Mr.Daisey

Well when I first listened to this, I was a little bit shocked, but not surprised. I thought to myself, "12 years old? Really!". I think its sad for a number of reasons. First the age of some of the workers obviously is bothersome. As a mother and coming from a very different cultural background, I think its a sad thing to think of children as young as twelve being robbed of their childhood to go to work for such a large company. I worked when I was 14, however, it was much different work. I worked in a family owned school supply store and only for a couple hours here and there on the weekends after my school work was completed. That was by choice to go to work. I was never forced. Another thing that is a little upsetting is the number of hours worked by all of these workers. If you go to the Foxconn's website it says that they don't allow their workers to work more than 60 hours a week unless in some unusual circumstance which, if Daisey's resources are correct, is inaccurate by far. I thought it was sad thinking of these people with families and I was wondering how they could truly be happy. I couldn't imagine going to work for 16 hours coming home to a spouse and children and having quality time with them. It would be hard to have a balanced life. I struggle with going to school full time, working with Rainbow(non profit organization), taking care of my son, and singing in the praise band at my church, and I'm not even pulling 16 hour days.
Another thing is the dormitories that he spoke of. The 12x12 rooms with 13-14 people in them if I recall correctly. Seems neglectful.
Then to hear about the person that died after working a 34(?) hour shift. That's just terrible. I can't even imagine. I do understand that the US cannot tell these factories how to run, but I am a little disappointed that we continue to do business with companies that have such low standards. I think a lot of it is based off of greed. Greed on both sides, US and China. Foxconn's profit has steadily increased by about 10 billion US dollars each year for the last 5 years. I'm thinking this is a huge part of their reason to try to improve their production rate, even if just by seconds.
Like I stated earlier, I'm a little bit shocked. I do own an iPhone and a laptop. Although I will keep them and will continue to use both of them, I will now keep in mind every time I use them the hard work that was put into them to make them, and will now always remember this monologue? given by Mr.Daisey.

SK