Labor Activist: Apple May Be Terrible, But All Others Are Worse 218
CheerfulMacFanboy writes "Labor Activist Li Qiang wants you to know that the iPhone 4 in his pocket is not an endorsement of Apple's policies, just an acknowledgment that the company is doing a better job of monitoring factory conditions than its peers. The founder of leading advocacy group China Labor Watch (CLW) told us that, though the Cupertino company does more-thorough inspections than competitors, it is responsible for poor working conditions at its suppliers' factories and needs to invest some of its record-breaking profits in improving them. 'Although I know that the iPhone 4 is made at sweat shop factories in China, I still think that this is the only choice, because Apple is actually one of the best. Actually before I made a decision, I compared Apple with other cell phone companies, such as Nokia,' he said through a translator. 'And the conditions in those factories are worse than the ones of Apple.'"
Interesting headline change (Score:4, Insightful)
Interesting how the original headline reads "Apple Best at Auditing Factories, Still Not Doing Enough" while Slashdot's reads "Apple May Be Terrible, But All Others Are Worse". From best to terrible in the flash of a Slashdot submission.
I don't get why Apple is always the one intimately associated with Foxconn when, as the largest electronics manufacturer in the world, Foxconn builds products for Dell, HP, Sony, Motorola, Nintendo, Microsoft, and so on. That Apple is the most proactive about labor policies isn't a surprise given the company's left-wing political leanings. You can always say someone should be doing more, but one can't help but wonder at what point it becomes the responsibility of the native government to make its citizen's lives better rather than the companies in another country sending the build orders. If Apple and other companies did what Li Qiang suggests, they'd essentially be babysitting the entire world's industrial labor, and that's just an impossible slippery slope. However, the storyline of a glossy, profitable American company using "slave labor" is just too juicy a narrative for the mainstream media to pass up.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Apple Best at Auditing Factories, Still Not Doing Enough" - I interpret that to mean that Apple should lift its game and improve, not act like it's blameless.
"Apple May Be Terrible, But All Others Are Worse" - I interpret that to mean leave Apple alone and blame other companies first.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Earlier today we had "money sucking leeches" in a summary, and yesterday a quote was called "bull****" in a summary.
Slashdot is becoming pretty cartoonish.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Haters don't go to websites to learn. They go to have people tell them they're superior for being haters.
Haters have a far more serious problem with truth than "fanboys". I simply equate "hater" with "pathological liar".
Re:Interesting headline change (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot is becoming pretty cartoonish.
Becoming? The sad thing is that Slashdot's increasing cartoonishness seems to be a reflection of a large subset of the readers.
The idea seems to be that Apple is cheating all those workers out of the perfect utopian lives they'd have if only Apple loved them.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I call shenanigans. Do you really think a legitimate labor union would be permitted to exist in China? This is just a PR shill speaking the party line.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, something along the lines "I'm paying the rapist, but because the murderer is worse". No, you should not be dealing with criminals in the first place.
[Message for the deeper-interpretation-impaired: this is just an exaggerated analogy to make the point clearer, I'm not saying anybody is a criminal.]
Re: (Score:2)
The computer you typed that comment on was almost certainly produced in those conditions.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed, I think you are correct. But then, as an individual that work with technology I don't have any choice (that I'm aware of... do you know any alternative?). But for a company that makes *billions of dollars* in fucking PROFITS, things are much different.
Delusional people may believe that free market and "voting with my money" can change things, but with companies with hundreds of billions of dollars in fat to burn and all of them with the same policies, nothing can ever change.
Re: (Score:2)
I think I incorrectly inferred "criminals" to mean "Apple, and other corporations who tacitly allow slave labor." In that case, everyone who buys a computer from one of those companies would be pretty unethical.
That said, the relatively unregulated market in the US (compared to e.g. other western countries) promotes profit above almost everything else, and supposes that companies will fail if enough people boycott them due to their unethical actions. It's really hard to fault a company which operates most e
Re: (Score:2)
Anything to reject evidence that conflicts with your preconceived notions.
