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CODE_OF_SILENCE

                                             June  3-7, 2013

From Peter Kwong's
"The New Chinatown",
p.95:                          THE_NEW_CHINATOWN

  "Those who break the code of silence will
  be punished.  The case of a woman who              This was a
  worked in a Chinese-owned, unionized               pink tab.
  garment factory is typical.  She complained                    TABS
  to her union representative about
  managment's violation of union work
  rules. The following week, ads including
  her picture were placed in several
  Chinese-language newspapers.  The caption
  said: 'This is so-and-so, who is a good           If this polite
  worker, but is unhappy working at                 phrasing was intended
  such-and-such a factory. Would some               to provide legal
  kindhearted owner please hire her?'               cover, I have my
  She was effectively blackballed."                 doubts it would've
                                                    held up.

                                                         But if it's target
                                                         audience *thought*
                                                         that it provided
                                                         cover, that's enough
  I think we'd all agree that this is a bad              for it to work.  And
  thing-- well most of us, there aren't too many         after all even if it
  free market die-hards left-- but nevertheless          were shot down in
  might there not be some virtue to having your          court later it would
  own internal dispute resolution channel that           still do the main job.
  one is expected to use before resorting to the
  external ones?  What's bad about the above is
  the attempt to suppress *any* dissent.  A wiser
  organization might actually provide a set of
  layers for dispute resolution that are agreed
  to by all players-- monthly group discussions
  and contracts that specify arbitration rather
  than courts.

       There's no point in treating the
       institution of Chinatown as a
       model to be precisely imitated.
       The question is, can we learn
       from it's virtues and fix it's
       vices...


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