Foxconn factories (Apple, Dell, HP) face questions after 10th suicide

"Foxconn City" outside of Shenzhen has like 100,000 workers. Like most Guangzhou factories, everything from dorms, recreation, and groceries are there on the campus. Almost like an indentured worker program.

 

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.

 

Not sarcastic, just saying as a matter of factly. Back when I worked as a reliability engineer, we used to routinely go over to South China to do quality audits on suppliers' motherboard and power supply factories. Most of the workers on a PCB (printed circuit board) assembly line are females between 18-24 placing through-hole components on a board on an assembly line.

Although the conditions were not bad (i.e. clean facilities, well lit, etc), I could see how life 24-7 at a factory facility could cause morale to drop. Most workers there lived about 6 to a room, spent all their time at the factories, and only visited their families once a year (during CNY). That said, conditions in South China electronics factories are nothing compared to what goes on in textile factories in places like Bangladesh and Honduras. Those places are true hell on earth.

 

~10 suicides out of hundreds of thousand workers doesn't indicate that it's not worth it to many of them.

There's likely a lot of people who are unhappy working under those conditions. They definitely would rather goof around the interwebs on company time. But as for it being "worth it", they probably don't have better or equal alternatives either. If the small town or village they came from was better or had better opportunities, they'd probably stay.

I think you have to ask yourself whether your quality of living perpetuates "aggressive capitalism". A nice laptop and phone and many of goods that we take for granted as cheap are catered for us. Even the time to think about the real concerns happening around us is a luxury.

How do we provide viable economic alternative that accounts for overpopulation and the devaluation of life? Is there even an answer?

 

Raise prices on all goods and services for human rights. Is basically what you have to do. Everyone take 30-40% less to give others more.

There aren't any simple solutions. No, we shouldnt condone harsh treatment of others. It's a sad fact of life that the region you're born in and who you're born from is what dictates your quality of life. Two parents in poverty in Bangladesh have a child, that child has no chance. Its so disheartening. Just we can't save everyone.