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| February 20, 2009 | (Use j/k keys to navigate)  Email to a friend  Permalink |
At work
When the economy makes big news, many photographs of people at work come across the wires, usually to help illustrate a particular story or event. By collecting these disparate photos over the past few months, I found that a global portrait emerged of we humans producing things. People assembling, generating, and building items small and large, mundane and expensive, trivial and important. I hope you enjoy this look into some people's work lives around the world. (45 photos total)
An aerial view of the snow covered Ruhr district, with the steel company ThyssenKrupp in Duisburg, western Germany, is seen. ThyssenKrupp AG, Germany's largest steelmaker, said Friday Feb. 13, 2009 company profits dropped sharply in the fiscal first quarter and that it would cut jobs as the world economic crisis caused a sharp fall in demand for steel. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) #
A worker walks past chicken eggs stored at a major eggs production factory in suburban Beijing, China, Friday, Oct. 31, 2008. Three more Chinese brands of eggs containing melamine were identified and a local government has acknowledged that officials knew about the contamination for a month before it was publicly disclosed. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) #
A worker walks over steel bars at an iron and steel plant in Wuhan, Hubei province, China on November 1, 2008. Moves by China to restrict steel exports may push trade distortion problems into other industries down the line and run counter to world rules, a U.S. trade official said. (REUTERS/Stringer) #
Workers perform a quality check for newly made toys at the production line of a toy factory in the suburbs of Shanghai October 31, 2008. According to the owner of the factory, where most of the production is for export to the U.S and Japan, the slowdown of about 30% in client's orders can be mainly attributed to the global financial crisis. The number of Chinese firms exporting toys overseas halved in the first seven months of 2008, compared to the year before, the General Administration of Customs said on Monday. (REUTERS/Nir Elias) #
An operator walks in the control room of the closed third unit of the nuclear power plant of Kozlodui north east of the Bulgarian capital Sofia, Friday, Jan. 23, 2009. Bulgaria's parliament has approved plans to seek European Union permission to re-launch two old nuclear reactors mothballed when it joined the EU two years ago. The two aging 440-megawatt reactors at the Kozlodui plant were shut down in 2007. The government says Bulgarian businesses lost euro100 million (US$129 million) when Russian natural gas supplies were suspended for nearly two weeks. (AP Photo/Petar Petrov) #
An employee works at a workshop of Changning Steel and Iron Factory in Changzhi, Shanxi province, China on January 15, 2009. European Union trade officials will vote on Thursday in favor of imposing temporary antidumping duties of 25 percent on imports of Chinese-made steel wire rods, diplomats said. (REUTERS/Stringer) #
A woman spins raw silk yarn in a factory owned by Rwandan textile firm Utexwra in Rwanda's capital city, Kigali on January 19, 2009. Rwandan textile firm Utexrwa will launch the central African country's first range of silk products in February, as part of a strategy to more than triple turnover, the company said on Monday. The central African country's soil and climate are ideal for growing mulberry trees which silk-worms eat. The company said silk-worm rearers can earn three times more than coffee growers per hectare per year. (REUTERS/Hereward Holland) #
People work on an assembly line of shoes at Thuong Dinh Shoe factory in Hanoi, Vietnam, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008. Thuong Dinh Shoe factory produces shoes for domestic markets and for exports. Shoe exports are among top of Vietnam's export earners, earning $4 billion last year.(AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki) #
A laborer's hands are covered with paraffin wax inside a candle making factory in the northeastern Indian city of Siliguri October 24, 2008. Candles are sold in large numbers during Diwali, the annual Hindu festival of lights, when people buy candles to decorate their homes. The Diwali festival was celebrated across the country on October 28. (REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri) #
Eladio Gonzalez sands and buffs Oscar #3453 at R.S. Owens & Company Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009, in Chicago. Oscar 3453 began its life with the transformation of a chunk of metal alloy into a 13 1/2-inch-tall statue at the factory where the statuettes have been made since 1983. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green) #
A worker assembles a miniature locomotive at the Maerklin model train factory March 30, 2006 in Goeppingen, Germany. Maerklin is one of many German smaller manufacturing companies with rich traditions who have suffered under falling demand for their high-priced products. (Thomas Niedermueller/Getty Images) #
A man picks a bottle at an assembly line inside the Taiwan Beer factory in Jhunan, Miaoli County February 13, 2008. Taiwan Beer, made by the Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp, will be sold in mainland China from May, amid warming ties between the two cross-strait rivals, according to local media. (REUTERS/Nicky Loh) #
Obama cigars ready to be packed in boxes are placed on a table at the Segovia Cigars Factory in the Nicaragua's northern province of Esteli February 4, 2009. While U.S. President Barack Obama tries to kick an old smoking habit, a Nicaraguan company has produced the latest in a flood of merchandise trying to cash in on his popularity -- "Obama" cigars. (OSWALDO RIVAS/Reuters) #
