffled Sicilian’s or AGM’s feathers another vote manipulation account.
This isn’t people being upset becaue I pushed back against Sicilian. This is you being a bitch.
The interesting part is that the 2 days account is creating a bunch of other accounts just to vote on this.
@emkata2564@futurology.today why don’t you chime in.
Oh no! I downvoted that too! Don’t go imploding HikingVet!
Seriously, you attacked me in my dms out of nowhere over some imagined bs and then you invited me to join in publicly. Stop being a dick.
I’m just posting this so other people can see what you’re up to and if anyone else has dealt with the same from you we can all know it.
Hey why don’t you go through all of the comments I made to your sock puppet account and detail where I was the asshole unprovoked.
Bet I can counter every one.
Whoops, downvoted that one too…
Anyone can read your comments in this thread and in the dm chain I shared after you invited me to join in.
I have no obligation to entertain you being toxic by replying to every comment you make in a thread. People can see for themselves how you’re acting and I think it pretty clearly bears out that you’re acting in a toxic way.
Besides, anyone can upvote or downvote as they please. That’s the whole point of the little arrows.
Yeah, seems like you are a weak sauce tone police.
So okay Karen. Why don’t you take a moment to ask for my supervisor.
Do go on and keep making my point for me.
Ah I have HATERS! lol @AGM@lemmy.ca @battousai@lemmy.zip @sxybaka@lemmy.cafe
Tencent army fucking vibes.
No, I’m focusing on the fact that real action has been taken against Chinese EVs while products made with child labor are legal and reasons why that’s the case.
You would have a point if it were illegal to sell chocolate made with cocoa produced using child labor, but it’s not. If anything, you prove me further correct by highlighting how easy it was to ban Chinese EVs, but banning chocolate made with child labor is an uphill battle that’s been going on for decades without success.
Can confirm, the EV tariffs came after intense lobbying by our industry (am in Canadian automotive) stateside, which then got copied here. Our exec layer got scared shitless after conducting some competition research and they communicated that to us in no uncertain terms. At the time the tariffs made some sense since there was real, material shift towards EV production at NA autos. All that got fell apart with Trump’s election. Ford just recently announced it’s refocusing one of its loudly advertised Kentucky batt plants to do other applications. The Oakville plant was supposed to be retooled for EVs. Instead it’s gonna be making F250s.