Re: (Score:3)
My 'preconceived' notions are based on the NPR article [thisamericanlife.org] I cited elsewhere. According to that article Chinese citizens who agitate for real labor changes live in fear and do their organizing in secret.
Re: (Score:2)
From the web site http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/ [chinalaborwatch.org] "CLW has conducted a series of in-depth assessments of factories in China that produce toys, bikes, shoes, furniture, clothing, and electronics for some of the largest U.S. companies". Yeah well that straight off is a bit PR suspect. Location China Labor Watch, 147 W 35TH ST STE 406 New York, NY 10001. Check report 35 factories 25,000 workers, that doesn;t seem very many at all, in fact a drop in the ocean so to speak.
Foxconn's inhumane and militant manag
Re:Interesting headline change (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point is this:
Saying "others are worse, focus on them" when apple serves as the standard for quality over there (if they're saying they do the best), means that if apple is doing this badly, they should be setting the example for doing better. Everyone, including the "worst" should be raising bar. Just because others may be worse is not in any way, an excuse for apple.
How fucking hard is this to understand?
Re:Interesting headline change (Score:4, Interesting)
Neither the article, nor comments here are excusing Apple, nor suggesting they don't need to improve.
They are just correcting the hysterics of the media and of the slashdot haters, which have been implying Apple is the big offender. It's the very opposite of the truth.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't get why Apple is always the one intimately associated with Foxconn when, as the largest electronics manufacturer in the world, Foxconn builds products for Dell, HP, Sony, Motorola, Nintendo, Microsoft, and so on.
I guess thats the price you pay when you have perhaps the greatest electronics brand name recognition in history. It doesn't help when you're always in the news for your record profits either. Of course, one could argue that those things may also have positive aspects for a corporation....
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I guess thats the price you pay when you have perhaps the greatest electronics brand name recognition in history. It doesn't help when you're always in the news for your record profits either. Of course, one could argue that those things may also have positive aspects for a corporation....
But nobody was writing front-page articles about Foxconn when Dell or HP or whoever were the top of the industry, and Apple was considered to be irrelevant.
I wonder why?
Re: (Score:2)
Two things come to mind:
a) They make the biggest profit margin from their devices (indicating they could afford to spend more on addressing the conditions of employees)
b) They're the most visible (people know who apple is and their "image" appears to be important to them)
c) They're one of more capable of push-back on the factories to fix issues (due to their size)
With great profit... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's not even close to what he said.
Re:Interesting headline change (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Interesting headline change (Score:5, Insightful)
Its also worth noting that when new Foxconn positions become available for Apple manufacturing, thousands of people appear and queue for the job opportunity. The suicide rates and overall health risks among Apple/Foxconn employees are notably better than those of local non-Apple/Foxconn employees. Apple can and should still do more, but if you treat real efforts to improve with nothing but scorn, companies will just stop making efforts to improve.
Re: (Score:2)
I believe Apple and other companies do as much as can reasonably be done as foreign private entities
The thing is that they aren't just equal.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple hasn't compromised that much but definitely deliberately goes to cheaper more "flexible" places at cost of labor protection
That was basically what we were all told back in the 1990's was Michael Dell's "stroke of business genius".
Even if Dell Computer, Apple and the rest now made "moral choice" an imperative in their industry, wouldn't that be asking everyone who might want to get into that business to work with constraints imposed by competitors who now dominate the market basically because they never faced those same constraints?
That's like North Americans trying to force South Americans not to clear-cut the rain fores
Re:Interesting headline change (Score:4, Insightful)
More pressure should be placed on the Chinese government, since it is ultimately their responsibility to improve the lives of their citizens.
While it's true that the Chinese government needs to take its share of responsibility, don't the citizens of China also have responsibility in improving their lives?
