Shirts v. iPads

In the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire on March 25, 1911, the upper floors of a factory that produced blouses caught on fire. Since the fire escapes and stairways were locked by the owners of the factory, the workers were unable to escape, and 146 women, ages 14-48, died in the fire. When reading about people knowingly jumping to their deaths, because they knew they were going to die anyway, I could not help but thinking about recent suicides of factory workers in a Foxconn factory in Chengdu, China.   Foxconn Technology   is one of Apple's main manufacturers. The factory in Chengdu is currently producing iPads. According to a New York Times article, "Over the [past] two years, at least 18 other Foxconn workers attempted suicide or fell from buildings in manners that suggested suicide attempts." These workers knew they were going to die, but they thought  their only choice is to be kill themselves or be slowly killed by the factories the corporations that control every aspect of their life. 

Yesterday in American Studies, we read and listened to the poem "Shirt" by Robert Pinsky. In this poem, the writer is thinking about where his shirt came from, and what manufacturing and laboring went into its production. Pinsky addresses the abuse and exploitation of the factory workers who produced his shirt. He compares the labor behind the production of his shirt to the cruel and devastating events of Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in March 1911. The part of the poem that struck me most was the part about people jumping out of the blazing building.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/triangle/trianglevictims2.html

The witness in a building across the street

Who watched how a young man helped a girl to step

Up to the windowsill, then held her out

Away from the masonry wall and let her drop.

And then another. As if he were helping them up

To enter a streetcar, and not eternity.

A third before he dropped her put her arms
Around his neck and kissed him. Then he held

Her into space, and dropped her. Almost at once

He stepped up to the sill himself, his jacket flared 

And fluttered from his shirt as he came down, 

Air fluttered up the legs of his gray trousers--

In the article, Lai Xiaodong, a former worker in the plant  remembers that, "Shifts  ran 24 hours a day, and the factory was always bright. At any moment, there were thousands of workers standing on assembly lines or sitting in backless chairs, crouching next to large machinery, or jogging between loading bays. Some workers’ legs swelled so much they waddled."

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-05-27/tech/29964714_1_foxconn-suicide-nets

These working conditions are as awful and unjust as the the conditions that workers in Triangle Shirtwaist Factory faced. So when will these horrors and inhumane labor practices stop? Is it possible to have fair labor laws enforced universally, or will giant corporations simply move production somewhere else if labor becomes less profitable?