An employee works at the Ferronikeli smelting complex in Glogovac, central Kosovo February 12, 2009. The Ferronikeli ore mining and metallurgical complex, set up in 1984, was badly damaged during the 1999 NATO air strikes against Serbia. It was bought by a consortium of international investors in 2006. (REUTERS/Hazir Reka) #
A worker at Iraqi's Iskandariyah power plant works on a broken electricity-generating turbine shaft February 11, 2009 in Iskandariyah, Iraq. Built in the early 1980s, the Iskandariyha plant is Iraq's largest and most important, providing a significant percentage of the country's total electrical power. Years of neglect by Saddam's government, as well as a 1991 aerial strike by the US during the Persian Gulf War, have left the plant hobbled and sometimes only operating at half capacity. The plant burns Iraq's plentiful crude oil to generate power with almost no modern environmental regulations while its employees, numbering over 1000, work on dirty, oil-slicked floors with little safety equipment. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
Workers ignite a kiln at a brick factory in Guruwali village on the outskirts of Amritsar, India on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008. Brick making is an unorganized industry, generally confined to rural and semi-urban areas and is one of the largest employment-generating industries in India. The laborers usually work for 12-14 hours a day to reach a target of 1,000 bricks a day, earning between US$ 60 to 100 a month. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri) #
Child laborers sit at a police station after they were removed from a factory during a raid by policemen and activists of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or "save childhood" movement, in New Delhi, India, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2008. 34 child laborers were rescued from a local embroidery factory. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup) #
Workers operate product lines in a dairy factory of Mengniu Dairy Group Co., one of China's largest dairy producers, in Hohhot, north China's Inner Mongolia region, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008. China's dairy giants are trying to revive their brands and win back consumer confidence, saying melamine contamination problems that have tarnished the industry won't resurface. Nearly 6,000 Chinese babies remain hospitalized with kidney problems caused by contaminated milk powder, the Health Ministry said. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan) #
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a group of city officials, (bottom right), watch as the cutter head of a tunnel boring machine is lifted by crane before being lowered into an underground assembly chamber beneath 11th Avenue at 25th Street for use in the Number 7 subway line extension project Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009 in New York. The cutter head, 22 feet in diameter and weighing 100 tons, is the first piece of two massive tunnel boring machines that will slice through Manhattan bedrock as they bore underneath 11th Avenue from 25th Street to 41st Street, and then east to the existing Number 7 line's terminus at Times Square. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow) #
More links and information
And Now, Let the Boring Begin - NYTimes.com 2/19
Death Sentences in Chinese Milk Case - NYTimes.com 01/22
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.
Hazir Reka is the one, great job
Wow ! Thanks so much it is heartbreaking photos !
Wow! It was refreshing to see so many people producing so many tangible goods. Not a taxpayer funded public works project in the bunch!
What a picture of the effects of a global economy in the world in 2009.
It really shows how interdependent we are becoming. It also shows how global production will sooner or later affect the wages, health, and living standards of millions of people in our shrinking world. Let us hope these standards rise instead of being dragged down to lower ones.
Everyone should see the picture SLUMDOG, made in India and presently being
shown in theaters.
shown
Incredible!!!
While most of the above comments marvel at the quality of the published photos, and quite deservedly so, I must however, much to the shagrin of many of you, take a completely different position on the message. It is great to see peoples of the planet busy, turning the wheels of their economies; however, as it pertains to these very United States, I MUST express this thought: Several years ago, the pure and shameful element of greed drove the CEO's of big profitable companies to start packaging the heart and soul of this country and its economy and shipping them to the places that you know. To these money hungry fat cats I have one thing
to say: Shame on you, short sighted, self-centered shysters, robbing the pride of this land and exporting its very foundation for existance, for good. Damn you bastards!! Damn you.....
I hope the new administration will deliver on its promise of penalizing companies outsourcing the bloodline of this country. Wake up you egotistical twits, shipping jobs to Bangalore and Bangkok may save you a dime today, but will have your children cursing your ancestors, as they scramble to survive in the desert land, once called the Fertile Land of Freedom.
Before any body gets their feathers ruffled, let me say, I am NOT suggesting total ignorance of other countries and what they can bring to the table. But I am saying, America does NOT need to import every thing it consumes from CHINA. What in the Hell happened to our national pride? Our drinking water is damn near coming from China. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, business venturists. Fry in hell, TWICE!! You make me sick!!!