Imagine if the same were said about America. The American government should be responsible for improving the lives of citizens? In "the land of the free," shouldn't that responsibility lie in the hands of the citizens themselves, while government should just get out of the way?
I'm pretty sure there would be an outcry about how the government shouldn't be managing people's lives.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, land of the free, blah blah blah. The world is not a magical Ayn Randian fantasy land. People and companies CANNOT be trusted to act ethically, which is why we have basic labor laws. I know it's over used, but Somalia is a
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, land of the free, blah blah blah. The world is not a magical Ayn Randian fantasy land.
Yes. That was my point. That people in America, who believe in this Randian fantasy land, demonize the Chinese government for failing their citizens up, while simultaneously screaming for less government intervention.
Did you entirely miss my fairly obvious subtext?
Re: (Score:2)
Reading through the thread I sorta missed that as well.
You're right, it can be remarkably inconsistent, to argue for the freedom to treat people however badly they want, to outsource, to avoid all wethics and decry all government control, and then blame the chinese government for allowing that behaviour.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I love this reference. When ever "a decrease in government" or "small government" or "no government" is brought up, the local idiot yells out "Somalia" or some war torn country, which has MANY different governments, but because of the different factions fighting for control over the rest leaves it with an ambiguous governance, people label it an anarchist nation in the strongly defined sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia#Politics [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia#Law [wikipedia.org]
Instead, you're using it to mean
Re:Interesting headline change (Score:5, Insightful)
China takes the opposite approach--criminalizing workers forming or joining a union.
But as DogDude says, absent regulation, companies and people don't tend to act ethically. Hell, nearly every regulation on the books is the result of a real problem. Look at labor in the industrial revolution. That's how companies act when there is no regulation.
Re: (Score:3)
When the government willfully and encouragingly allows companies to not pay millions in taxes and gives them discounts for shipping jobs overseas, yes, it is the government's responsibility to help the citizens.
How is one citizen going to attack a huge multinational corporation on their peasant's salary(compared to the execs and lawyers of Giantcorp)? How do citizens have any chance to succeed when the government just takes from them and gives it to the already-rich right and left? When the government just
Re: (Score:2)
How is one citizen going to attack a huge multinational corporation on their peasant's salary(compared to the execs and lawyers of Giantcorp)? How do citizens have any chance to succeed when the government just takes from them and gives it to the already-rich right and left? When the government just takes the highest bribes and does what they say?
Seriously, did you not understand that that was the point of my post? Did you miss the obvious subtext and sarcasm?
Re: (Score:2)
Every time the government tries to help me, I end up getting fucked. Sure they give me a reach around, but it just isn't worth it.
I wish they'd stop trying to help me, because while they are well intentioned, the outcome is destroying my life.
BRB, just need to walk through another full body scanner, and possibly be groped by a stranger. I should say "hopefully BRB" as my government might throw a black bag over my head, and whisk me off to some third world country for a good ol' torturing, to keep us safe (D
Re: (Score:2)
“Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite.” - Joseph de Maistre
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What about your cellphone?
Stamp it out just to be sure?
Re: (Score:2)
Foxconn build according to designs and components supplied to them. They'll build whatever quality they are paid to build.
Re: (Score:2)
I've seen made in USA motherboards with foxconn ISA slots on them. Doesn't mean foxconn made the board, just the connector. Used to see their name on a lot of connectors, I suppose that's where foxconn comes from...
Slave labor? (Score:2)
[citation needed]
Re:Because Apple users are high-fashion snots? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure if you've noticed or not, but there's a hell-of-a-lot of people using Apple products nowadays. My hunting, fishing, drinking, non-recycling and high school educated family members may take offense to your statement.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Interesting headline change (Score:5, Funny)
I think I read it cost about $100 to manufacture one of these phones,
No, it costs a lot more than that to make an iPhone. But what does the EE Times know [eetimes.com], right? And that's just the cost of the physical components. Good thing for your argument that R&D, shipping, marketing, software, and all that stuff that isn't something you physically hold in your hand are free, right?
