I don’t know if anyone caught the news last week. On September 11 a textile factory fire in Karachi, Pakistan killed 289 workers. The factory made jeans destined for Europe. In reading about this tragedy and why it happened I was reminded of a quote in an investigative report on Apple and its Asian manufacturer Foxconn in the New York Times in January 2012. The series focused on the too-often fatal working conditions for employees who polished aluminum iPad cases. The quote by MIT professor, Nicholas Ashford, was, “If it were terribly difficult to deal with aluminum dust, I would understand. But do you know how easy dust is to control? It’s called ventilation. We solved this problem over a century ago.” Jeans? iPads? A profoundly sad common denominator…these tragedies were avoidable. Continue reading…