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Comment by throwawaaarrgh | Hacker News Reader

Vote with your dollars, people. Don't buy Apple and Foxconn products if you care about the wellbeing of workers.

True. We wouldn’t want women to be able to earn as much as men in India. It’s important to take a principled stand against gender parity and punish these guys with your wallet.

We don't want people crippled from abusive levels of hours doing a task at high risk of repetitive stress injury just so that Apple doesn't have to deal with shift changes. They are trading lifetime quality of life issues for their workers (who don't have much other option) for a reduction in shift changes. As someone whose been at the bottom and seen as throway sorting trash at a recycling facility and whose hands still often ache from that job, F! Apple!

Sorry, but men were already allowed to work these hours and shifts. It was women who weren’t. The shifts still conform to standard work week in India (48 hours). 12 hour shifts are not uncommon anywhere, and they come with generally better pay and more contiguous time off, which can be more meaningful to some people than more time off in a single day. I feel like perhaps the clickbait headline worked and it may be there’s not much of a story here other than women being granted equal footing with men in the labor market.

Hmmm there's a logical fallacy in there just waiting to be unearthed... I feel it...

Is your argument seriously that it’s unfair that women aren’t overworked in India

My argument is that it’s unfair that there’s one set of rules for men and one for women. “Overworked” is qualitative call. 4 days at 12 hours is what we are talking about here, which is not an uncommon labor structure in the west or east and has a lot of advantages to the worker. It’s not 12 hours a day 7 days a week. It’s 48 hours a week, a standard work week in India. Those shifts also pay better, and have more contiguous time off. Why, on the basis of their gender, were women not allowed to compete for those jobs against men?

Note absolutely no one is forcing anyone to do absolutely anything. It’s just opening the possibility for women to hold a job any man can have. Who are you to tell them they’re wrong for wanting it and should enjoy their station as a woman?

I am not saying what should and shouldn't be done - your points about it being unequal between men and women is totally valid. I am simply saying that pretending that this isn't coercive labor is so silly - apple clearly wins out here in terms of benefits, and they are couching it in an equality argument when , in reality, their bottom line and labor allocation is all that matters to them.

I sleep so much better with my Samsung

"Among the most alarming information were reports that miscarriage “is very normal.” As one worker said, “It is very normal if they are young. If they are pregnant … for the first trimester it is very difficult, they miscarry a lot.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/03/14/your-cool-...

Wait what? Because of 12 hour shifts? Should I not use hospitals either? Or are you referring to other working conditions unrelated to 12 hour shifts?

How about we also address the issue of hospital working conditions? Nurses shouldn't be forced to work more than an 8-hour shift. While there may be some issues with knowledge transfer during shift changes, there are solutions available that may increase costs but are necessary to prioritize the well-being of healthcare workers.

In the case of Apple, it appears they are being driven by greed, and the transfer of knowledge to work in their factories is generally unnecessary. I require people to not support greedy corporation.

Is someone doing the same task 60 times a minute in the hospital that entire shift minus a lunch break? Do assembly line workers for Apple get treated the same as hospital workers? Not eve close! Do hospital workers have to ask permission to go to the bathroom? Do hospitals have suicide nets to prevent their workers from trying to kill themselves because they have lost all hope? You are talking two very different things.

The sad thing is, there are no other alternatives. I want to move to another platform, but they are littered with tracking and nonsensical ads. Additionally, the hardware is generally abysmal.

The good thing is that Microsoft made Windows Phone, and it was somewhat flawless. Unfortunately, they later killed it :(.

Yes cause other major manufacturers or not exactly the same or (more usually) worse (because the press/public pays much more attention to Apple than to anyone else)

So don't buy any electronics? It's pretty hard to avoid Foxconn they are used by almost everyone.

What’s the next best alternative?

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