Apple’s iPods are made by mainly female workers who earn as little as £27 per month, according to a report in the Mail on Sunday yesterday.
The report, ‘iPod City’, isn’t available online. …
The Mail visited some of these factories and spoke with staff there. It reports that Foxconn’s Longhua plant houses 200,000 workers, remarking: “This iPod City has a population bigger than Newcastle’s.”
The report claims Longhua’s workers live in dormitories that house 100 people, and that visitors from the outside world are not permitted. Workers toil for 15-hours a day to make the iconic music player, the report claims. They earn £27 per month. The report reveals that the iPod nano is made in a five-storey factory (E3) that is secured by police officers.
Another factory in Suzhou, Shanghai, makes iPod shuffles. The workers are housed outside the plant, and earn £54 per month – but they must pay for their accommodation and food, “which takes up half their salaries”, the report observes. …
2 thoughts on “Something to think about while the music plays on”
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Change the names a little and this could be the U.S.A. a century ago.
The garment workers especially in N Y C suffered the same
slave treatment.
Yes, the U.S. used to have horrible working conditions. But, thanks to labor unions and political/societal pressure, things got better, thanks to a free society. How are things going to get better in totalitarian China?
Unfair comparison, looking at China today vs. the U.S. 80 years ago.