I am beginning to really like this guy Jack Russel at the Inquirer !
He the man who did the CENTRINO piece . He the man !
"Dell under attack over using prison labour From Leavenworth, with love
By Jack Russell: Friday 10 January 2003, 08:55
A GROUP OF of environmentally-aware (and would assume, human-rights friendly) protestors have apparently decided that the Consumer Electronics Show (known as CES) is a perfect place to demonstrate against Dell. In this case they aren't protesting the river-dredge hardware, over-priced upgrades, or that idiot "Dell Boy" that have all made Dell the fine company it is today, but, rather, the company's use of prison labour in its PC recycling program.
Dell, while admitting that it used inmates for recycling jobs, has vigorously defended its program as perfectly safe and compliant with OSHA regulations. Somehow, that seems doubtful. Maybe it's that the Texas-based OEM has a prior history of saving money over offering incentives to employees.
Ask the thousands of "temporary" workers Dell hired in the 1990s, worked at near-full-time hours (39 hour work week anyone), during the boom time—then dropped at the first sign of a recession whether or not Dell is particularly employee friendly. In fact, from the company's perspective, prison labour is an even better solution, as none of these people can get out and complain.
To be fair, Dell isn't the only OEM that's smiling over the counter and flushing evidence down the toilet. One has only to take a visit to certain villages in China to see the evidence — entire areas overflowing with monitors, motherboards, and cases, many of which bear major OEM monikers.
While computers only contain trace amounts of toxic chemicals, throw enough parts in a pile, and amazingly enough, you start poisoning the land—and people. While Dell and its fellow companies aren't directly responsible for the destruction of both people's health and the environment, one might think they could've investigated a little more closely into how "recycling" firms handling their product were disposing of it.
Having sold the product, it seems Dell (or any OEM) might have a certain level of responsibility (at least in a community sense) to ensure it was then disposed of properly. To date, however, PC recycling efforts have been half-hearted, consumer-expensive, under-promoted, or just plain ignored.
There's nothing inherently wrong with hiring prisoners to do labour—in fact, it's relatively common in minimum security prisons, but if Dell wants to head off these allegations quickly it will allow a third-party investigation of whether or not these people are being adequately protected. Having to buy either bargain basement crap (cheaply!) or overpriced modern equipment from an OEM is generally bad enough—but knowing that sending it off to be recycled contributes to causing cancer in the people doing the work definitely would put the icing on the cake."
Regards,
DARBES |
