Quote:
Originally Posted by sclitheroe
My understanding is that it's heads and tails better for the average blue collar/semi-skilled worker inside Foxconn than outside the gates. Additionally, the reports of hours worked per week are misleading - most workers would work more hours, if they were available, even to the detriment of their health.
If the average Canadian was told they could go work 60-80 hour weeks at a factory-city and make 10-100x what they were making currently, I wonder how many would take that opportunity, at least for a few years? I'm betting quite a few.
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To me that's the big issue. To say people need to look at the big picture is a little misleading... people need to look at the big picture and that picture happens to be
the size of China.
It's easy to say "Apple is run by a**holes because factory conditions are poor at Foxconn. They should fix it". It's much harder to say "China on the whole is a humanitarian cesspool and in order to fix it we need to essentially rock the entire economy". We get cheap goods from China and I would argue very few people care enough to change that.
There are people who legitimately give a damn about Chinese workers, and there are people who just love ripping on Apple whenever they can. Together those groups are making a little noise. Sadly it isn't nearly enough noise to make a whole lot of real difference.