Foxconn Workers Getting Raise With Apple Subsidies 284
hackingbear writes "Workers at Taiwanese electronic outsourcing manufacturer Foxconn are getting a pay raise after a series of 13 suicides, including three in three consecutive days. According to an article by state-run newspaper China Daily, Apple concluded that the main cause of the suicides is low wages. (The media has also attributed the suicides to a variety of other factors — everything from the semi-military style of management, to long overtime, to China's one-child policy, and Foxconn paying too much compensation to the family of suicide workers, thereby encouraging copycat suicides.) Apple plans to subsidize raises using its own products (Google translation; Chinese original here) — the first one being the iPad. This would raise the outsourcing cost from 2.3% to 3% of the iPad's sales price. The article does not say the amount of the raise per worker, but it is rumored to be about 20%, according to other Chinese news sources."
We can only hope... (Score:5, Funny)
That enough of their souls are still poured into these incredible, sleek products to maintain the extremely high level of magic and wonder we've become accustomed to finding in each amazingly designed box.
Apple-haters in 3,2,1,... (Score:4, Insightful)
No doubt, Apple actually trying to help will be seen negatively too - let's see if any of the subsequent comments say so (my money's on yes...). Honestly, the anyone-but-apple brigade make the fanboys look calm, collected, and sane.
Simon
Re:Apple-haters in 3,2,1,... (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly! These people were building products for Dell too (among other well-known computer companies). Wonder if we'll see Dell step up to the plate and offer a larger percentage of their profits to these folks as a pay increase? (I'm betting not.)
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I agree that Apple has been subject to unfair criticism in regard to this problem. This problem is not about Apple in particular - it is more about conditions in China in particular. For example, let's remember the huge number of Chinese miners who die every year due to unsafe conditions.
By the same token, Apple's offer to subsidize their wages is equally meaningless, though understandable given the unfair criticism they were subject too.
The changes that are needed are more fundamental.
Perhaps what we nee
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Can you imagine being so poor and destitute, with so little prospects for the future that taking your own life for profit seems like the best way to help your family in the long run? All the while some American is working 20 hours a week managing the manufacturing of the product from his pool overlooking some valley in California; his biggest worries is whether or not he can afford his wife buying her third convertible this week, and if he is going to be able to make it down to the yacht club this Sunday. I
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Can you imagine being so poor and destitute, with so little prospects for the future that taking your own life for profit seems like the best way to help your family in the long run? All the while some American is working 20 hours a week managing the manufacturing of the product from his pool overlooking some valley in California; his biggest worries is whether or not he can afford his wife buying her third convertible this week, and if he is going to be able to make it down to the yacht club this Sunday
Yes, because that's what life is like for your average silicon valley worker...
Plantation slaves in the deep south had it better than many asians working in factories today.
How so?
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I've never liked this argument. A similar argument is made (and again, there are valid points!) that the poor whites in the south had it even worse than the blacks. At least blacks could count on regular meals, poor white farmers could count on nothing.
But black couldn't learn to read. They couldn't move to another farm. They couldn't own land. Their families could be split up on a whim. If they ran away they would be beaten and perhaps killed. And they were property.* (these are of course generalization an
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It is the inevitable result of a capitalistic system that allows the free movement of capital, but not the free movement of labor. Exploitation is going to remain the reality for someone, somewhere in the world until part of that equation changes.
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Because despite the fact that FoxConn make stuff for all sorts of people in the consumer electronics world, all the bile and invective seems to fall on Apple's shoulders.
Actually, four other major companies started inquiries as well. Apple seems more open about it (they perform regular audits and publish them openly), more willing to take action, and they get more press over these issues.
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I blame Apple for the coming increase in suicide rates at competing factories.
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More important than the fact that Foxconn makes electronics for just about everyone, is that these suicides aren't statistically surprising. I don't have the numbers, but I recall some commenters on previous Slashdot stories working through the math - basically, the factory employs tens of thousands (?) of workers, and China already has a high suicide rate. The suicide rate in this factory, per capita, was actually *lower* than China as a whole.
I believe there were seven or eight suicides when that other ar
Re:Apple-haters in 3,2,1,... (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably because Apple products are 2-3x more expensive than those of their competitors. It's well-known that Apple's profit margins are extremely high compared to their competitors, and that makes people think that perhaps Apple is a bit greedy.
