Independent Audit Finds Foxconn Violates Chinese Work Rules 315
doston writes "The first independent audit of Apple's supply chain found excessive working hours and health and safety issues at its largest manufacturer, piling more pressure on the technology giant. This investigation targeted Hon Hai Precision Industry which is known as Foxconn. The company says they will try to stop their overtime criminality by July, 2013. Will the public ever sour on Apple devices in light of the constant media attention on supplier working conditions?"
Bullshit Anti-Apple Screed (Score:5, Insightful)
No, because they'd need to sour on all electronics to avoid Foxxcon's (and its ilk's) moral taint.
It's not an Apple problem, it's an industry problem, and Apple does better than most at identifying and correcting these conditions.
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As others have noted Foxconn is a sub-contractor of multiple companies so really Apple should not be the fall guy. But, this is China and personal freedoms are just not as valued and China is not a democracy.
Foxconn isn't anyone's subcontractor. Foxconn is a contractor. And only an idiot would put blame on Apple here because Apple is the company that hired FLA to do audits at Foxconn exactly for the purpose to find if everything is up to scratch there and to find and fix problems.
However, what is even more stupid is your claim "personal freedoms are just not as valued in China". Show me a Western country where working 48 hours a week is illegal.
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Foxconn is a sub-contractor of multiple companies so really Apple should not be the fall guy.
Utter rubbish. Apple is by far the biggest beneficiary of these oppressive practices and is riding high on the hog in part because of these abuses.
Wow, Apple astroturfers [smh.com.au] hoarded away plenty of points for modbombing today.
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Well, apple *is* the most valuable company in the world. Their product is made by foxconn, which helps realise their enormous profit margin. I don't think any other company's products made by foxconn are anywhere near as profitable.
So it stands to reason that they benefit the most, financially, vs other foxconn partners. Whether they have the highest production volume or not isn't really relevant. Others may benefit more in terms of raw quantity of widgets, but that isn't really what we are talking about. A
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Foxconn employs 800,000 people, it's the tenth largest company (by head count) in the world. Are you *really* suggesting that Apple goods account for a majority of those people's jobs ?
Why do you Apple astroturfers insist on putting words in my mouth? I said Apple is by far the biggest beneficiary of Foxconn's oppressive practices and that is verifiably true [bgr.com]. Moral of this story is: do not every make the mistake of accepting the claims of an indignant Apple cultist at face value.
Now crawl back into your miserable astroturfing hole please, and do not refer to me as "sir" if you do not mean it.
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Criminal is criminal.
No not really (Score:5, Insightful)
Turns out you can have your electronics made elsewhere. China is not the only place. They are the cheapest, but when you start paying for higher quality goods, they can be made in other places, often ones with not only better worker conditions but higher quality controls. For example my receiver is made in Japan. The lower end models are made in China but the high end stuff is made in Japan (it is a Japanese company). My speakers were built in Ohio (with the drivers themselves made in Denmark) or the UK (with UK drivers) depending on which ones you are talking about. My TV is less high end, but it was still built in Mexico.
Well guess what? Apple charges high end prices. Don't try and say they don't, their massive profits, massive amount of money in the bank is evidence they do. They can afford to move their production somewhere else if they want. It would mean less profits though.
I'm not saying they need to, I'm not playing morals here. I'm saying that this bullshit of "Oh they can't do anything!" is just that: bullshit. They charge the kind of prices they can produce their shit elsewhere and have the kind of money that they could set up their own production lines presuming they couldn't find anyone who could meet their needs.
However it would mean trading off some profits.
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It's not an Apple problem, it's an industry problem, and Apple does better than most at identifying and correcting these conditions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html?pagewanted=all [nytimes.com]
"Many major technology companies have worked with factories where conditions are troubling. However, independent monitors and suppliers say some act differently. Executives at multiple suppliers, in interviews, said that Hewlett-Packard and others allowed them slightly more profits and other allowances if they were used to improve worker conditions.
'Our suppliers are very open with us
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>>>Apple apologists. Of which a huge herd appears to have swooped upon Slashdot
There was a time when Apple was good. After the Atari/Commodore era had ended (70s/80s/early 90s), the Macs were running on the PowerPCs. They were good quality hardware with a decent OS (though not capable of preemptive multitasking until 2002).
Switching to generic Intel PCs through Foxconn was a mistake. IMHO.
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It's not an Apple problem...
...according to Apple apologists. Of which a huge herd appears to have swooped upon Slashdot the moment this article appeared.
See what I mean?
Equal pressure? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone going to apply the same pressure to ALL the other computer/phone companies that use the same facilities? I know Slashdot has a extreme anti-Apple bias, but does it blind you to the obvious? The computer you're using right now has parts that were made by Foxconn.
Re:Equal pressure? (Score:5, Insightful)
While it's not particularly fair for Apple to take the heat for this, that's the price you pay for being the biggest and most influential company in the industry.
Besides, flamebait-y summary aside, people aren't souring on Apple. What they are doing is pressuring Apple to pressure Foxconn. Foxconn then hires more people, pays better wages, and requires shorter hours. The result is that the best workers will go there, and there will be indirect pressure on other Chinese companies to improve their conditions. I know my company is giving across the board ~30% raises to our Chinese workers this year, even though we haven't been in the news at all.