O' by the way and for the record: ALL items made and imported from China are sub par and of piss poor quality, yes ALL. This is fact and no hasty generalization.
WAKE UP AMERICA, demand that your Congressmen and women redirect commerce to where it belongs, American factories.
to say
Just stunning! Reminds us of something in life that we might be prone to forget ... Thanks a lot for the fantastic work!
I suspect (am not sure) there maybe some contradiction in the captions of #5 and #9:
#5 "...Moves by China to restrict steel exports may push trade distortion problems into other industries down the line and run counter to world rules ..."
#9 "...European Union trade officials will vote on Thursday in favor of imposing temporary antidumping duties of 25 percent on imports of Chinese-made steel wire rods..."
Seems both are from "REUTERS/Stringer". Is China restricting steel exports or dumpting it?
Maybe this is not important as whatever China is doing some people would feel bad about it?
May God protect them all
Great shots, though it's interesting to have the India-angle commented on. I wouldn't know enough about the subject to notice something like that, so the comments are appreciated.
Does #36 look to anyone else like a fiendish trap from an old 1960s episode of Batman?
By the way , the signature in #28 is not exactly precise. Those kinds of boots are not "common" in the Baltic states, it more of a Russian style.
great topic selection!
this is truly incredible!! thanks so much
Excellent photography, but it would be a good idea if you gave the equivalent measurements in metric system next to the old imperial one. Pls remember most countries in the world use the metric system. This would be a curtious gesture.
very nice series. Maybe something more from Africa and Latin America!
Picture 28 — valenki generally only in Russia. I've never seen any in Latvia or Lithuania.
excellent photos, and a million thanks and congratulations to the people who photographed the bodies of workers.
Free trade is the best way to encourage equality and peace throughout the world. If we stop child labor in underdeveloped countries that child may not have to work but he also may not be able to eat. It is sometimes sad but necessary for the child and their family. If we stop outsourcing, those countries will not have the jobs to make their countries better, which will provide higher paying jobs, which keep those kids from having to work. It will also free up resources in our own countries which can be used more efficiently in other ways. Global wealth is not zero sum. More wealth can be generated without taking it from someone else. Let the free market move jobs and resources to where they are more efficient. We may not make as much but we also will not have to spend as much.
Showing great pictures is probably the best way to make people aware of the reality of men and life all over the world.
A picture worth thousand words !
Congratulatiions and thanks.
Paul GENTON - Geneva (Switzerland)
so great!
No 28. Haven't seen felt boots in Lithuania for ages.
Excellent images! Thank you.
Manufacturing is still done in the USA! The website of the clock company in photograph #1 is http://www.electrictime.com
Nice photos but I saw no representation of service workers.
cool I think you work is superve
Dear commenters! The title is "At Work." Don't take offense because a country is, in your opinion, ill-represented! These are random, disparate pictures, not supposed to represent ALL LABOR that is taking place in the world today! There is very little in this wonderful parade that shows all the industriousness of the United States, but that's irrelevant. There is no display of agriculture or any of the arts or.... well, you get my idea. So what? Just enjoy the panorama of this churning going on all the time around the world.
Each picture worth a thousand words ..............45 pictures worth a biographical novel.
How to be a CEO
Analyse process. Reduce process into simple steps. Assign worker to perform single simple step. Increase workforce by ten times. Reduce wages by three quarters. Watch as production increases by 100 times. Repeat.
Wow, it's amazing. This pictures are amazing ♥
Without words .... just ...WOW! A big work to show to the world the big work!!!
HAHAHA...see NO. 3, I could count out how many eggs....
Many of them are containing safety hazards like the one "Man walking on pipes" in China...
Or the one "Man working with gun powder to make fire crackers" without gloves...
and many more...
#7 is Homer's job.
Absolutely amazing.
I was deeply impressed.
I am a Radio journalist from Romania.
"The work praises the man", says an Irish Proverb.
The Romanian version is:
"Munca il innobileaza pe om".
www.RelusMuresan.tk
nice one
whilst i accept the facts shown in pictorial reg.. india which are at one extreme it would have been more balanced if you had shown the other extreme of India at work..as everyone knows that India have two extremes at Work..
Great pics.
It's such a pity humanity doesn't realise that we don't need most of the crap they are making. The earth would be a better place without all the industry that uses up resources belonging to our future generations...... all for the sake of profit!! Selling the Earth's soul for our own greed.....pointless and wrong.
It looks like #19 may depict a charcoal worker, not a coal worker. Wood is burned in an oxygen-poor environment, like this oversized pile of wood, to make charcoal.