I'm not saying it's deserved or anything like that, but I can definitely see why people think that way.
Re:Apple-haters in 3,2,1,... (Score:5, Informative)
There's no question that Apple products carry a higher average price than similar products at other companies, but it's absurd hyperbole to claim 2-3x higher, especially based on gross margin. The logic fails entirely since all of this data is part of their corporate financial reports:
Probably because Apple products are 2-3x more expensive than those of their competitors.
That would imply that, given other manufacturers having a profit margin of 1%, that Apple would have a gross profit margin of 51 to 68%. Given another manufacturer's more realistic gross margin of 25%, that would mean that Apple's profit margin would be 63%-75%. That is of course not the case.
Apple's gross margin is closer to 40% (which is indeed higher than most competitors), which means that assuming identical production costs and business costs, Apple's prices are about 15% higher as an absolute cap.
But gross margin isn't net profit, and it's net profits that are the subject of so much jealousy--gross profit less overhead, in other words. Apple does a lot of its engineering work in house (hiring an OEM to make something you designed is much cheaper than buying something someone else designed from that OEM), and a simple walk through their SEC-reported financials reveals that they also have lower per capita business costs than Dell or Acer, which amounts to a price savings--we'll say it's in the 5% ballpark (though in reality, it's probably a bit more).
That makes for an 'Apple tax' of at most 10% in shelf price--hardly "2-3x" and similar to the higher-margin premium lines at HP and Dell that subsidize their unnaturally discounted rock-bottom lines.
It's well-known that Apple's profit margins are extremely high compared to their competitors,
Even if it were double the gross margin of their large competitors (and the difference isn't that large), it would amount to a price difference of ~25%, about one-quarter to one-eighth your claim.
In other words, if a product costs Dell $100 to make and grosses 25%, with $13 overhead, net profit is $12 of the $125 sales price. The same product costs Apple $98 to make and grosses 40%, with $10 overhead, making net profits $29 of the $137 sales price. The consumer pays just about 9% more at the store (nowhere near double), but Apple ends up with more than double the profit in dollars.
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I'm not going to say that Apple doesn't invest in marketing. They do. But they are not "heavily" investing either. I've read several articles that say so. This article [cnn.com] is one of them. There's several others. Many here at /. say that Apple is
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You know who is a big Apple fan and regularly talks about Apple products?
Rush Limbaugh. He is of course squarely in the middle of the leftish artist hipster type ;-)
I guess I would say, stereotypes are stereotypes. It's definitely true that Apple markets itself that way, but I don't think there's much reality of that being the main user demographic segment.
I would also say more so the reason that Apple gets covered instead of Dell is that Apple is a corporation that people have an image of, a face they know
Re:Apple-haters in 3,2,1,... (Score:5, Informative)
Because despite the fact that FoxConn make stuff for all sorts of people in the consumer electronics world, all the bile and invective seems to fall on Apple's shoulders.
No doubt, Apple actually trying to help will be seen negatively too - let's see if any of the subsequent comments say so (my money's on yes...). Honestly, the anyone-but-apple brigade make the fanboys look calm, collected, and sane.
Simon
In Finland, all these Foxconn suicides have been reported as happening at a "Nokia contractor", no word of Apple in any of the news posts.
We all suffer when corps. are in charge. (Score:2)
I think your summary is simplistic. Apple's move here is nice but it does nothing to give their users freedoms they deserve (like controlling their own computers so they're not victims of Apple's "kill switch" where Apple can remotely deny any user some program on Apple's whim). This move does nothing to provide developers with reasonable terms for distributing programs on their app store (EFF has highlighted the awful terms). And Apple can decide to discontinue this at any moment, returning the workers
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Simon
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It's only because apple charges 2-3x as much as their next closest competitor
Where can I get a work-alike iPad clone that costs me only 33.3%-50% the price of a real iPad?
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Linux based netbooks can do all the same stuff* (and much more) for literally half the price, even with a similar sized SSD. Jus' sayin.
* apart from the Wii-mote style antics, but honestly, who actually cares? Tilting your whole screen around while playing a game is an awful concept.
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In a 1.5 lb package? With a similar software investment in making the experience one of anything other than sheer pain?
