Video about Cort factory workers

ToneControl · December 2013

I never saw this before

I'm sure that many other factories treat their employees like shit too, and I include the USA and UK, but nevertheless, it's worth thinking about how that nice guitar got so cheap, and whether you're 100% happy buying from this kind of production line

bertie · December 2013

or, as with 99% of people you could have double standards and not give a toss.

I think if you looked really deeply into everything you own and applied some moral logic into its manufacture............ you'd have a lot less

Phil_aka_Pip · December 2013

I never liked Cort guitars anyway

not_the_dj · December 2013

That was about 4 or 5 years ago, and (if you believe the PR) things have changed/improved/measures put in place etc etc

Hertz32 · December 2013

Certainly hope so, I GASing for 3 Corts now...

Wolftone · December 2013

Phil_aka_Pip said:

I never liked Cort guitars anyway

Cort make guitars for many manufacturers under contract. They are also the worlds largest manufacturer of guitars. It's quite difficult to avoid them as some well known manufacturers have their low-mid range guitars produced by them.

Phil_aka_Pip · December 2013

Wolftone said:

Phil_aka_Pip said:

I never liked Cort guitars anyway

Cort make guitars for many manufacturers under contract. They are also the worlds largest manufacturer of guitars. It's quite difficult to avoid them as some well known manufacturers have their low-mid range guitars produced by them.

I tend not to like low-mid range guitars generally regardless of who makes them

Myranda · December 2013

Thing is... we're in the west and we get pretty much everything from near-slavery these days...

Apple products come from Foxconn which is Chinese for Hell - so bad that people committed suicide in droves, so bad that after a documentary exposed how bad conditions were and Apple finally had to say

"we're the biggest tech company in the world and we've paid you billions, can't you improve things"

Foxconn's reply was

"We gave them chairs! What more do you want?!... Well... Some chairs... well, some chairs that we don't let them use... and even if they did they make working LESS comfortable than standing for 12 hours a day 7 days a week, while sleeping on-site and never leaving like some sort of prison"

Every cheap thing you have in your possession comes from the labour of someone paid so little that you should be ashamed of yourself, and yet you pick on one thing point fingers and say "oooh, you're bad neeer" you stop buying the Cort guitars and feel morally smug.

Much easier to admit that we're all horrible hypocrites and get on with enjoying cheap shoes and clothes

Bogwhoppit · December 2013

Ying and Yang. In twenty years time the UK with be a 4th world country producing stuff for Chinese consumers. Then we can make copies of high end Chinese original guitars, the 'Englechibson special'.

randomhandclaps · December 2013

I don't always believe it comes down to consumer hypocrisy with cheap foreign products. I think we have been slowly nudged toward accepting (and for some families necessitating) cheap imported products where cost are cut at the sufferance of the workforce. It has been years since the majority of workers in this country got a pay rise and even those that do never receive anything in line with inflation. Despite this the cost of living and essential outlays has grown. The large majority of families in Britain get poorer year on year. The paper over the cracks answer that suits both rich and poor regardless of core principles is cheap foreign products. The rich own the companies that import masses of foreign products so they continue to see their money pile grow. As for the poor, principles are nice but kids still need clothing and feeding.

I don't feel the amount of cheap imported product is due to a public cry for lower prices but is in fact propping up a situation where the average level of relative wealth in this country has fallen so much that a lot of families would severely struggle without them.

The day we see unilateral ethical consumerism in this country will be the day before a civil uprising at the gross inequality on wealth we increasingly see.

ToneControl · December 2013

My perspective on it is that people in the UK didn't actually live in Downton 130 years ago, but were treated about the same as far-Eastern workers nowadays.

Even when that improved, you would have to work a lot of hours to be able to buy anything. I look on this current era as a blip, where we get stuff silly-cheap, but I'm guessing that in 20 years we'll find it hard to buy as much as we buy now - the Chinese won't be working for relatively lower wages any more , but they can't go from $1 a day to UK wages in one step.

Whilst the UK rich are relatively richer than for a long long time (or ever, depending on what you read), I don't think the general population has ever been as rich - look at the material goods, houses, food, leisure commonly available to average people now - in what other decade was this possible?

Anyway, I think we should all have a proper idea of what humans experience when they work on production lines - but I accept that my lifestyle is supported by what happens there, and I'm not criticising Cort specifically, I'm sure Gibson and Fender and all sorts of firms treated their employees poorly at some point

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

In this Discussion

Become a Subscriber!

Video about Cort factory workers

Comments