Life is full right now as Naomi and I try to unpack boxes and get settled into our home. With a full work schedule and all the many things to do in our move, we have little energy for anything else. It does feel good to be getting settle into a place to call home. We have begun to experience the heat of the Dallas summer with three of the past four days in the mid to upper 90s (36 degrees Celsius).

I watched CNN global news tonight. One of the feature stories was on an electronic manufacturing plant in China in which there has been a rash of suicides. The workers receive $130/month and must work many hours overtime to make a living wage. The workers work long hours and then live in dormitory style housing on the same campus . . . working and sleeping making their lives. In an extraordinarily disclosive statement, a plant spokesperson acknowledged that there was not a sense of relational community among workers, with 8 workers per dorm room, many of whom do not even know one another's names. The grind of long work hours, exacting detail work and harsh punishment if mistakes are made all contribute to the stress and sense of futility. The company has set up a suicide line and apparently has averted 30 suicides in the past month.

Apple is one of the key beneficiaries of the very cheap labor. I-Phones are assembled at the plant.Dell and HP also benefit.  The main corporation has offered to raise salaries by 30% but it is dubious to believe that money can resolve some of the basic needs of the human soul for relational connection, for significance, creativity and variation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/technology/27suicide.html?scp=1&sq=Hon...