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"Just because a sweatshop may be better than backbreaking farm work, doesn't mean we can't care about what is happening in sweatshops." It's not that we don't

by Steko 15y ago

"Just because a sweatshop may be better than backbreaking farm work, doesn't mean we can't care about what is happening in sweatshops." It's not that we don't care about what's happening in sweatshops. Appeals to emotion and morality are often dismissed as fallacies but they are certainly real. The problem is a lack of context and solutions. Most of the arguments used disappear in context. The linked article makes the point about the injury rate and the wage rates; I do think he's partly off on suicides by missing that they clustered around the exorbitant benefits Foxconn had given for suicide. "Apple should use it's margins to do something" isn't a real solution imho. How do we know they haven't already "done something"? How many "somethings" should Apple do? Until they run out of margins? What do the companies with very/low margin do? They get to do nothing because their products are shit? If a boycott closes Foxconn is that helping these workers? Will the anti-Foxconn people be thrilled when Foxconn transitions to primarily automated assembly plants? "Also, it's "Daisey"." Thanks, corrected.

Natsu 15y ago
> How do we know they haven't already "done something"? How many "somethings" should Apple do? IMHO, they should require their suppliers to have a worker safety program, same as factories do in America. It's relatively easy to check whether or not a factory has on-site nurses and whether or not the employees know what to do when someone gets injured when you want to audit this.
- Arelius 15y ago
  I don't disagree, simply uninformed. But do we know that this is currently actually the case?
  - Natsu 15y ago
    One of the reports mentioned a man getting his hand crushed in a machine and then getting no medical aid. They also used toxic n-hexane to clean screens until it made workers sick. Neither situation should happen anywhere with a reasonable safety program. The MSDS (or equivalent) would have let them know how toxic n-hexane was and what sort of PPE is required to handle it safely. And they generally provide nurses or at least train a few employees as first aid providers (I am one such employee, incidentally). They're plenty big enough to afford a few full-time nurses or the equivalent.

by Steko 15y ago

Natsu 15y ago

> How do we know they haven't already "done something"? How many "somethings" should Apple do? IMHO, they should require their suppliers to have a worker safety program, same as factories do in America. It's relatively easy to check whether or not a factory has on-site nurses and whether or not the employees know what to do when someone gets injured when you want to audit this.

Arelius 15y ago
I don't disagree, simply uninformed. But do we know that this is currently actually the case?
- Natsu 15y ago
  One of the reports mentioned a man getting his hand crushed in a machine and then getting no medical aid. They also used toxic n-hexane to clean screens until it made workers sick. Neither situation should happen anywhere with a reasonable safety program. The MSDS (or equivalent) would have let them know how toxic n-hexane was and what sort of PPE is required to handle it safely. And they generally provide nurses or at least train a few employees as first aid providers (I am one such employee, incidentally). They're plenty big enough to afford a few full-time nurses or the equivalent.