News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old... by crag on Saturday October 12, 2013 @01:53PM (#6539571)
("... Most of the owners could obviously afford to pay employees better given the incredible amounts of wealth that the factory owners have accumulated and having gone to school with some of their children, I know quite a few factory owners personally. The reason they don't pay more comes down to simply business principles. The objective of a labor intensive business is to drive costs down the lowest possible amount legally. That is what they do.")

That's a fancy way of saying that they are greedy. Which is what "business practice" really is. Pay your workers crap and reap the rewards. Meanwhile the society as a whole hasn't benefited at all (except more low-wage work struggling to live life). But the owners have. Bully for them.

Re:I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old... by ericd on Saturday October 12, 2013 @03:41PM (#6539986)
It's not that simple. If you pay more than the next factory over for the same work, you become uncompetitive with that factory, and you start losing contracts. If that becomes bad enough, that will drive you under. This is why minimum wages are important - to make it so your neighbor also has to pay the better rate as well. This breaks down somewhat when your factory is competing with another factory in another country, unless your factory is much more efficient.

Short of world government with universally strong rule of law, there's not an easy solution that I can see.

Re:I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old... by kansface on Saturday October 12, 2013 @06:21PM (#6540626)
Moreover, if they did implement a minimum wage, business would just move to the next country that doesn't
Re:I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old... by ericd on Sunday October 13, 2013 @01:47AM (#6541639)
Yeah, I didn't explain very well, but that's what I meant by needing a world government with a strong rule of law - the minimum wage would need to be implemented across the board, or it just ends up screwing people in the country that implemented it.
Re:I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old... by crag on Saturday October 19, 2013 @03:49PM (#6577553)
Unless all countries implemented a minimum wage.