Re: (Score:2)
greatest of working conditions, to being made in the worst.
Having worked in factories over summer breaks I can certainly say the conditions are better than china but let's not pretend working in a factory anywhere should ever be associated with the word great.
Wow, that's what passes for best these days (Score:5, Insightful)
We've become so used to the idea that ALL consumer electronics are made in sweatshops that we're down to comparing whose sweatshop is the *least* nightmarish? That's more than a little sad, no?
Wouldn't it be nice to have just one consumer electronics manufacturer that made all their stuff in the first-world and paid their workers decent wages? It might be nice to have at least one TV, DVD player and cellphone option that I didn't have to feel guilty about. I'm getting a little sick of thinking of how many third-world people had to be exploited just so I could get a 52" LCD for $1,500 instead of $1,700. I mean saving the $200 is nice, admittedly, but not at the expense of dumping mercury into some Chinese town's river water, or working some 12-year-old for 16 hour days.
Couldn't countries at least require that imported goods be manufactured at their own minimum wage?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They could even slap a "No 13-year-olds were ripped out of school to make this piece of shit for a little cheaper" sticker on it.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. Only kids 12 and under worked on this item - they are cheaper than the 13 year olds.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes - this! Actually, I'm not bothered about money staying in my own country or region so long as I know it's eventually going to people who play fair with their workforce. We've had a Fairtrade movement for things like coffee and chocolate - and it's starting to become more mainstream for things like clothing. But it's *very* difficult to find anything technology-wise that has any such guarantees.
I bought a cute little webcam from these guys: http://www.unitedpepper.org/ [unitedpepper.org] because they claimed to make it
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The short answer is no to both. You couldn't actually manufacture most of the components for electronic equipment in the civilized world any more, because the whole supply chains are in china, and your price would skyrocket because the difference in labour costs is a factor of 20 or so. Sure, when you talk about foxconn assembly that's a small portion of the total cost of an iPhone, but if you talk about every component doing that, it would be a nightmare.
Second of all, the point of free trade is to drive
Re: (Score:2)
The short answer is no to both. You couldn't actually manufacture most of the components for electronic equipment in the civilized world any more, because the whole supply chains are in china, and your price would skyrocket because the difference in labour costs is a factor of 20 or so. Sure, when you talk about foxconn assembly that's a small portion of the total cost of an iPhone, but if you talk about every component doing that, it would be a nightmare.
It already is a nightmare. The difference is whether we live the "nightmare" of higher costs for gizmos, or the nightmare of using slave labor to keep those prices down.
Re: (Score:2)
Well how else are they going to get money to pay for all of the things that will help them live better lives, like education and electrical power? We could have delayed the process indefinitely, but now that it's in motion there's nothing we can do about it. They are either slaves to making cheap stuff for a generation or slaves to the fields for generations. Take your pick.
You can't just magically pay them more than they're worth and have it work out well. As the west germans how well that's been worki
Re: (Score:3)
the difference in labour costs is a factor of 20 or so
This is too simple a measure, because US workers are far more productive than Chinese workers (because they have access to more capital).
World Bank numbers [wikipedia.org] for 2008 say US GDP PPP per employed person is $65,480. China GDP PPP per employed person is $10,378. So a US employee is likely to be six times more productive than a Chinese employee, so you need to hire six Chinese workers to replace one American worker.
However because of the factor of ten differ
Re: (Score:2)
That would be true if you were comparing the US to other civilized countries. It doesn't really work in somewhere like china. First of all you need to look at nominal GDP, not PPP. A chinese worker is equivalent to 1/6th of a US worker on PPP, is paid half of the 10k US figure. (The conversion between nominal and PPP for china is a factor of 2, for the US it is 1. ) The factor of 2 is entirely coincidental.