Notes:
I noticed that the worker in almost all of these photos is portrayed as a passive part of the machinery, not a thinker. 37 is refreshingly different. In #45, the caption isn't really about the worker, or the work described in the caption is mostly to be done after the borer is in the ground, out of sight.
All the jobs here seem to be something a robot could do: cleaning, sorting, inspecting against simple physical criteria, assembling, moving, inserting, mixing.
#42 shows 75kg of gold, value about 2 million euros.
I wish all of these jobs are happening in U.S.A, of course with much better pay.
Instead of asking our government to do everything to give us jobs,all of us, as Americans, refrain from buying the goods from other countries and the American manufacturing companies should take pride in producing more quality products, at last, our government should subsidize U.S. labor costs just as other countries, like China, England, India and Japan to compete with other countries while U.S. workers can support their families. With this method, we will be able to change the difficult economic conditions as a team, as proud Americans who can pull the country out of the recession with least ripples of concerns, nationally and internationally.
As a professional photographer, I can appreciate the wonder of this great set of photographs. The number of individuals these many industries provide a living for is beyond immediate comprehension.
I honor the many photographers involved in this piece.
For those who think that there are no felt boots in Lithuania/Latvia (about #28): they are quite rare in Lithuania or Latvia but you can come across them in small villages when the temperature is below -10. It's because these boots are not very comfortable but they protect from snow and cold really well.
#1 is absolutely beautiful -- would love to have a print of that one in B&W. :D
Great photo's. Too bad that all of these manufacturing jobs are not in the USA.
DUH! No wonder we're down millions of jobs in this country. President Obama,
have you seen this??? Where have all the USA jobs gone??? Abroad!!! Not everyone can be a stock broker or financial anaylst... on Wall Street. Well, I'm glad I got this off my chest. I reached the ripe old age of 70, trying to make ends meet.
Yes, it tough!..
The pralines are moving when yo scroll
Do you think these workers are getting their share of the profits?
I fear for the future generations if greed/fraud at the top continues. Maybe time to go back to the 'Community'.
Love the shots! Vancouver, Canada
What a truly global economy we have. Thanks for sharing Brian! I think I'll stick to career coaching though I did wear a hard hat and steel toe boots while auditing a steel factory in my early career days. It was an experience and made me appreciate all the effort that goes into our modern lifestyle.
Makes you love your job more. and respect others and their jobs further
Terrifying.
Great pictures, love them all.
One side note to the German Märklin factory: the company was, according to Financial Times Germany, killed by plan of hedgefonds managers who sucked the money out of the profitable Märklin company and paid themselves highly oversized benefits and bonusses. They make beautiful models at Märklin.
depuis un bon moment j'admire et apprécie vos images.
Et ne serait ce pas ce le premier commentaire en français ?
c'est curieux cette "exclusion" Pas de correspondants ou pas envie ?
Bravo, cordialement.
Its Amazing..I should say..These pictures give us an idea on the number of people we have to thank directly or indirectly to obtain a product/good or service.
I love all of these pictures. They are really great and they gave alot of good angles.
Amazing pictures of different work places around the world.
it is wordelfull pictures of the world
Wonderful~
I have never been to factory. Thanks for giving me chances to see these big big scale working place~
Aham:) nice
Fantastic Photos!
A reality check as to where the laborer belongs in society. These pictures are solid proof of the strength and resiliency of the workers(or drones) that keep the global enterprise afloat. Take a reality check to those that abound us and support the value of industrial enterprise and the workers that keep the ship afloat.
for many people in the world hard work or not unique method is for existence. thanking globalizations
these are very interesting
thanks
wow
Fabulous photos! I'm so glad I found this site.
VIKTOR DRACHEV!
I' lived in Latvia all my life and have never seen any ''valenky'' here! You should have collected some information before you spread such stupid crap about Latvia.
p.s. And why then didn't you mention Estonia and Belarus too?
I am so thankful for my job as an OR nurse. Even after working an 18 or 20 hour day sometimes, I wouldn't trade it for any of the jobs I've seen here.
AMAZING MUCH!
GOO JOB=]
Naprawdê wyj±tkowe:)
Very nice collection. I think someof the comments (about missing items and such) are a bit off mark because the collection does not seem to claim to represent anything in particular - it is just a collection depicting the collector's choice of interesting photgraphs of people "at work". On a separate note, while I have no particular fondness for CEOs or the willy nilly pusuit of profit maximization, in blaming CEOs or, by extension, capitalism, we often forget that both are ultimately driven by "the people" or in economic terms, "demand". It is "we, the people" who,allocate jobs by making our consumption decisions. If we are willing to put a premium on buying American, then that will flow through the chain fairly quickly. If we didn't buy shoes made by children, that too would stop. Or perhaps, we can do one better and insist that the children be paid a fair wage and be given some minimum basic rights ... that would mean paying for them, of course, but that would be a step in the right direction. Protectionism is almost never the answer.
