Today an acquaintance posted an article about Apple factory abuses in China. It said that often the factory owners don't care if their employees get hurt or killed. It also said that many factories have critically dangerous area which they know about yet don't fixed. The saddest thing it said was that if Apple and its computer producing peers put pressure on the factories, the factories would improve/fix the situation, but Apple and its peers are not going to. They are not going to stop endangering people because that would inconvienience the consumer. The consumer who wants the latest coolest thing now and who doesn't think about the people producing it. We are that consumer.
A statement that shocked me (from Apple) was that ,"We've only known about these problems for four years...". No. We've known about it longer. Remember Nike's sweatshop scandal? Reebok? And a host of other retail brands. We all know that they produce the stuff we wear and use in other countries where work safety requirement are lower and the ability to abuse workers is greater than in the "developed world". And we don't care. We show that we don't care by purchasing. Purchasing whatever we want without thinking about the people making it. I know I do it. When my conscience gets to me, I think how I would like to buy all Made in Canada/USA/fairtrade products. However, I can't. There are so many products that we rely on that we can't find made locally/fairtradey, and if we could it would take a stroke of genious budgetting. Thus far, shopping so that our consciences are clear is near impossible. So what can we do? There must be a solution.