Consumer Electronics - Who Pays The Price?

[BALKAN]

Just watched this short video on Youtube about chemical poisoning in Chinese "workplaces"



I have to admit I wasn't aware that there was such a huge impact on their health. I thought they were just overworked and (drastically) underpaid.

Who's responsibility is this? Obviously China's, but are companies like Apple liable at all? Do they have a responsibility to the people who are such a huge part of their company? DO YOU FEEL BAD FOR THEM?

 

[zimma]

Thing is, you can feel as bad as you want... End of the day there's always going to be one Country willing to exploit their working population to develop more industry, and there's always going to be people who want cheap electronics and are happy being naive about the details. Improve conditions in China, they will just move to another Asian country, improve it in Asia as a whole, they will move to Africa or South America, unless somehow literally every country in the world agrees to improve worker rights it's just a sad inevitability of the modern world.

 

[kickazz]

This aint even half of it. Do some reading on the mineral Coltan, and the associated violence / intimidation / war / rape that goes on in eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo in order to secure it.

I feel bad for them - yes, they are getting a job they may not otherwise have available; but we are enjoying cheaper prices at the expense of their working conditions. Workers of the West, instead of just complaining about jobs going overseas, could do well to use some of their union funding/power to try and lift the conditions of their brothers and sisters in the third world to a basic level.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Forget electronics, it's very thing you own.

The Chinese working class are slowly wising up to it though.