Apple and the High Tech Industry's Deathshops

Last fall I wrote about Steve Jobs death. Part of that had to do with the how one worker making iPhones killed himself after his treatment by his employer (the Apple contractor, FoxConn). But I learned this is only the tip of the iceberg. Most of the high tech industry is built upon employment conditions so bad, their employers install nets around their buildings to limit the suicides. Sweatshops is too timid a term to describe these companies. These are deathshops.

This author advocates we boycott Apple because they pay only 8$ per iPhone in labor expenses in their death shops, but frankly these practices are all over the high tech industry. How could I begin to find an electronics company that does not create their high tech products using such deathshops? At the moment, I will do my best to buy only used products so that I send no additional money to fund these deathshops. Maybe in time I can find companies that insure nothing in their high tech equipment is produced by a deathshop. Though this may be far harder to do than those who shop at quality grocery stores like PCC (when I lived in Seattle) to insure that their food is produced humanely.

Steve Jobs - Different Perspective

Extremely rarely am I moved by the death of famous people. Steven Jobs was one of those, but not for the usual reasons.

I read this this article last month:

'I live in hope he will reach out to me before it's too late': Steve Jobs' biological father speaks of yearning to meet his son

There is also something I learned today:

Famously hostile to leaks, Apple's paranoid culture's new poster boy: a Chinese engineer who has killed himself after losing an iPhone prototype.

Also the photos I typically see today about him, remind me of something I can't quite surface yet. I think it has to do with my uncles.