Chinese Students Say They Are Being Forced To Build Your Next iPhone 481
pigrabbitbear writes "Now that Apple is putting the finishing touches on the most anticipated smartphone in history, Chinese students are again being pressed into service on the factory line inside the largest single internship program in the world. This according to two separate stories in the Chinese press. A report today in the Shanghai Daily says that hundreds of students in the city of Huai'an were forced to help fulfill iPhone 5 orders starting last Thursday. Classes in town had allegedly been interrupted as a result, since the two-month long internships would fulfill the students' need to 'experience working conditions.'"
The most anticipated smartphone, huh (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's an internship. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not about students applying to foxconn for a part time job. It's about the univeristy they work for ordering students who had no previous relations to foxconn to go work there and suspending classes as a result.
Re:It's an internship. (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost all of us have done it. I'm certainly no fan of Apple but this appears to be making something out of a routine event.
You call a government program to meet manufacturing quotas for the purpose of moving large amounts of money from the US to China by mandating the participation of students on factory assembly lines a "routine event"? No, cpu6502, that is not at all something that "almost all" of us have done.
Re:It's an internship. (Score:1, Insightful)
If true the students will learn an actual real world skill in between academic studies - how to get fucked by a corporation.
...a worker's paradise... (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously here, when will the world wise up to the fact that "cheap cinese labor" has costs that don't tabulate out cleanly on expense sheets and quarterly reports?
Is getting your technology for fractions of a cent per transistor worth.... this?
Do the affluent of today not know that this kind of despotism breeds civil unrest, government oppression, and the degredation of what it means to be a human being?
Do they even care?
A worker's paradise indeed. Does anyone know of any electronics makers who don't abuse another country's willingness to throw its own people under the bus for money?
Someone has to assemble them... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's an internship. (Score:5, Insightful)
China isn't really like north america or europe in this regard. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire government in the area (district or even prefecture) is actually just an extension of foxconn (legally, officially), and if you're at their school you can be told to work at their factory, they pay for it after all. You can't take one of their products into their town, you can't set up a vegetable stall without their permission and in their town etc. This isn't some mom and pop little GM assembly plant with 6000 employees. This is a small factory with only 40 000 workers that they need to expand (http://www.tuaw.com/2012/05/21/foxconn-building-new-production-line-for-apple-products/ )
Conceptually it's much like factory towns elsewhere, with varying degrees of official backing, and institutionalizing who actually runs the show.
There is also, in china at least, some measure of communist collective effort and coercion still. This has to be done, so we all pitch in to do it, because it's for the good of the country, or else. And to some degree they're right - without a strong collective effort they wouldn't be where they are. Of course if they cared about their workers they'd be paying a lot more than 250 dollars a month, but lets not go crazy here, you need to keep costs down to stay competitive.
The government can always conscript you and and then send you to work digging trenches, fighting wars or building schools if they want. Normally rich countries don't resort to that in all but the most extreme circumstances, but for china a million iphones probably brings in 10 or 15 million dollars (http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/01/31/how-much-of-the-iphone-is-made-in-china/). That's a lot of money, especially since, if you look at the first link I had, they're talking about only a 56 million dollar factory. There is a strategic interest in doing whatever it takes to meet that demand rather than risk letting somewhere else pick up the sales - and that's only direct wages for the phone assembly, there's all of the components manufactured in china as well - and they want to be seen as doing whatever it takes to keep it that way. China is taking 'being accommodating to business' as far as you can take it without outright allowing slavery - and that is deliberate.
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Insightful)
And those that are aware of this should not purchase an iPhone.
I am proud to not own an iPhone. I am proud in knowing that the % of profits from my phone are minimal and did not come from slave labor.
Remember when people were proud to own USA items? Perhaps it is time to bring that back.
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:2, Insightful)
The only difference is that when I was doing it, we were doing it for the "country". Now it is for Foxconn.
There is a difference?
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Insightful)
And those that are aware of this should not purchase an iPhone.
I am proud to not own an iPhone. I am proud in knowing that the % of profits from my phone are minimal and did not come from slave labor.
Remember when people were proud to own USA items? Perhaps it is time to bring that back.
Hear hear. Question: where do you find a phone that is made in the USA? AIUI, pretty much any smartphone you want to buy is made in China, in large part.
im sorry to tell you this, but your phone (Score:4, Insightful)
probably comes from the same factory as the iphone, or if not, then the factory down the street, and since nobody is putting pressure on Samsung to 'clean up its supply chain' (since its in Korea after all) then Samsung does not hire inspectors to go harass factory managers to clean up their act.
