The Daily Mail went under cover to write an incisive article about the 'Chinese suicide sweatshops' which make Apple's iPod and iPad. Two sprawling factories in Shenzhen work around the clock seven days a week with 15 hour shifts to keep up with the demand.
Foxconn employs 420,000 workers and houses them in sprawling prison like dorms with triple decked bunk beds and single bamboo mats.
One worker said, "There are just three points to your life: going to work, coming home from work, and sleeping...There's no entertainment, no TV, with 12 workers in my dorm."
The day begins with the Chinese national anthem over loudspeakers. "Arise, arise, arise millions of hearts with one mind."
"As part of this Orwellian control, the public address system relays propaganda such as how many products have been made, how a new basketball court has been built for the workers, and why workers should 'value efficiency every minute every second.'"
Ironically Apple is enjoying exponential growth while these working conditions exist for so many. And yet this is just one company of many who have exploited cheap overseas labour to provide westerners with our glamorous and cutting edge products. Also these impoverished workers have largely been relegated as migrant workers who leave their families and communities to earn a little money at considerable sacrifice.
This article encourages one to think about the true human cost involved.