And those are averages. It's like saying the average worker in the US gets 50k a year. But reme
Then go all the way (Score:2)
Extend this to food, clothes, oil, natural resources and everything else and you may find yourself in a position where you can't spare a penny to buy any smartphone or TV at all.
THIS would be honest. Nobody does that though, because then it would really, really start to hurt.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be nice to have just one consumer electronics manufacturer that made all their stuff in the first-world and paid their workers decent wages?
With the intention of improving life in developing countries, or improving life in the first world? Because reducing the number of jobs in the developing world won't do anything to raise their standard of living.
And if it is about having more jobs in the first world, lets be honest about that, and not pretend we're doing it to save people from sweatshops.
Re: (Score:2)
You might want to give something like this [slate.com] a read. You're not doing the third-world any favors by only buying products made in the first-world. If anything, refusing to do business with them is tantamount to abandoning them to be in perpetual poverty.
The world we live in isn't ideal, and it's not the responsibility of Apple or any other company to fix that by raising the standard of living in the third-world to first-world levels before doing business with them. So, excluding charity (which is nowhere near
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be nice to have just one consumer electronics manufacturer that made all their stuff in the first-world and paid their workers decent wages? It might be nice to have at least one TV, DVD player and cellphone option that I didn't have to feel guilty about.
I'm sorry, if it's manufactured in the first world, you can only afford one. Which one do you buy? The TV, the DVD player or the cellphone?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Huh? Being restrained against your will, e.g. no bathroom breaks, is not a human rights violation? People need sleep, sleep deprivation, e.g., 36 hours without sleep, is sometimes used as an instrument of torture. People will sell themselves (or others) into slavery if they are desperate enough. That doesn't make slavery right or less nightmarish.
To me it sounds like you are an apologist.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
SACOM (Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour) visited Foxconn [pcmag.com] and said that the biggest gripe from employees was money, and they also grumbled that overtime was sometimes forced upon them. Other concerns included exposure to dust at a construction site. Employees are allowed bathroom breaks each day, though managers did encourage them to work through their breaks. You make it sound like some torture dungeon, and it's just not. It's a typical grueling Chinese factory, but it's one of the lea
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
You never worked for Steve did you?
Re: (Score:2)
But it's clustered at Foxconn.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
NPR did an excellent spot [thisamericanlife.org] on the foxconn factory. There are some shocking aspects to the factory conditions, but this is not slave labor. Please don't confuse slave labor with voluntary labor under horrible conditions by poor and desperate workers in China. Even liberal economists agree that these (terrible) jobs do result in improvements for the inhabitants of China. The alternative is no work -- or the rice paddy. If you are going to make assertions that people are being enslaved and tortured against th
Re: (Score:2)
if you are desperate you have no choices.
Re: (Score:2)
if you are desperate you have no choices.
Yep, and that sucks for you.
China's problem is the same one faced by American workers. If labor organizes or if if the government somehow implements mandatory higher living standards, then the jobs are sent abroad to Vietnam or Thailand (or Cambodia or Laos or India) because the people there are willing to work for even less. If that happens, then it's starvation or the rice paddy for the locals. Or, in the US, it means working at McDonald's. This is the dark side of the story behind the efficiency of ca
Re: (Score:3)
You are so close...but you've missed a point. Apple customers do pay more for their iStuff (as I have good reason to know), which is why Apple enjoys high profits on its hardware while Dell and HP and the like scrape by on razor-thin margins. The problem isn't really the consumer not wanting to pay more, the problem is that (in the West, at least), the typical middle-class consumer has been facing shrinking real wages since Reagan and Thatcher and that crowd ruled the world. People can afford to pay less, a
Re: (Score:3)
I agree with your points generally speaking, but would assert that redistributing 'wealth' in the form of simple money does not magically create more petroleum, more food, or more real estate so that everyone is better off all of a sudden. If we suddenly distributed purchasing power evenly to every single person on the globe by piling up all the money in the world and giving each person a 1/7,000,000,000 portion of it, I'd be willing to bet that I personally would end up with a lot less than I have now and
Re: (Score:2)
The only way that things can change is if the market (meaning YOU -- but not just you, everyone else too) decides that the market wants to pay more so those poor Chinese bastards can live a little better.