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My Dell Mini 9 is apparently 2.3lbs, though the fact that the screen keeps itself upright means I don't have to concern myself with supporting the weight, or craning my neck. The keyboard and touchpad also make input a breeze. The keyboard is fairly small but I can touch type on it fine. Hell, even my phone's teeny tiny keyboard is much nicer to use than the iPad when entering and editing text (seeing as it actually has arrow keys and I can shift-select text etc).
The lack of keyboard has always been the mai
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(for the record, I don't know why this showed up anonymously. That's me up there.)
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A huge ripoff to who?
It's an expensive device, for sure (and I don't have one), but if it does exactly what its purchaser wants, is that a ripoff?
Like you say, a Dell Mini 10/9 can provide that function for you, but what if I don't want a permanent keyboard? Or I want a tablet-shape?
Right now, the iPad would be excellent purely as a textbook reader - just my organic chemistry book alone is 1600 pages and is a severe PITA to carry around, so for that I would much prefer the form factor of the iPad over a net
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Sounds to me like the problem solves itself!
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Mandate paying them a (real) living wage, give them health care, and opportunities to advance their education for free or at very little cost.
The dark, Satanic mills of Apple (Score:5, Funny)
You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of expendable labor. [despair.com]
What about.. (Score:5, Insightful)
How about Foxconn itself? (Score:3, Insightful)
Foxconn also sells branded mainboards of their own, etc. How about they just increase the pay at their factories, and up prices a buck or two? Two bucks means nothing to me, if they want to pass that onto the consumer I'm willing to open my wallet.
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Since all middlemen's shares of the price are percentage-based, raising the price two dollars at the factory probably means that the product will cost an additional $10 or more in the stores
Dang (Score:4, Funny)
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I wish my coworkers jumped off the building.
Which leads directly to even more
... long overtime ...
That strategy might not be effective.
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How about reduce their hours by 20% instead... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm under the impression that the workers there already make relatively more than most similar jobs, and a 20% raise doesn't seem like it will make much of a life-changing difference for anyone (especially if they don't have time to spend it :P)
And just how far can money go to compensate you for hellish working conditions?
So why not give them some more breaks / shorter hours each day?
G.
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I'm under the impression that the workers there already make relatively more than most similar jobs
Yeah, they're making decent wages for the area.
And just how far can money go to compensate you for hellish working conditions?
Agreed, it would make more sense, but then we don't have all the facts. Hopefully the auditors know what they're doing. Part of the problem was the family being given ten year's pay as compensation. Imagine that in the US. It would lead to a rash of suicides as well.
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Well if you could prove it was horrid work conditions that lead to the suicide the settlement would probably be more than 10 years pay for the avg american wage
The average wrongful death payout in the US is estimated at $500,00 to $800,000. So we're looking at something comparable to 10 times the average yearly income in the US.
Re:How about reduce their hours by 20% instead... (Score:5, Insightful)
ok, but why are they working massive overtime? Is it because the job requires them to ("do it or you're fired") or is it the pay that requires them to ("If I don't pick up 6 extra shifts I can't pay my rent next month").
While the 20% will not help the first case, it would make quite the impact on the second...
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Plus it pays for a game console, new computer... a night out with your wife... etc.
If you or a family member has a health problem, 20% higher wages can mean a lot.
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Peter Hessler covers this very well in Country Driving [amazon.com]. Young migrant workers flock from the poor inland regions to the coasts looking for factory work. They want to work as much overtime as possible 1) because they want to earn as much money as possible as quickly as possible, and 2) because they are far from home and aren't interested in spending time or money on leisure (their "real lives" are back home, and they've come out solely to work).
Because of this, jobs offering more working hours and less vacat
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I'm under the impression that the workers there already make relatively more than most similar jobs, and a 20% raise doesn't seem like it will make much of a life-changing difference for anyone (especially if they don't have time to spend it :P)
And the 20% doesn't make a difference for their family? *I* would be thrilled with a 20% wage increase. At the lower end of the wage scale, each dollar (or renminbi) is even more important, as instead of going to luxuries it can go to basic necessities (and things like education for children)
And just how far can money go to compensate you for hellish working conditions?
So why not give them some more breaks / shorter hours each day?
