Does Steve Jobs Get a Pass on Child Labor Now That He’s Dead?

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/10/08/does-steve-jobs-get-a-pass-on-child-labor-now-that-he%E2%80%99s-dead/



:snip:

There is no doubt that Steve Jobs was all that. He was the co-founder of the biggest tech scores in history. He called the shots from beginning to end. From oranges to apples, Jobs was the brains. The go to guy at Apple. He was a genius, witty, got rich and had cool friends, but somewhere along the line he lost site of the himself, and the innovation, and became …. just another head of a big company exploiting children overseas, for profit. Billions!

The Telegraph – 02-27-10 (full article)

”Apple has admitted that child labour was used at the factories that build its computers, iPods and mobile phones.

At least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories which supply Apple.


:snip:

“Apple has been repeatedly criticised for using factories that abuse workers and where conditions are poor. Last week, it emerged that 62 workers at a factory that manufactures products for Apple and Nokia had been poisoned by n-hexane, a toxic chemical that can cause muscular degeneration and blur eyesight. Apple has not commented on the problems at the plant, which is run by Wintek, in the Chinese city of Suzhou.”

More at the link --

[saras]

1. As soon as you offer a better option (to the level of contract details, not idealism) we'll jump him

[Poll_Blind]

2. Are you insinuating that in order to reject the notion of child labor we must provide a solution...

...which is just as cheap, contractually? I'm not being snarky, I'm really asking if that was what you meant. I assume I'm grossly misunderstanding what your sentence meant.

Am I?

PB

[joeybee12]

3. I've got an option, you don't need an I-pad or a Nokia phone...

It's called choice. You can choose to do the right thing or you can choose to make excuses.

[seabeyond]

6. i read where the ipad had a profit of 64% overseas labor and 51% profit

if made on u.s. soil.

51% profit is pretty damn good. modile for company is profit at 40%.

he choose greed.

[OhioChick]

9. Apparently that 51% was not good enough...

Blatant greed.

[Selatius]

4. Even if the contractors weren't using child labor, the working conditions are horrible.

Of course, this is China. Labor rights isn't exactly paramount under a brutal military dictatorship with very formidable control over the news media and education system.

[dtexdem]

5. Well, barring a judgemental afterlife, EVERYONE gets a pass on everything once ther're dead.

The living, however, get to continue to critique what the dead still did while alive, so labor practices linked to Jobs are fair game.

[RufusTFirefly]

7. If we could see the conditions under which many of our prized possessions are manufactured...

... we'd be utterly appalled.

But instead it's out of sight, out of mind.



Keep in mind that stories the brutality and humiliation at Abu Ghraib came out well before the pictures did. But there was very little outrage until people actually had a chance to see what was being done in our name.

That's why sweatshop factories and companies that use child labor are going to make damn sure that incriminating pictures don't make it into the mainstream.

[uppityperson]

8. Indeed. And to answer OP, no. No pass. Just not demonizing since Jobs, like most of us, was a mixtur

of good and bad.

As to your sweatshop comments, very much agree.