Blood, Sweat, and Takeaways:
The videos in this module provide students an opportunity to view life in another country, an LDC, that is affected by globalization and trade. Please comment on one of these eye-opening videos. Discuss your choice of videos. You need only to watch one.
Does the video illustrate the exploitation of people and the environment or the provision of economic opportunity? What changes would you like to see?
Peer Response:
“I chose the video on luxury goods. In the video, I see the exploitation of people. People in the gold mines work so hard to reach the gold collection quota. Every day, they have to dig and carry loads of mud without rest. In the end, it’s not even enough to educate and fully take care of their family. I was really surprised that one guy is supporting all 13 of the family members on a 4$ daily wage. It was also surprising to see the small gold ball produced at the end of two days of work. To produce a gold chain, it will be about 2 months of work in s gold mine. For 22 carats of gold, he received 427 Ghana cedis. At the time, it was 213 European pounds or 266 USD. Today, that is worth around 50 USD. After all that work, he only gets to take home 10 pounds. Workers only get 3-4 pounds per day. It was sad to see that he can’t have the same privilege afforded to us, education.
I was aware of electronic waste being dumped in poorer countries such as Africa. I didn’t know that it was due to a loophole; if it’s labeled as second-hand electronics, it can be labeled as sent to Africa for reuse. They have to burn plastic to collect copper. This causes air pollution and poor health for Africans. There are poor working conditions and broken glass everywhere. It’s sad that they put up with dangerous work in order to get a little bit more profit. I think that there should be more efforts to properly pay gold miners and to ensure better working conditions. Also, there has to be a better system to properly recycle electronics instead of dumping them in other countries.”
PLEASE WRITE A PEER RESPONSE REPLY. THANK YOU!
Links to videos:
Blood Sweat and Luxuries Technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riVvcJwwvcA
Blood Sweat and Luxuries gold and recycling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCxJUKyHHyI