First of all, this news article has no facts but full of crap opinions. It is very romantic to have the freedom to say what is right and what is wrong, except you don't personally "live" in the situation and it is not your right to decide what is right for others.
<<<no matter what the situation is in the society; it is never right to do to one's workers what this article is describing, not even if there's a lot of competition for their jobs.>>>
Are you saying people are better off being hungry than working hard for food?
Whenever I see a sensational news like this about China I wonder if the journalist is sincerely stupid or purposely evil. The picture for showing "exhausted workers" is a joke: there is a tradition to have a nap after lunch in China so in many businesses the hour after lunch is basically off hours. The place my parents worked for have 2-3 hours of lunch break so everybody can go home and have a nap. In bigger cities where people can't go home, people find convenient places for the nap: on the desk, or "under" the desk, and all conference rooms are closed for the same purpose as well. Heck I am still keeping that habit and have a small futon by my desk now (glad I have my own office).
The "sweatshop" is also a joke for westerners. In more developed cities in China, workers are free to change their employers just like in the west, and it has been in that way for a couple of decades. Those factories don't offer what we called "hu kou", so the employer has no power to slave the workers except higher pay.
The photo of the worker's dorm room is funny as well. I went to a good university in China (about 14 years ago) and that's how my university dorm looks like. It is difficult for westerners to live in that situation but using that photo as a proof that workers are slaved is misleading.
What if I am a developer in the day job, but I don't code for the the startup, and the technology we use is totally different from my employer, will there be a IP concern?
It was funny that the reporters can report the same event from different angle. This website goojjie was setup to support Google and hoping it would stay in China, but this reporter makes it sounds like a rip-off.
<<<no matter what the situation is in the society; it is never right to do to one's workers what this article is describing, not even if there's a lot of competition for their jobs.>>>
Are you saying people are better off being hungry than working hard for food?