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The Human Cost of the Apple Supply Chain Machine (bloomberg.com)
Apple is still struggling to improve working conditions at its supply chain factories. China Labor Watch and Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Catcher, a key supplier for iPhone and MacBook casings, makes workers endure harsh safety conditions and unfair work terms in a factory in Suqian. According to observers and discussions with workers, the machines are not only loud, but spray fluid and metallic particles that frequently hit workers' faces only some of which have access to safety goggles and gloves. From the report: Hundreds throng a workshop where the main door only opens about 12 inches. Off duty, they return to debris-strewn dorms bereft of showers or hot water. Many go without washing for days at a time, workers told Bloomberg. "My hands turned bloodless white after a day of work," said one of the workers, who makes a little over 4,000 yuan a month (just over $2 an hour) in her first job outside her home province of Henan. She turned to Catcher because her husband's home-decorating business was struggling. "I only tell good things to my family and keep the sufferings like this for myself." "I asked for the earplugs many times but they didn't have any. The loud noise of 'zah-zah' made my head ache and dizzy," one of those employees told Bloomberg.
The wife works in a factory and the husband owns a home decorating business? Well THERE'S your problem.
In China, most factory workers are women. The men are back on the farm doing heavy labor. Most modern factory work requires dexterity, not strength.
But how far up the chain should Apple's responsibility go? Should they be responsible for the farmers that grow the rice served in the company cafeteria?
Please. Apple makes BILLIONS in profit. You're simply trying to pass the buck. "It's not Apple's fault, they're a business!" Saying that they have to make a profit above any and all other considerations is bullshit.
Sorry, but people are going to pay attention to this kind of stuff, and they're going to ream Apple about it (though this kind of thing is not exclusive to Apple). That's the cost of doing business. Paying someone so low that it's pretty much slave labor isn't going to get you any gold medals.
There is no reason most African countries would have to live in the stone age other than the fact that their resources and people have been repeatedly pillaged over thousands of years.
Right, because, say England, France, Germany, Japan, and South Korea were completely free from repeated pillaging for thousands of years. Nobody ever invaded them or took any of their resources.
When you have countries actively trying to keep them down it is rather difficult for me to stand there and make such a callous supposition such as yours.
The history of mankind is basically a constant struggle between tribes and nations "actively trying to keep others down". At different times in history different groups did it with different degrees of success, but to use that as a cop-out is incredibly naive. When African nations were raiding and pillaging Europe, nobody suggested that Europe would be a utopian wonderland if only those damn Africans would cut it the fuck out. When Vikings were raiding England, there was nobody blabbering about how those poor besieged Britons would be just fine if only everyone else would leave them alone.
The rise and demise of nations is an incredibly complex subject; it's a fools errand to try and isolate it down to simplistic causes. Anyone who pretends to have "the answer" is an ignoramus at best. And if that answer happens to be "isolationism" then you're a dangerous ignoramus as well.
...Until is more fair?
It is not Apple's job to give everyone in the world the equivalent of an American middle-class lifestyle. $2 per hour is a fair wage in China, especially for an unskilled worker. It is not enough to afford an SUV and a four bedroom house with a white picket fence, but it is enough for a moped and a room in shared apartment, and with two adults working, and the grandparents providing childcare (normal in China), it is enough to support a family.