Let's see, the workers ALREADY chose to work in what you describe as hellish working conditions. Does that tell you anything?
that guy who lost iphone was killed (Score:2)
that guy who lost iphone was killed
There was a suicide prevention app for the iPad (Score:2, Informative)
Why not less hours? (Score:2)
By comparison (Score:5, Informative)
I got curious as to how Foxconn's suicide rate compared to other groups. The United States' suicide rate [wikipedia.org] is 11.1 per 100,000 people. Foxconn employs somewhere around 800,000 people [economist.com](!) which means by the end of the year, you'd expect a death count by suicide of around 90 people.
If the current rates holds, there'll be 50 more Foxconn employees alive at year's end than there will be Americans from a comparably sized city.
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The problem is quantum mechanics (Score:3, Funny)
It's been shown that you have an infinitesimally small but real chance of not actually existing. It's difficult to aim for 100% when the best reality itself can offer is 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999%
I blame Planck myself.
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I don't get your post. 100% of just about anything is impossible. There's "no concept of 100%" because most people have realized that it's impossible! believing in easy solutions and that 100% solutions are a somewhat childish worldview.
It's like Mike Tyson said..."Everybody's got a plan, until you get hit." You can have the best contingency plans in the world, but invariably, SOMETHING is going to go wrong. Something unexpected and/or out of your control is going to pop up at some point.
Likewise here, peop
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...and that's the problem with the good old "globalAmericanisation" plague inflicting our planet - this idea that if a statistic says it's "within acceptable limits" then everything is okay and nobody needs to do anything about it.
It’s a far worse dynamic: When people still aren’t doing as bad in one place, the government / bosses will argue that because those others are worse, one can still go down. (Which of course is a logic fallacy.)
And then one of them by random chance gets a bit worse, and everyone else gets an excuse to make it even worse.
This continues until some ultimate catastrophe or until it becomes actually impossible to be worse.
But what I *hate* just as much, is those people who are taking those jobs with
Re:By comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
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``How can you compare workers with the general population?''
Well, why wouldn't you? And if conditions at Foxconn are indeed supposed to increase suicide rate, wouldn't you expect the suicide rate at Foxconn to be _higher_ than in the general population? I reckon that it would be more meaningful to compare the suicide rate of Chinese Foxconn employees to the Chinese general population than to the US general population, but still - wouldn't the numbers cited by the grandparent indicate that your risk of commi
Re:By comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
The chinese don't commit suicide because they are too busy working overtime.
Seriously, what is this pitiful statistics you are trying to use ?
There have been 13 suicides at the working place, and, to my knowledge, suicides at the working place are very rare in our western countries.
Frankly, if you work 18/7 and spend the rest of your time to sleep and eat, your life means pretty nothing after a few months. And only naive people believe that they can get rich by their work.
BTW, in France, there have been 37 suicides in 2 years in the biggest telecom company: France Telecom, mainly because the company is changing (FT is becoming a private company, and I can assure you that it means a lot more work for some people there, who are accustomed to doing nothing !).
In France, we count the suicides both at work and at home, as long as you are working for the company.
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There have been 13 suicides at the working place, and, to my knowledge, suicides at the working place are very rare in our western countries.
It would be interesting if the Foxconn home+work suicide rate is much different--do you know if it is?
The fact that the suicide rate is highly correlated to cultural factors is obvious and well-known. It's partly linked to religion (some religious frown on suicide) and other more general cultural factors. Japan for instance has an _extremely_ high suicide rate. Beyond cultural, socio-economic realities also play a role.
Maybe Foxconn families get more/different compensation in the family member committed sui
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The chinese don't commit suicide because they are too busy working overtime.
Seriously, what is this pitiful statistics you are trying to use ?
There have been 13 suicides at the working place
There have been 13 suicides at the Foxconn complex which also contains free housing for the employees.
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I got curious as to how Foxconn's suicide rate compared to other groups. The United States' suicide rate [wikipedia.org] is 11.1 per 100,000 people. Foxconn employs somewhere around 800,000 people [economist.com](!) which means by the end of the year, you'd expect a death count by suicide of around 90 people.
If the current rates holds, there'll be 50 more Foxconn employees alive at year's end than there will be Americans from a comparably sized city.
Dammit, and here I was all excited that I could get a 20% raise if I could convince 13 coworkers to kill themselves.
Just giving them what they want (Score:2)
Geez, 13 suicides? (Score:2)
Here we can strike.
Though sometimes the police are brought in, it's hardly ever that bloody.
