30 January, 2012

Privilege, consumerism, and the lack of outrage that most of what we own is made by slave labor (on Reddit in particular) : SRSDiscussion

Privilege, consumerism, and the lack of outrage that most of what we own is made by slave labor (on Reddit in particular) : SRSDiscussion: "In a poor country like ours, the alternative to low-paid jobs isn't well-paid ones, it's no jobs at all."
-Jes�s Heroles, Fmr. Mexican Ambassador to the US

I'm not going to lie, Foxconn doesn't sound like a terribly fun place to work. That being said, it's crucial to note that Foxconn employees are not slaves. Every employee is there of their own accord and is perfectly free to leave whenever they want (in fact, Foxconn has a 30-40% turnover rate). That's critically important to realise. It's important because the fact that someone would choose to work at Foxconn means that it's better than any other option they have. Remember that for the vast majority of Foxconn workers, the alternative is farming rice in a country where there's 1 tractor for every 200 farmers.