Knot-yet wrote:

I watched this on TV too, and likewise wasn't impressed by the level of journalism. Seemed to sensationalist to me, which is precisely what the BBC shouldn't be. It should report the unbiased facts!

I've had experience of (shipyard) working conditions in China, and it is true that in general these are not as good as conditions in the UK and Europe, but to be brutally honest these things are relative. Ok so Apple may not have fulfilled their promises, but at least they made them and tried. There are plenty of other employers who don't care, and don't try.

As far as my own job is concerned, well here goes.....

I'm at work for 24hours a day, and work 3month shifts!!! And have to work in sometimes very difficult conditions, with the eVer present risk of fire, sinking or death or serious injury! I have to work with what can be dangerous machinery, often while suffering from fatigue, thousands of miles away from home. I have to be away from home and work on birthdays, Christmases and public holidays. I have to maintain said machinery to a high standard on an increasingly limited budget to increasingly high higher standards. I have to be alert and prepared to deal with an emergency situation. I have to live in what are similar to prison conditions, with limited access to luxuries and the outside world and a strictly regulated working routine. I have to deal with often corrupt foreign officialdom, with the power to arrest, detain, prosecute and deport and imprison. I have to survive on my own wits. I've seen colleagues killed, colleagues kidnapped and colleagues suffer break downs. I've been shot at too. I've been detained at gunpoint several times. I risk loosing my job to people prepared to do what I do but for less money in the ever present race to the bottom line.

So here's an open invitation for the bloody bbc panorama to come and investigate my place of work!