Resurrection of Heathkit Type Kits

[Harvey A. Kader]

One of the main reasons Heathkit and other electronic kit manufacturers
ran into difficulty was the huge discrepancy in hourly labor rates in
North America versus Asia. This discrepancy still applies today. This
also explains the almost virtual collapse of electronic assembly in the
USA and Canada over the last two decades.

An article last week in a major magazine showed that the MONTHLY income
for a electronic assembler in China was US$15! The official Chinese
monthly rate is only $55 per month.

The Chinese assembler then has to pay the employer $11 per month for
food and shelter. So, all he or she is left with after expenses is a
measly $4 per month. The $15 per month wage for four weeks of a forty
hour week yields an hourly wage of 9 CENTS! Contrast this to the mininum
wage in the US of approximately $5 per hour. This difference works out
to a ratio of approximately 55. So the poor Chinese worker in an
electronics plant earns 55 times less what a minimum wage worker in the
US earns.

This amounts to slave labour(read the article - you will see what else
is alleged to go on in these plants). That is why products made in Asia,
particularly China and other third world counties(such as Indonesia,
Thailand, Singapore, Malayasia, Taiwan) are so inexpensive(Japan has a
higher labor rate, so I am not including it here). The labour in these
electronic products(radios, TVs, VCRs, etc) accounts for almost NOTHING
in relation to the overall cost to produce. It as if these poor workers
are almost virtually working for free. Of course, this gives more profit
to the corporations.

Ironically, the quality of Chinese electronics is excellent now(equal to
the best from Japan). So, although the workers are paid next to nothing,
something is influencing them to produce excellent goods for their
employer(hint- read the article to find out why).

This applies not just to electronic producrs, but also to clothing and
garments made in China and other third world Asian countries. So while
we enjoy inexpensive products, some poor soul earned next to nothing to
make it. This is nothing new. Wage differences around the world have
existed for decades. Every time a host country becomes too expensive to
manufacture a product, corporations pack up and move to lower wage
countires.

So Heathkit and others really could not compete with Asia, even though
all the Heathkit workers were doing was packaging the parts for the
kits.

Harvey.

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