The Bad Old Days...

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by glatt

I know that economics can make a person desperate, but what the fuck? If the workers knew there were severe cracks, why did they enter the building? Aren't there other shitty garment jobs they can get in buildings without cracks?

You live in a slum.
Your living quarters are made of what you can beg, borrow or steal.
You have no power, no sanitation.
What you bring home is barely enough to feed your family.
You probably already walk long distances to work, because well financed places don't want to be cheek by jowl with the filth of their workers.

This is why people in the Western world call "exploitation", because there is no choice. Because people want to work to save their family from starving. Because people want to work.

And even then, slums are regularly bulldozed. People are hounded out, made to leave behind all they own (cooking pots and charcoal and bedding). The police know they will come back, but they also know they stand the chance of losing their precarious employment. If a houseboy doesn't turn up one day, if a busboy "loses" his uniform, there are plenty others to take his place.

Yes, Zen, bad things happen everywhere (and I know you weren't dismissing the issues in the thread.)
But badder things happen when money is more important than people. And isn't it always? And hasn't it always been?