NEW YORK (AP) -- Normally, the launch of a new Apple device such as the iPhone 4S would make Mike Daisey salivate. But not this year.
Daisey, a monologuist in the vein of Spalding Gray and a recovering "Apple fanboy," hasn't upgraded his phone since flying to China to investigate how those smooth, beautifully designed hand-held gizmos are made.
What he found was horrific labor conditions, impossibly long hours and the use of crippling, repetitive motions. He met very young factory workers whose joints in their hands were damaged because they performed the same action thousands of times a shift.
"I was woefully ignorant most of my life. Even though I love the devices deeply, I never had any idea how they were made and never thought about it in the least," says Daisey, who had assumed robots put together his iPad and iPhone.
"I know that people in charge know about these things and chose not to address them," he adds. "And that's hard to swallow when you see the damage it does and you know how little it would take to ameliorate a high degree of human suffering...."
Daisey's eyes were opened when, posing as a businessman, he traveled to the Chinese industrial zone of Shenzhen and interviewed hundreds of workers outside the gates of the secretive Foxconn Technology Group, the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer. A string of suicides at the heavily regimented factories also have drawn attention to conditions faced by workers inside....
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