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Insightful)
I LOVE my American made Toyota. My neighbor's Canadian/Mexican made Chevy is a piece of crap.
Re:Could block imports of iPhones into the US (Score:5, Insightful)
It is absolutely nothing similar to what you're describing. Quoting someone else that addresses your naive point well (they actually read the article! imagine that):
Students were pulled from their classes, forced to work 12-hour shifts, and punished if they protested or tried to leave. None of this was voluntary, and all of it highly illegal even by Chinese law. The students were paid a very nominal amount, but were billed for room and board which clawed that money right back to the factory, meaning this is a "Sixteen Tons" situation where the students didn't actually get paid.
As for the "work experience," it consisted of snapping parts together and filling boxes. The students were studying Law and English. The factory work had no educational value of any kind, not are any of the students getting the references or connections customarily associated with internships.
Are you getting this yet? The students were grabbed from school, shipped to the factory and made to work 12-hour shifts. No one had agreed to any of this. Anyone who talked back or tried to leave was punished.
The nicest label you can slap on this is "impressment," which is just a fancy way of saying slavery. So let me get this straight. A national healthcare plan is "enslaving doctors," but grabbing kids out of class and forcing them to work 12-hour shifts without pay is "valuable work experience?"
It's only voluntary in the sense, "You can leave but we won't be letting you graduate."
That is not voluntary.
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when people were proud to own USA items? Perhaps it is time to bring that back.
The minute "people" are willing to spend $1500 on a phone that currently costs $550, you'll see iPhones built right here in the good ol' USA. You can be the first. What's that? Not interested? Oh, sorry, never mind then, hypocrite.
Bullshit. There was a story on Slashdot several months back that included a breakdown of the costs involved in the iPhone. Manufacturing labor is only around 3%. Their workers are paid $350 a month. Paying an American worker a decent wage (say around $42k per year) would cost ten times that, for a 27% increase in the price of the phones. But making them in the US means you don't have to pay as much on shipping. I don't have numbers on hand for how much that costs, but let's ballpark it at 2% of the total phone's cost. That means that you're looking at at most a 25% price hike to build those phones in the US. Not the 200% increase that you pulled out of your ass.
Now, I'm not saying those jobs necessarily should come to the US. There's nothing that makes Americans more entitled to work than Chinese people. But whoever builds the phones should be getting a good wage. Treating people anywhere in the world as near-slave labor just so we can save $150 on our phones every two years is simply disgraceful.
It's akin to Papa John complaining that giving his workers healthcare would make the pizzas cost an extra quarter. Are we as a society really so greedy that we think that's a bad deal?
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:4, Insightful)
Couldn't you argue that GM cars are the most American cars of all, given that they are, you know, owned by America?
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Insightful)
$350 a month in China isn't a particularly bad wage, its certainly not slave labor so maybe you could tone down the overblown rhetoric. Their cost of living is dramatically lower than the U.S. $350/month also dramatically beats what they can make trying to eek out a living as a farmer which is why large numbers of young people willingly flee rural China for those jobs.
If recent rumours out of Foxconn are true they are probably going to transfer most of the menial assembly line jobs to robots at which point there wont be any jobs at all for anyone, then what will all the Apple haters whine about.
All things considered, whining about Apple building their stuff in China is pointless and misguided. Nearly every western coporation moved their jobs and capital equipment to China. Seeking out cheap labor is what companies in a Capitalist system inherently do. It will reach its ultimate fulfillment when computers and robots are doing everything so there are no more jobs. Google's self driving cars are poised to wipe out long haul truckers, taxi drivers, auto insurance agents, highway patrolmen, and will significantly reduce the number of emergency responders, since car wrecks must be half their business.
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Insightful)
...Remember when people were proud to own USA items? Perhaps it is time to bring that back.
Remember when greed wasn't the cornerstone of the American Dream? Yeah, you would need to bring that back FIRST.
(Unless you really wanted to pay $3000 for an American-made iPhone...)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember when people were proud to own USA items? Perhaps it is time to bring that back.
The minute "people" are willing to spend $1500 on a phone that currently costs $550, you'll see iPhones built right here in the good ol' USA. You can be the first. What's that? Not interested? Oh, sorry, never mind then, hypocrite.
And Apple(or any other hypothetical vendor) wouldn't just pocket the extra grand and continue production by the means that allowed them to hit the $500 price point why exactly?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Insightful)
Bearing in mind the profit margin on iProducts, Apple could break the cycle and move manufacturing to the West.
Alternatively, Apple could charge extra for moving the manufacturing. I'm sure the feel-good factor would sit well with the Apple fanbase even if they all had to pay an extra $20. The kudos to Appl;e for such a move would be immense.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)