Unfortunately my sense is that even Foxconn pay and conditions are far superior to anything available for these workers in their usually rural home towns.
Take it another step. Dreadful conditions are allowed to fester due to a lack of human rights in China, which is maintained as a status quo solely because shareholders in western companies demand infinite growth and profit. These companies came to Chinese factory owners with a price for labor already in mind; they would have payed to move production to anywhere in the world with the lowest costs for labor and material acquisition.
Better labor conditions in China starts with western companies requiring better labor conditions to do business, and western companies accepting the resulting higher costs. Until shareholders accept smaller profits, this won't change no matter where in the world it occurs.
Slavery has and continues to exist in countries all over the world, including America. The 13th ammendment explicitly exempts prisoners.
I don’t want to get into an argument defending China but pointing out this “irony” isn’t a meaningful criticism. Foxconn clearly exists because of capitalism. Unless you want to argue that Apple is a socialist project somehow. What kind of countries are the majority of handsets manufactured in? China could ban all smartphones from capitalist counties but then they would face other tariffs. Their economy is dependent upon exporting goods. Does the Chinese government bear some responsibility for these working conditions? Yes. But clearly the answers to how do you build communism under capitalist hegemony are complicated.
Being a Communist website does not mean they support the practices of these corporations, nor the practices of the Chinese Communist Party - you'll find, if you look closer, that the website is a place for Marxists and anarcho-Communists in general, much more so than Maoists (who are heavily suspicious of the pro-capital Dengist reforms) or Stalinists.
It's not ironic at all; it is only ironic when you conflate the CCP with what Badiou describes as the Communist hypothesis.
That's certainly true (and I hadn't noticed the website is communist, that's funny). I think we can agree that both capitalist and communist countries have blood on their hands here. Also worth pointing out that Foxconn is in a Free-trade Zone which tend to play by their own (lack of) rules.
True, but the implementation of the supply through the use of slave labor is a distinct communist practice.
I thought it relevant to mention because the website seems to be a communist website, which is pretty ironic.