"The Agony and the Ecstacy of Steve Jobs"

[anne_t_social]

"...while the official Chinese workday is 8 hours, the norm at Foxconn is more like 12 and even longer when the introduction of a product is at hand. One worker died after a 34-hour shift. Some of the workers he meets are as young as 13, and because of the repetitive nature of the labor, their hands often become deformed and useless within a decade

Comments

[xfoundinabottle]

You can just.. not buy apple products.

If you must, buy second hand. A computer can also be built from parts, which would be cheaper (you only have to pay for the drive and the motherboard new, everything else you can either have used or the like, would support local workers (because your local tech nerd will have to put it together), and would also be better for the environment.

[anne_t_social]

Yeah, but as the article says, "About half of all consumer electronics sold in the world today are produced at a single mammoth factory campus in Shenzhen, China" - so it's not just Apple products. And I would guess that those produced at other factories are made under equally terrible conditions. I can do without Apple, but I doubt that I could do without a computer.

You're right, though, I could just buy used, or refurbished. That is definitely a good idea.

[lega11ybrunette]

It's a really tough issue, but I think it goes back to the people holding the government accountable for regulating these businesses that are willing to not pay their share of taxes while they pull jobs out of our countries and take them overseas to exploit people. It's wrong. The problem with buying things locally is that it is too expensive for most people. Thanks for the article...I'm going to share it!

[ex_38621]

It's not just the developing countries though. I read a book the other day in which this journalist here in Germany worked undercover in some minimum-wage industries (steel industry etc.) and people there worked in MISERABLE circumstances (around poisonous materials without protective gear) for up to 42 hours in a row etc....given the book was from 1985 but I'm not at all positive that a lot of this has changed by now.
Anyway, yes, this all is horrible but I don't really have a solution. I think we can't avoid products made under conditions like that today, at least not when it comes to electronics.
:(