My wife talked to an ex Foxconn employee (Score:3, Interesting)
who said they worked 12 hour shifts with no days off.
The excuses about labor supply and demand, and how the factory is an improvement over a Chinese farm, are bullshit. If it was really like that, they could cut pay in half, use 4 shifts instead of 2 (or whatever the current scheme is), and give the workers an option of working double. Or some other such improvement. As it is, its just an abuse of power. As screwed up as organized labor has been in the US, this is what happens when you don't have it at all.
And yes, Apple is culpable, and so are all of us that own products by companies who use Foxconn. When a company is making profits, and its executives are earning large salaries and bonuses, the market isn't forcing them to do what they do. They can always scale back the size of their mansions a little bit.
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As screwed up as organized labor has been in the US, this is what happens when you don't have it at all.
Warning, irony overload!
At least Apple appears to be making a move in the right direction.
More Effective Measures (Score:2)
Personally, I am not so sure giving the workers a raise is the most efficient way for the company to prevent the suicides. I have never known anyone to commit suicide simply because they felt they weren't making enough money. The more likely culprit, I think, is high stress levels - which may be caused by having trouble making ends meet due to inadequate wages, but would surely also be related to the working environment and the workload. Rather than raising wages by 20%, I would think that, say, hiring 20%
Apple benefits from Slavery. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuff said.
When you outsource to foreign lands that force workers to sleep on the assembly lines, and in the factories... for 65 cents an hour, you're supporting slavery. (This is the common work condition of chinese labor)
I'm sorry. Apple wanted to cheat the economic system by not hiring Americans, because we have lives and high expenses due to the cost of living in America. Why pay Americans who only want to work and have a home and healthcare, when you can hire Chinese slaves who are easily replaced no matter how many of them commit suicide.
Fuck every corporation that sold America out.
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You just described how capitalism should work. The problem is they cheated the ecosystem that is our economy. They went outside the cyclical nature of our entire economy. They rigged the game.
Of course this only matters, if you actually care about your communities and neighbors.
The ultra wealthy only have equally rich neighbors...
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Fuck every corporation that sold America out.
Oh please. Like it's all America's fault. Fuck the Chinese gov't for not protecting their workforce.
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http://www.nlcnet.org/reports?id=0034 [nlcnet.org]
Enjoy. Granted its Microsoft ;) But this is pretty much universal there. Remember Nike employing children? or Kathy Lee's clothes being made by children? etc.
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Guess you didn't group up through the 80/90's or anything when companies started opening shop in Mexico. Dirt cheap labor+slow pay+enforced production time was the norm there too.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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The suicide rate among foxconn workers is not only lower than for the population of China in general, but also lower than every US state. Every suicide is a tragic event, but I'm not buying the contention that their jobs are driving them to do it.
Suicide rates vary widely between different population segments; you cannot fairly compare the suicide rate of factory workers in Shenzhen to the suicide rate of rural farmers, for example. The better comparison would be the suicide rate of Foxconn employees to the suicide rates at other electronics manufacturing, and I'd think if other factories had similar suicide rates we might not be hearing so much about this in the news.
While these suicides may be due to statistical chance, do you not feel it is worth
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Suicide rates vary widely between different population segments; you cannot fairly compare the suicide rate of factory workers in Shenzhen to the suicide rate of rural farmers, for example. The better comparison would be the suicide rate of Foxconn employees to the suicide rates at other electronics manufacturing, and I'd think if other factories had similar suicide rates we might not be hearing so much about this in the news.
In a perfect and rational world, perhaps, but this world is neither. Witness how much makes news simply because it is Apple (or Nike, or whomever). This story gets play precisely because it does lob stones at Apple's glass house.
This is like Greenpeace getting all pissy at Apple a few years back. Despite Apple being MUCH better than the industry average, Greenpeace targetted Apple, knowing it would garner more press than complaining about HP.
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You read Fake Steve! [fakesteve.net] He totally called it that people would be saying this.
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Is it lower than -workplace- suicides in any other part of the world?
The number never included suicides at home!
American Workers Just Can't Compete... (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember this story the next time you try to defend our all-mighty corporations' choice of offshoring every single job possible with the simple-minded argument of American workers just can't compete; they need to toughen up, take a lower standard of living, work harder, become better educated, etc, etc...