There's one entity that can force the entire market to do something at the same time - it's called government.
Are Apple's customers willing to pay more for their IStuff? Probably not.
I'm definitely willing to pay more (especially since the recent story gave the cost increase from shifting manufacturing to U.S. as +$50 - even if that's underestimated, $100-150 is still not that much for something that costs $500 to begin with), but only if that has any measurable effect. Which is to say, if everyone else is also paying more. Voluntary charity does not really work on large scale,
Re: (Score:2)
No, the alternative is not no work.
There is a spectrum of options including better pay and better working conditions.
Re: (Score:2)
You're generally correct. What we have today in China is not slave labor, it's what our own societies went through back in 19th century, and in the beginning of 20th. However:
Even liberal economists agree that these (terrible) jobs do result in improvements for the inhabitants of China. The alternative is no work -- or the rice paddy.
These are not the only options. The ultimate goal should be to force the companies that make their gadgets there and sell them here (and oh, they so want to sell them here! - you can't sell 30 million iPads for $500 a pop where they are made!), to up the worker treat in their overseas factories to the same level we enjoy. It's only fai
Re: (Score:2)
People need sleep, sleep deprivation, e.g., 36 hours without sleep, is sometimes used as an instrument of torture.
Really? I just asked Dick Cheney and Co. and they said their lawyers found that to be false.
(This is a joke, don't take it seriously)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm no expert in international trade agreements, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that's not exactly how it reads.
I've been wrong plenty of times before though, and don't mind admitting it... so feel free to cite.
Re: (Score:2)
In other words, the United States bans imports of shrimp or shrimp products from any country not meeting certain policy conditions. We finally note that previous panels have considered similar measures restricting imports to be ‘prohibitions or restrictions’ within the meaning of Article XI.(599)”(600)
Basically, regulating based on policy conditions (nets that don't kill sea turtles in the example above, workers' wages in the case we're talking about) is considered a prohibition or restriction. Under WTO rules, you can't place a prohibition or restriction on trade from another WTO nation. Ain't free trade grand?
Re: (Score:2)
So fuck WTO then. Membership is voluntary, after all.
The West needs its own WTO, with blackjack and hookers - that is to say, free trade only between those countries that actually have reasonable labor protection and environmental standards. For everyone else, tariffs through the roof - or rather as much as needed to bring the price to the same level as first-world made.
The only problem is that big corps are who derive most benefit from WTO-style "free trade" (which is not really free so long as labor migra
Proof please (Score:2, Interesting)
Instead of just saying one company does better than the other, I think Mr. Li Qiang would be much more helpful to his cause if he actually published his findings and methodology.
Or are we suppose to simply believe him on his word?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Unless you can read Chinese you wouldn't understand it if he did. And perhaps he already has.
Let's not confuse what he says and publishes with what someone else choses to translate.
Re: (Score:2)
Even Korean brands? (Score:3)
I would have guessed that Korean brands like Samsung and LG still do a lot of manufacturing in Korea, under better conditions than what China usually has.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The article's title is very misleading in this regard.
It should read "Apple may be terrible, but other Chinese manufacturers worse".
Samsung is not even considered in the comparison because it's not made in China.
Re: (Score:2)
Samsung and LG both manufacture in China.
Re:Even Korean brands? (Score:4, Insightful)
Samsung manufactures in China and in Korea, too. You can get a "Made in Korea" phone from Samsung. However given the guy is a Chinese Labor activist, he probably wants conditions to become better in China, not to move production outside of China.
Re: (Score:2)
And Foxconn (and indirectly Apple) have factories all over the world. Like Brazil for example.
