Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Should you feel guilty for buying your iPhone?, January 31, 2012 , CNN Tech
Should you feel guilty for buying your iPhone? January 31, 2012 , CNN Tech
Recently, the New York Times released an article about the terrible working conditions that Foxconn employees are facing. Foxconn is the company that that manufactures all of Apple’s appliances and devices. Their factories are currently located in China and their working conditions would never fly here at the United States. In these terrible working conditions people work six days a week and 12 hour shifts. All shifts are on their feet causing their feet to swell up. There are also underage employees that work these long shifts. They live in small crowded rooms on the factory property and in some cases; conditions have gotten so bad that employees have jumped off the buildings committing suicide. The company currently denies all of the reports of harsh working conditions that New York Times has made and the company refuses to comment on any allegation. The conditions have caught most people’s eye and there has been a boycott with over 145,000 signatures to better Apple’s current working conditions. What people are upset about is the fact that even though there is a new article about the working conditions of employees; people still want the newest in Apple’s technology no matter what the cost is. Most customers see it as just because there was a news article and possible boycott on the company that produces these products, it doesn’t mean people won’t want to have the new devices. The latest forms of Apple’s products are offered at a low price because they are manufactured in China and can sacrifice worker’s conditions. My personal opinion of this matter is fairly simple. I believe that people will never want to give up the opportunity of owning the latest and greatest form of technology and Apple knows this. Since they are aware of them being the leading producer of new technology, they should fix and better the conditions of the workers. It does not hurt the business that much because Apple does so much business that bettering the conditions of their current workers will affect the company’s income by a small amount.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/01/29/the-apple-boycott-people-are-spouting-nonsense-about-chinese-manufacturing/2/
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When people are looking to get the latest technology devices, they are not thinking about how the device was made. It would take a lot more than just a few allegations to make people really consider boycotting Apple products. If more people knew about the working conditions of the people making there Apple products, then they could at least make their own moral decision to continue buying them or not. If enough consumers stopped purchasing Apple devices, they would probably lose much more money from that then simply improving the working conditions in China. I think it is sad that Apple is so greedy that they put people’s lives in danger, paying them barely anything and then turn around and sell the products at an expensive price, making an outrageous profit. With the popularity of Apple, taking action to improve working conditions in China would probably only cost a small fraction of their income.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, people really do not need to feel bad about purchasing apple products. I personally have an Iphone and have never felt guilty for buying it. In today's world, it is hard to find a mass producing company that do not utilize sweat shops or other undesirable working areas over seas. All of the major companies do it and a good portion of them have had scandals break out regarding their unfair treatment of workers and lousy working conditions. And yet even with all of the accusations about regarding poor working conditions and unjust labor, the companies continue to thrive and be successful as always. To me this shows that we simply do not care enough about unfair work labor to let it affect our purchasing decisions, therefore we really have nothing to feel guilty about.
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