One of the hallmark properties of a market economy is that you have choice. You don't like your compensation? You quit. The truth is that everyone at the factory is there because they want to be. Because it beats being back on the farm. But still, Foxconn created the problem. When Western media freaked out over the suicides, Foxconn got scared. They started making their employees sign non-suicide agreements. What? Th…
Okay, let me see if I got this straight. Foxconn workers are picking between two shitty jobs. Job A is worse than Job B. Job A is so bad that they are threatening to commit suicide. What kind of choice is this?
One of the hallmark properties of a market economy is that you have choice. You don't like your compensation? You quit. The truth is that everyone at the factory is there because they want to be. Because it beats being back on the farm. But still, Foxconn created the problem. When Western media freaked out over the suicides, Foxconn got scared. They started making their employees sign non-suicide agreements. What? Th…
Okay, let me see if I got this straight. Foxconn workers are picking between two shitty jobs. Job A is worse than Job B. Job A is so bad that they are threatening to commit suicide. What kind of choice is this?
you just gave me a great idea for a movie plot. "Blood Smartphone". A movie about Chinese family working in FoxConn and struggling through live; lots of blood, tears, sweat, abuse, poverty and death. And at the end, a dumb american teenager with bracelets buying an iPhone and downloading Angry Birds and Plants versus Zombie all happy and excited.
I can see the transition shot already: a SnorriCam (one of those cool mounted cameras) following the smartphone down the assembly line, past the family, in dingy blue factory lighting. It loads into a box, onto a truck, into a shipping container, over the ocean, unloaded, and finally in a cheery white and shiny Apple store. The teenager convincing his parents to purchase the phone says "but everyone else my age has o…
love it!! I would change the teen line though: "thank you, daddy! you really, really love me!!"
and would make the ending more tragic. this young member could simply have a bad day etc so him staring bleakly into the camera wouldnt affect me much. how about the plot is about parents who (at the beginning) lost their child that commit suicide cause working 19 hours a day was bit too much, and at the end from overprivilaged, undereducated spoiled teenager camera cuts back to mom and dad hand by hand jumping from a factory roof.
i think that would do it.
"Instead of the raise they requested, these workers were given the following ultimatum: quit with compensation, or keep their jobs with no pay increase. Most quit and never got the money."
That's a pretty shitty thing to do. Had the manufacturing process not been outsourced to Foxconn, would this kind of behavior fly under the Apple or Microsoft brand image? Probably not.
How many suicides would it take before Foxconn is out of business? 1, 10, 1000, .... ? . People already know of dozens or so suicides that have taken place in Foxconn. If people kept on buying stuff regardless, what difference would more suicides make? Call me cynical, but everyone loves cheap products much more than far removed suicides of random people half way across the globe.
Call me cynical as well, but I can't help but think of how many people competing for those jobs see the suicides as job openings.
Simply, the working conditions might be extra bad at FoxConn, but they're bad everywhere else in the general area. The wealth of cheap workers who are willing to work in horrible conditions for pay is still great, and it would take a LOT more suicides than Foxconn has employees for that situation to change for the better. I think.
One of the hallmark properties of a market economy is that you have choice. You don't like your compensation? You quit. The truth is that everyone at the factory is there because they want to be. Because it beats being back on the farm. But still, Foxconn created the problem. When Western media freaked out over the suicides, Foxconn got scared. They started making their employees sign non-suicide agreements. What? Th…
Okay, let me see if I got this straight. Foxconn workers are picking between two shitty jobs. Job A is worse than Job B. Job A is so bad that they are threatening to commit suicide. What kind of choice is this?
It's called the choice of capitalism for the poor. Basically get exploited or don't eat.
One of the hallmark properties of a market economy is that you have choice. You don't like your compensation? You quit. The truth is that everyone at the factory is there because they want to be. Because it beats being back on the farm. But still, Foxconn created the problem. When Western media freaked out over the suicides, Foxconn got scared. They started making their employees sign non-suicide agreements. What? Th…
Okay, let me see if I got this straight. Foxconn workers are picking between two shitty jobs. Job A is worse than Job B. Job A is so bad that they are threatening to commit suicide. What kind of choice is this?
Do you have it straight? From the article: "Instead of the raise they requested, these workers were given the following ultimatum: quit with compensation, or keep their jobs with no pay increase. Most quit and never got the money. That's when the mass suicide threat came in. The incident actually caused a factory wide shutdown, reports Record China. "
One of the hallmark properties of a market economy is that you have choice. You don't like your compensation? You quit. The truth is that everyone at the factory is there because they want to be. Because it beats being back on the farm. But still, Foxconn created the problem. When Western media freaked out over the suicides, Foxconn got scared. They started making their employees sign non-suicide agreements. What? Th…
> You don't need to be sympathetic with the workers either.
Of course not, they are just accepting 36 hour shifts because they are bored. Not because the alternative is starvation and unemployment.
Or you could buy a Galaxy Nexus, made in Korea. I agree, those workers are probably better off working at Foxconn than if they stayed in rural areas and survived by subsistence farming, but it's still a moral grey area. It's akin to saying that slaves lived longer and in better conditions picking cotton in Alabama than growing beans in Africa. It might be true, but it doesn't make it good.
Your analogy isn't applicable. What made them slaves is they were not allowed to return to Africa to do whatever. The Foxconn workers are not slaves. They can go back to farming or choose another job. An employee who serves you is not a slave because he makes less than you.
That's not the analogy I was making. I was saying that there is a certain class of worker who, despite their bad conditions, is probably better off than they would be without the job. Forced or free doesn't factor into it; the question is to what extent supporting their employer is a moral act. Obviously forced labor is worse than free, but there's a continuum of ethical labor practices that both slavery and Foxconn (and any other employer) reside on. I was speaking to the ethical quandary of supporting companies on the low end of that scale, if the options for their employees are something even lower.
Or you could buy a Galaxy Nexus, made in Korea. I agree, those workers are probably better off working at Foxconn than if they stayed in rural areas and survived by subsistence farming, but it's still a moral grey area. It's akin to saying that slaves lived longer and in better conditions picking cotton in Alabama than growing beans in Africa. It might be true, but it doesn't make it good.
Your analogy isn't applicable. What made them slaves is they were not allowed to return to Africa to do whatever. The Foxconn workers are not slaves. They can go back to farming or choose another job. An employee who serves you is not a slave because he makes less than you.
> They can go back to farming
Where? At the government-mandated pick-a-plot-land-for-free fair?