Socialstudious – May 19, 2014 – Do We Care About All the People of the World??
Sometimes I feel really guilty, the reason is that I many of the things that I own were made by people who were exploited. I bet more than one of my shirts was made either in China or Southeast Asia by workers who are paid next to nothing and who work in buildings that are in many cases unsafe, my running shoes and my iPhone, too. It would be great if we could do something as a country to enforce safety requirements on the companies that create conditions like these…… Truthdig: The Way iPhones Are Made Is Killing Chinese Workers Industrial solvents known to cause cancer are used in the manufacture of Apple products and other electronics consumers have come to depend on, and adequate protection for the millions of workers who make them is rare. Roughly half of the mobile phones in production are made in China. According to the Chinese government’s own statistics, Andrew Korfhage writes at Foreign Policy In Focus, one worker is poisoned by toxic chemicals every five hours. The chief culprit seems to be benzene, a known carcinogen that is banned for industrial use in many countries…. Korfhage writes: ….Toxicology experts familiar with Chinese factory procedures have estimated that the smartphone companies could replace benzene with safer solvents at a cost of around $1 per phone. With companies like Apple raking in profits of $37 billion in 2013, electronics manufacturers can afford to take such steps to protect workers’ lives. Continue Reading More at Otherwords A…