In a globalized world, there will always exist a shit-hole even worse than the last. Uless your idea of being more competitive really means accepting conditions so poor that death seems a valid alternative to a rather significant portion of the work-force, you might want to start thinking of a better argument.
Re:Well this sucks!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Now Apple will jack up the price on iPads by 20%!
It would raise the cost to Apple by .7 percent per iPad. I think that Apple intends on eating that difference rather than passing it on to the consumer.
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Re:Well this sucks!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should we let Apple (or any other company) abdicate responsibility for their supply chain? If Apple chooses to work with Foxconn, then Apple is on the hook for ensuring Foxconn is a reputable and humane supplier.
Or is it okay to let a company like Apple accrue the benefits of outsourcing (i.e. lower prices, more flexible manufacturing, etc.) while ignoring negative consequences (i.e. environmental damage, inhumane working conditions, etc.)?
Re:Well this sucks!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Why should we let Apple (or any other company) abdicate responsibility for their supply chain?
I'm not saying we should. It's just disingenuous to call it "Apple's plant" which I've seen repeated over and over again. Lots of companies contract Foxconn and Apple seems to be the only one trying to fix the problem so why are they the one being singled out for criticism.
Re:Well this sucks!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize pretty much every computer on the planet has components from Foxconn in it ... right?
I guaranty you that the computer you used to post has components they make in it.
Unless you plan on no longer using a car, your PC, probably your TV and several other devices, you won't be doing a damn thing to 'stop the problem'.
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Here OP, let me make an analogy to explain why Apple is not entirely responsible, only partially, for Foxconn.
Why should we let the OP (or any other poster) abdicate responsibility for their supply chain? If OP chooses to work with a grocery store, then OP is on the hook for ensuring the grocery store is a reputable and humane supplier.
Or is it okay to let a poster like OP accrue the benefits of outsourcing (i.e. not having to have a farm or barter with farmers directly) while ignoring negative consequences
Re:Well this sucks!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Isn't the suicide rate for FoxConn employees somewhat less than the population of China as a whole?
Getting a job at FoxConn would actually reduce your tendency to commit suicide.
Re:Well this sucks!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
``Why should we let Apple (or any other company) abdicate responsibility for their supply chain?''
Well, I see it like this: Apple (or any other company) wants something manufactured. So they approach some manufacturers to make them an offer. Foxconn (or any other bidder) says "We can do it for so and so much." Among all the bidders, Foxconn has the most attractive offer, and Apple believes they will be able to make good on it, so they sign the deal.
Is that all there is to it? Well, pretty much yes. If Apple didn't trust Foxconn enough, they probably wouldn't sign the deal. This trust can cover anything from fear that Foxconn might go belly up before having delivered, to causing negative press for Apple. In the end, there is no real way for Apple to be certain that such events will happen, or will not happen, if they sign the deal with any of the bidders. The best they can do is make a risk assessment, pick the winner of the bid, encourage them to do the right thing, work with them to help them do the right thing, and help fix things if things still go wrong. And it seems to me that this is exactly what they are doing.
``If Apple chooses to work with Foxconn, then Apple is on the hook for ensuring Foxconn is a reputable and humane supplier.''
I think that's debatable. Certainly, you may _like_ Apple to try its best to ensure that every supplier they work with is reputable and humane. And maybe they are doing that. They are, after all, paying extra to support the plan to curb the suicides. But even if Apple do their best, there is only so much they can do. They don't control Foxconn, and, last I checked, Apple didn't have a standing army or a special ops unit that could force Foxconn to do what Apple would like them to do. So it's really Foxconn that has to fix things - Apple can only encourage them, help them, and, if that fails, walk away from Foxconn and distance themselves from Foxconn's practices should Foxconn not clean up its act. So I really thing "ensuring" is too strong. Apple can't do that, so it's unreasonable to expect that of them.
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From the economist*:
The toll (a dozen this year) is lower than the suicide rate among the general population in China. But the deaths have raised questions about working conditions in electronics manufacturing in general and in particular at Foxconn, which keeps its customers secret, rarely opens its plants to outsiders and routinely ignores press inquiries.
What is the suicide rate at other companies? I'm truly curious. I would like to understand why everyone is up in arms about this. And what about Dell and HP and any number of other companies that also use Foxconn?
source [economist.com]
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If Apple chooses to work with Foxconn, then Apple is on the hook for ensuring Foxconn is a reputable and humane supplier.
