A few things to note:
- The job was taken voluntarily
- The employee can resign at any time
- The pay is not horrible. $2/hr for overtime is very high for China, and much higher than could be made at most jobs outside of professional occupations in major cities.
Working in a factory in China is not a glorious undertaking, but it is not (in this case) slave labor nor is it unethical.
The author suggests robots could do this, but instead they use humans - as if it were a horrible thing to voluntarily employ humans. Do you think those earning a living there would prefer to be fired and replaced by robots?
There are horrible situations in China - like the gulag prison labor system. There are certainly factories where children are put to work unethically and illegally (as there are in the US). This article however exposes nothing alarming.
And besides, isn't Apple something like 0.001% of Chinese manufacturing output? Apple isn't the problem; if anything Apple may well be the strongest force for positive change at Foxconn.
Working in a factory in China is not a glorious undertaking, but it is not (in this case) slave labor nor is it unethical.
The author suggests robots could do this, but instead they use humans - as if it were a horrible thing to voluntarily employ humans. Do you think those earning a living there would prefer to be fired and replaced by robots?
There are horrible situations in China - like the gulag prison labor system. There are certainly factories where children are put to work unethically and illegally (as there are in the US). This article however exposes nothing alarming.