The conversation is about the factories in China. Companies that have factories in China are part of the conversation, irrespective of whether they also have factories outside of China.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't know about LG but Samsung seems to be a Foxconn customer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Major_customers [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I would have guessed that Korean brands like Samsung [,,] still do a lot of manufacturing in Korea, under better conditions than what China usually has.
Tell that to this guy [wordpress.com].
Wow. Apple has deep pockets. (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's the best line from Li Qiang's statement:
So, the takeaway is that Apple runs the best sweatshops in China. The question I have, is this: Apple is now the richest and most valuable corporation in the world. If anyone is going to stand up and refuse to accept having their workers live and work in sweatshop conditions, and lead their industry to clean up its act, it ought to be them.
There are two possibilities here: Either Apple is putting cash in Li Qiang's pocket to say these things, or his comments were translated by Siri.
Apple was supposed to "Think Different", remember? How about all those full-page Apple ads with Ghandi, Cesar Chavez, Richard Feynman? You think those guys would feel comfortable with workers living 16 to a 12'x12' company-owned dormitory with surveillance cameras? How do you think Ghandi would feel about the working conditions at Foxconn? What do you think would happen if the next Cesar Chavez were to start talking to workers who build iPhones?
Here was the text of one of Apple's famous ads:
There isn't fuck-all that's "inspirational" about the human cost of Apple's treatment of its workers (and yes, that's APPLE's treatment of workers. They're the ones whose products are being made.) It does not "push the human race forward" to make inhuman treatment of workers the industry standard. Every technology company on Earth wants to be like Apple. Apple sets the gold standard, right? So how many CEOs of competing companies are thinking right now, "If we're going to be as successful as Apple, we're going to have to treat our workers even worse!"?
As an Apple shareholder for more than 25 years, I believe that for one week, every shareholder, every board member, every officer, should have to trade places with someone who builds iPhones. I was finally completely divested last year, but I'd gladly be part of that field trip if it raised awareness of what Apple is currently doing. How they're making their money.
Fuck Apple. And yes, fuck every other company who profits from these labor practices. But since Apple is at the front of the line, fuck them first.
Re: (Score:3)
How very sanctimonious. If you really feel that bad about Apple (and you didn't divest because you felt Apple had no upside left) then you should really give up all the gains you made because you profited from it. Yes, you should donate it to charity. Until you do that, you are just a man (or woman) with a high horse, trying to preach what you do not practice. You profited from it.
Like it or not, Apple is doing more for the poor people of China than is, well, pretty much anyone else. Those people have jobs
Re: (Score:2)
I am not applying any standards to people in "decidedly third world situations".
I am applying first world standards to Apple, Inc.
Also, what about other countries? (Score:2)
My phone was made in Taiwan. Maybe it was made with sweatshop labour, I haven't checked, but I know that Taiwan is a high income nation and generally uses advanced manufacturing.
"Best in China" doesn't mean much, turns out things ARE made elsewhere, yes including the US (if you don't know what's made in the US that is your failing, not the US's).
Re: (Score:2)
No, it's a failing of the manufacturer for not putting a big "Made in the U.S.A." sticker on the product.
I will pay twice as much for a product made by union workers. I'll pay 70% more for a product made in the US. I'll pay 40% more for a product certifiably made without sweat shop conditions.
And for a locally-made product of union workers, I'll pay an additional 125%.
I have a question: Why does it take a million (Score:3)
people in China to build Apple products? Where are the pick-and-place robots and other automated assembly bots? Why are people required to build these things at all?
Re: (Score:2)
FUD in its finest. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Modern can still be a sweatshop (Score:2)
Any video/image of Chinese factories I've seen are typically as modern as any in the world (otherwise your iPhone will be made in India if you want third world sweatshop).
1) So what if it's "modern" try working 14 hours a day, 6 days a week, then sleeping on a 14" board, and getting up to do all again.
2) The Chinese are known to be extremely closed, and extremely propagandist. You cannot just walk into Foxconn and start taking photos of whatever you want. You only see what they want you to see.