Why? Why isn't Foxconn, the Chinese gov't, Intel, Dell, Sony, Nintendo, etc, on the hook?
Or is it okay to let a company like Apple accrue the benefits of outsourcing (i.e. lower prices, more flexible manufacturing, etc.) while ignoring negative consequences (i.e. environmental damage, inhumane working conditions, etc.)?
Apparently it's okay to hold Apple to a different standard because fanboys are annoying.
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Apple (or any other company)
Care to try again genius?
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You're so stuck on hating Apple that you don't even know what the other companies are.
Let's blame the Amazon or Microsoft, maybe Cisco or Nintendo. See where I'm going here.
While Apple has their products made by Foxconn, they make much more for other people. Maybe go knocking on their doors and asking them why they don't give their workers a 20% raise.
Just keep typing away with arrogance on your computer made by Foxconn.
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I dunno. If I have a factory, or in this case a small city, that makes products for one company, to that companies designs and that companies security compliance rules how separate is it really? Sure Foxconn sells to anybody who pays, but the facility in question seems to be primarily an apple factory that allows apple to skirt around running it's own high tech sweatshop. Granted that's sort of the point of doing business in the PRC in the first place.
part of the problem here seems to be that this factor
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Sure Foxconn sells to anybody who pays, but the facility in question seems to be primarily an apple factory that allows apple to skirt around running it's own high tech sweatshop
Really? Any data to back that up?
FWIW, I opened up a dell today and because of all these recent news articles just happened to notice the SATA cable has a nice big sticker on it saying "Foxconn"
Re:Well this sucks!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
For reference, other major brands who use Foxconn [foxconn.com] include:
Intel
Dell
Zoostrom
Sony
Nintendo
Microsoft (yes, all 3 major consoles come from Foxconn, at least partially)
Motorola
Amazon Kindle
Cisco
Hewlett-Packard
ATI
Most have issued statements regarding the number of suicides at the factory. But none other than Apple, as far as I'm aware, have taken steps this large and publically towards resolving the problem.
Re:Well this sucks!!!! (Score:4, Informative)
None of them give a shit. Slavery was always the goal. We outlawed it in the US.. but not overseas.
The US Workers who demanded a modest life style, home and health care... were sold out by those companies who would rather employ slaves, then Americans because its more profitable and slaves are easy to abuse.
More like the corporations are hostage to their financial performance and stock price. Who holds them hostage? The retirement plans with billions invested and expect their 10 -15% ROI. The beneficiaries of those plans? Grandmom and Granddad who retire comfortably at 55, 60, 62... You can't demand exceptional financial results from companies and corporations and handcuff their options to deliver those results. It's called Capitalism - the only incentive that gets people to produce more time and again is personal financial gain.
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So then the question becomes: Why does Apple buy parts from suppliers who run sweatshops?
Any company the size of Apple knows exactly what's going on at the factories of their major suppliers. I guarantee that the contract that Apple has with Foxconn specifies all sorts of things that have very little to do with the specifications of the part supplied. Very often a company like Apple will enter into a contract and then tell the contractor "You're going to have to cut
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At the profit margins Apple runs, they could probably afford to manufacture the iPad here in the USA in a prexisting plant under contract. One of the (many) reasons why they probably don't do this is because we don't have the kind of manufacturing plants here in the US with the capacity to handle those kinds of volumes.
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Apple could have chosen a company that has 1st world labor laws.
Lets not kid ourselves here - the only reason they outsource all this crap to China (or name your own low wage destination) is because it provides a greater profit return. It has little to do with how much something costs. Make no mistake - one of the reasons Apple is worth more as a company even though they ship less than their competitors is because they have very high profit margins.
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Because if you support someone who supports an abuser, you support the abuse. That is in part what Franklin meant by "He who lies down with dogs gets up with fleas".
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Who says that FoxConn is not just going to take the extra money as profit rather than give that money in the form of raises? The country is horribly corrupt at government and company levels.
Apple.
Apple's just paying lip service.
Apple regularly audits their suppliers, publishes those audits (even though they were dragged through the muck last time they published a yearly audit), and requires those suppliers to make changes or suffer penalties or lose Apple's business. They're one of the few companies demonstrably doing more than paying lip service.
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