Perhaps Apple is just waiting for a time when the entire production can be automated, including the final assembly, quality assurance, packing into a lorry, even the driving of said lorry.
Amazon and Ocado are working hard to get rid of all picking staff in their huge warehouses, to the point where the only people left will be those overseeing the robots and a few dozen people to load crates into lorries (which, for now, are driven by real people - but on a deadline and probably paid as little as possible).
We all seem to want this for cheaper goods, even goods that aren't actually cheap.
I favour capitalism over communism, but we've let something go wrong somewhere along the way and I have to think it's easier to blame the companies than ourselves for allowing it.
If people stood up and threatened to boycott a company (and followed through if necessary), things would change. Apple wouldn't go out of business, it would improve working conditions.
When people called out Apple on its terrible environmental impact, the company saw the problem (negative PR impacting sales) and improved. But will people stand up and say they won't buy a new iPhone until Apple pays workers more and stop them wanting to jump off a roof?
Tesco now advertises that it pays farmers a fair price for milk. We can perhaps argue about what that price is, but it knows it's positive PR to do so. Apple should be thinking of the benefits of standing ahead of the competition, and giving us all a reason to pay more for an iPhone than a cheaper Chinese or Korean made phone.