Best regards.
salam
jaleb bod, ama be ghole agha majid e ghesehaye majid mordeshor yadeton raft.
A picture tells a thousand stories;
Ask your child this question for Life:
Who do you want to be when You grow up ?)
Indoor Outdoor environment, people change.
outstanding angles, AMAZING piece of work. thanks
Thanks for gathering theese... hard works.
Work to be done - so necessary - so hard to do - it wouldn´t be, if we only knew how to share it among all the people in this world - less unemployment, more free time for each one, less average pay for each one with a job, but fewer wealthy people thus - a fairer world would it be.
Thanks for these pictures. My four-year-old son loved them! (Though he wishes there were more picture of trains.)
biased observation! all the important jobs belong to the Western world and all hard labor work belongs to the third world, this is the world the author lives in!
With all the doom and gloom we hear every day about the economy, this series was really uplifting.
These simple reminders that new wealth is still being produced by industrious individuals should be inspiring to everyone, even if it's just taken as a reminder of what the human mind is capable of.
sweet
its really amazingggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg
Wonderful work.
ah.... Le travail
I LOVED it!!!
I have a question thow....
In pic #9 , was it a long exposure shot??
and if so, id love to hear some details.
thnak you very much
omri
its so good i love hart working pipal love you all
Really fansactic pictures....we should the ppl who are making our life so smooth...
All the things we take for granted, ... like plastic gloves, bricks, zippers, and the toilet. We usually don't take the time to think about all the people who actually work their fingers to the bone to produce these things. It's a great line up of photos! It would make a great coffee-table or waiting-room book. (Whoops, There I go with my middle-class thinking.) But really, it is very thought provoking. Thanks for the insight.
What can you say but a very exceptional display of an exceptional piece of work.
bu ne amına koyim bee gelin burda işçilik nasıl bide burda görün adamlar 10 kata klima takarken 11 kattan sarkıyo emniyet halatına arkadaşının eli :D
Although I'm all for keeping jobs here in the good old U.S of A.,my hat's off to all the people all over the world who work long hours for little in return so we can have the luxuries of life as seen in these pics.
muy buenoo gracias pude aprender con esto bastante
Simply awesome pictures, Thanx
i understood that in the putures with the hot iron the man looked down, so that he w'ont step on one of them.
the photo of the indian kids, one of them was wounded from his work.
ido 6years old. israel
bellissime !!
a kiss to all workers ........thanks!
Very nice site!
Ok, I'm now thinking maybe you guys hid the "Next" link or the "Page 2of 200" :) This is a lovely collection. I was getting hooked.
nice
it is amazing.
You give the us in the united states our blue crocodile handbags, we'll give your any style of luxury military hardware your government desires.
Responding to comment #158 posted by Deep Lee - Relax, companies did not leave the USA because of greed, they left 1) because of the increasing amount of regulations to accomodate the slightest of employee discomfort; 2) Greedy lawyers willing to bring upon them costly lawsuits most of them unnecessary and 3) The Unions, who insist on their members, receiving the highest of salaries complemented by incredibly expensive Benefits and Retirement packages, which they could no longer afford. Had these companies not left the USA for friendlier places, they would now be where GM is, a company owned by the Union and our ever increasing Taxes.
i wish i apply for a job was have being take place in this website image
and hear from you soon thank you............
awesome...well done
these pictures are sweet
all the pictures here depicting india shows only one side of the coin.. i agree the collection was random.. still.. SLUMDOG is yet another movie from WEST that tries to degrade INDIANS.. showing the shabbby side of our country, which has more than 1000 year old civilization and culture.. this is the country which had literary and art even before the other civilizations had language to speak.. long live India.. Bharath Matha Ki Jai..
cool?
"GOOD" It looks like #19 may depict a charcoal worker, not a coal worker. Wood is burned in an oxygen-poor environment, like this oversized pile of wood, to make charcoal.
Notes:
I noticed that the worker in almost all of these photos is portrayed as a passive part of the machinery, not a thinker. 37 is refreshingly different. In #45, the caption isn't really about the worker, or the work described in the caption is mostly to be done after the borer is in the ground, out of sight.
All the jobs here seem to be something a robot could do: cleaning, sorting, inspecting against simple physical criteria, assembling, moving, inserting, mixing.
#42 shows 75kg of gold, value about 2 million euros.