Good questions Mohamed - I think that a sizable portion of the US population would be willing to pay a little more for better working conditions.  It would have to be communicated effectively to the consumer so that he understands the choices he's making and the ramifications. 

You are right Bill, It's more related to a problem of information or education than real intent to make people working on bad conditions to make our life easy and for cheap.

I also think that most of big companies are not totally aware of what happen on factories.

According to what I read is pretty easy to contact a Chinese factory to produce whatever you want, how much you pay will be invested in the quality of the product and no in the quality of life of the workers. I suppose that the enterprises should investigate the factory first, but in the competitive market that's a difficult task. Yes, some people are willing to pay a little more for better working conditions, and at the same time we want cheaper iPhones, computers, tablets, and a small difference in price can turn the market. We are to blame also for the big companies looking for the cheapest factories to built the products.

I wish to have an organisation similar to GreenPeace to report such things, when I look at what greenpeace is doing with their monthly green electronics report (published online and for free), it seems to force some manufacturers to react and make some effort to look "greener"

With a similar organisation (let's call it "workpeace" :) ) it would be interesting to see how brands and manufacturers will behave (they really care about their image so I guess they will intensify Audits and Investigation between giving the job to a factory and by the same way the factory will also make more investments on working conditions to get the job from the brands) ==> Winner = Worker

Hey Miguel: Let's go create such organisation together :)

@Mohamed, the idea is not bad at all...

Great idea Mohamed

Mohamed idea is very good!, I would be glad to help such an organization.

Somehow, I wonder who should take the blame for this? Apple, Foxxcon, or Chinese government who lets companies treats their employees like that?, I would personally put the blame on the last one.

What really annoys me is that Apple have PLENTY of money to help increase the wages of the workers in these places, as do all the other rich tech companies in the world. 

Mohamed, your plan is excellent - write to Greenpeace and suggest it.

I have been given 3.5€ to Greenpeace and I consider they worth every cents I gave them. their work on preserving African rain forest gave very good results.

@Tim: I agree with you that Apple have probably enough cash flow to raise all Foxxcon salaries, but they aren't here for social, laws are made by governments, companies are submitted to these rules.

Apple decision is not to increase the salary of the company workers they hire, but to look for other companies with better workers salaries. If there were a list of salaries and life quality of the workers could be a good tool to search new companies or change current ones. To blame the Chinese government its too easy and useless.

Miguel: I do understand your opinion as it is probably the most effective way to change things quickly, but this does not cure the system, if U.N.O could take as much strong decisions against China, India and all other countries where these behaviours exists, the impact could be harmful for economy in short terms, but in long term it might actually make thing better to them and us, In Europe, social rights where gained by reformists (like Léon Blum) against governments, not companies.

This is why I wanted to raise governments responsibility on these very sad thing.

Somehow, it still important for everyone to get involved in his own possibility, and I don't think I 'll be able to raise my theory among the U.N.O council.

Hi all, just stepping in as I noticed last week the socket of my new Intel PC motherboard have the "Foxconn" name on it. After digging into this, I found that Foxconn is the main subcontractor of HP, Intel, Nokia, Sony, and... Google.

Just don't blame only Apple.

Sorry, my mistake, Foxconn works on Android tablets, but are not Google subcontractors. I was a bit too jumpy. After all, Google never do evil :)

@nacim I undrestand the countries governments and the UN have the more possibilities to do something real, but that a little out of reach for the most people. I think is possible to start in small and later in the way involve the governments.

@Miguel: There I join perfectly what you say (although I started imagining myself on UN tribune... felt good!).

I'm from mainland China, so I know lot more about the case. Nacim is right, the chinese government should absolutely take the blame. When you run business. of course you are chasing the maximun profit possible as long as what you do is legal. We can not blame Apple or Foxconn's exploiting the workers simply because they 've made enough money. Foxconn has factory in Taiwan too, but no such tragedy's ever happened there. Why? Because the law in Taiwan is lot stricter than the mainland China. Over the past 20 years, China's economy has developed drastically, but its development is mostly based on the cheap labours. Here is the common sense of all human being: when people are extreemly poor, what they need is simply the food, they would sacrifise anything to get the food; as the life condition getting better, they start to care about their life quality and their rights. That is why there are more and more conflicts happening between the rich and the poor, and between the people and the government in China.

13 suisides in one month. 13 young lives are gone in one factory. Although it sounds extreemly horrible, it will soon no longer be the big news for people in China, because there will be other bombshell to draw their attention. The cause of all the chaos in the country is in the government's economic policy and the political system. The governors know this, but they don't come up with any solution yet. It's complicated.

Yesterday the workers in a car company started a strike for better salaries, this can be something positive to affect all China.

Similar strikes happen very often here and there somewhere in China. This time it's in big city, so it may strike a louder alarm to the government.

Strikes in China....the world is really changing, may be globalisation is not that bad.

I heard from the news that Chinese government has finally raised minimum salaries in all industrial regions.

A guess strikes seems to be efficient.