Food safety scandal rocks China as report claims cooking oil carried in same trucks as fuel | CNN Business
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Public outrage is mounting in China over allegations that a major state-owned food company has been cutting costs by using the same tankers to carry fuel and cooking oil – without cleaning them in between.

Public outrage is mounting in China over allegations that a major state-owned food company has been cutting costs by using the same tankers to carry fuel and cooking oil – without cleaning them in between.

The scandal, which implicates China’s largest grain storage and transport company Sinograin, and private conglomerate Hopefull Grain and Oil Group, has raised concerns of food contamination in a country rocked in recent decades by a string of food and drug safety scares – and evoked harsh criticism from Chinese state media.

It was an “open secret” in the transport industry that the tankers were doing double duty, according to a report in the state-linked outlet Beijing News last week, which alleged that trucks carrying certain fuel or chemical liquids were also used to transport edible liquids such as cooking oil, syrup and soybean oil, without proper cleaning procedures.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
    71·
    4 months ago

    I’m pretty sure less than 14 people in a year jumped off of Google’s headquarters.

    (Insert virtually any other non-Chinese corporation or factory not located in China in Google’s place.)

    I’m also pretty sure Google didn’t have to install suicide nets.

    • nekandro@lemmy.mlEnglish
      3·
      4 months ago

      Google isn’t the equivalent to Foxconn. It would be more like Ford or some Detroit automaker.

    • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
      74·
      4 months ago

      Google doesn’t have a million employees. It also doesn’t have company barracks, if a google engineer wants to off themselves they’re probably going to do it at home or on the Bay Bridge, not at headquarters. Where you probably can’t open the windows on the upper floors.

      But if you can find suicide rates of google employees – not just on-site, but overall, I’m all ear. You can look at literally any population, it’s never going to be zero.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
        52·
        4 months ago

        It also doesn’t have company barracks

        What? You mean other corporations don’t require their employees to sleep at their jobs?!

        But I’m sure that can’t possibly have anything to do with mental illness leading to suicide, hence all the suicide nets on the buildings of all of those other factories. Oh wait.

        • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
          73·
          4 months ago

          As far as I’m aware it’s not a requirement. They’re there to make money and the company barracks are cheap. Students in the US also aren’t required to live in dormitories, but more often than not they do.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
            53·
            4 months ago

            Sorry… are you comparing student dorms with factory barracks? What shithole college did you go to?

            • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
              51·
              4 months ago

              I’m not American. I lived in a flat when studying. From what I’ve heard you can’t even cook in US student dorms that’d be an absolute no-go for me. Also, roommates are required and you get no choice in who that’s going to be.

              But maybe a better comparison would be to bunks on an oil rig… with the difference that Foxconn workers aren’t required to sleep in barracks, they’re free to sleep elsewhere. No such option on an oil rig. You also see temporary accommodation on larger construction sites. Or farmers offering bunk-beds to seasonal workers.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
                11·
                4 months ago

                Sorry, you’re now comparing permanent living conditions to temporary accommodations? Accommodations which are actually nicer than what Foxconn provides?

                Oil rig living quarters:

                Foxconn living quarters:

                Yes, practically the same.

                • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
                  2·
                  4 months ago

                  People don’t work long at Foxconn. Poor, rural Chinese get a job at those kinds of places to have money to settle down somewhere else, to open a small business, to re-invest into the family farm, whatnot. They’re thinking “I need this and this much money to open a noodle shop, if I live in barracks It’s going to take me X months to have the money together, if I rent an apartment X+Y months”, and then they do it.

                  The whole migratory worker thing is a Chinese phenomenon, feel free to criticise it but most of that criticism should be directed at the CCP who are under-investing into rural areas at the expense of a couple of big, centralised, developments.

                  Also how often do I have to repeat “employees are not required to live in barracks” until you acknowledge it. In fact, I’m going to answer nothing but that until you say it in your own words.

                  How much is tuition in that place the dorm picture is from? I bet just living in the dorms is more than Chinese minimum wage.

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
                    12·
                    4 months ago

                    I like how you just disregard everything that you are saying that turns out not to be true as if you never said it.

                    Here’s something about their “voluntarily” staying in those barracks:

                    Xu and his friend were both walk-on recruits, though not necessarily willing ones. “They call Foxconn a fox trap,” he says. “Because it tricks a lot of people.” He says Foxconn promised them free housing but then forced them to pay exorbitantly high bills for electricity and water. The current dorms sleep eight to a room and he says they used to be 12 to a room. But Foxconn would shirk social insurance and be late or fail to pay bonuses. And many workers sign contracts that subtract a hefty penalty from their pay if they quit before a three-month introductory period.

                    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/18/foxconn-life-death-forbidden-city-longhua-suicide-apple-iphone-brian-merchant-one-device-extract

                    Quite the choice they’re given there. Bunkers with eight to a room or bills they can’t afford to pay.

                    I can’t wait for you to ignore this like you’ve ignored everything else. Or maybe you’ll dismiss this as Western imperialist propaganda?