The end result is a good one -- the Chinese working class gets better pay for less work, the working class in the Western world faces less offshoring as Chinese wages rise, and the only drawback is that iGadgets and Androids will cost one or two percent more to manufacture. If Apple has to take a disproportionate amount of blame to achieve these results, so be it. I'm sure their executives are sobbing all the way to the bank.
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Yes. We should boycott APPLE and EVERY OTHER Foxconn customer until they come into compliance with the law.
And those of us who use Foxconn as a supplier should de-source them. There are plenty of other suppliers.
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Anyone going to apply the same pressure to ALL the other computer/phone companies that use the same facilities?
Logically you would go for the entity with the most influence over the operator of the facilities, that would be Apple.
I know Slashdot has a extreme anti-Apple bias
I don't know what you've been reading but quite clearly the apple threads on /. are full of discussion (well arguments if we're honest) over apple policies and devices, it's not some apple-hater love-in where everyone is just patting eachother on the back for criticizing apple like you seem to think it is.
Not really (Score:3)
My phone is made in Taiwan. I don't know who HTC uses, maybe internal, but it is of Taiwanese origin, not Chinese. My computer does have some Chinese parts in it, namely the powersupply and motherboard, however neither are produced by Foxconn. Not saying the companies that made them (CWT and MSI) are any better, but there you go.
The rest of the components are different countries. My CPU was fabbed by Intel in Chandler, Arizona and packaged by Intel in Costa Rica. My RAM was made by Micron (under their Cruci
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Easy. Apple can, because it'll become a great competitive advantage.
Imagine Samsung is about to release a new phone, and Apple sends FLA inspectors to the Foxconn factory to ensure that it's not just Apple employees getting the good treatment.
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I know Slashdot has a extreme anti-Apple bias
Actually, it's an anti-evil bias.
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Slashdot has a extreme anti-Apple bias
What version of Slashdot are you reading?
Unless everyone unfailingly defends Apple, the site has an extreme anti-Apple bias.
That's how it works, apparently.
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You can't demand cheap products then be offended when they result in poorly paid workers.
I'd have modded you up, if Apple fans were, in fact, demanding cheap products. Apple hardware is, in fact, sold at a premium.
Actually, I take that back, Apple fans *are* demanding cheap products and they're getting them. That they're expensive doesn't make them any less cheap. What the impact the quality of the product has on the pay of the workers, I do not know; typically, however, you get higher quality product from higher paid workers.
July 2013 = 487 days (1 year, 4 months) (Score:5, Interesting)
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Maybe because to reduce the workload per person, they'll have to find more workers (the pool of which is starting to dry up), build more infrastructure to support them, etc. Alternatively, they could automate more tasks, but that would also require time and effort to procure, install, and configure the massive amount of equipment needed.
What, you were expecting them to call all their clients tomorrow and say "Oh, you remember that contract we had for $DEVICE? We're cutting production by 25% starting today
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not enough workers IN CHINA???
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The labor pool is drying up? When Foxconn is the Chinese equivalent of a dream job? I keep hearing about how Chinese are so lucky to be working at Foxconn because it's do much better than most other Chinese can hope for, those 60hour workweeks and rat-infested dormitories are so much better than what anyone else in China has. How can the labor pool be drying up?
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So you're telling me, (Score:4, Funny)
it always happens (Score:5, Insightful)
Will the public ever sour on Apple devices in light of the constant media attention on supplier working conditions?
You mean, kind of like how in the 90s, people stopped buying from a company with a certain swoosh [wikipedia.org] on their shoes?
Oh wait, that didn't happen, and Nike's dividend has grown from $0.03 to $0.30. That, despite having relatively well organized protest groups [teamsweat.org], including groups at over 40 universities. Protests and media attention aren't going to do much. There is zero financial motivation for Apple to make more than a token, symbolic move to improve working conditions. That is enough to appease the minds of their customers. Anything else they do is bonus.
Oh fucking Christ Part 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting choice of words, "overtime criminality". So people are working 60 hours a week and get paid for overtime. So what are things like in IT in the USA? I hear there are people working 60 hours a week as well, and not getting paid for overtime. In the games industry, there are people working 80 hours. In the medical profession, 80 hours seems to be the average in the USA (at least according to Wikipedia).
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Queue the angry mobs (Score:2)
Queue the angry mobs of workings who actually want to work those incredible hours. They can't get the wages we do but they can certainly work much more than us and are often willing to.
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What a crock (Score:3)
OP: Try to look a more than one source (Score:5, Informative)
Spin can go a lot of different ways. [myway.com]
From the article:
The FLA found few safety violations, noting that the company had already dealt with problems like blocked fire exits and defective protective gear.
The FLA found that many workers at the Foxconn factories want to work even more overtime, so they can make more money. Foxconn told the FLA that it will raise hourly salaries to compensate workers for the reduced hours.
Heerden said that it's common to find workers in developing countries looking for more overtime, rather than less.
"They're often single, they're young, and there's not much to do, so frankly they'd just rather work and save," he said.
The auditors examined one years' worth of payroll and time records at each factory, conducted interviews with some workers and had 35,000 of them fill out anonymous surveys.
Apple has started tracking the working hours of half a million workers in its supply chain, and said that 89 percent of them worked 60 hours or less in February, even though the company was ramping up production of the new iPad. Workers averaged 48 hours per week.
Give them the T-shirt (Score:3, Informative)
Less support? Doubtful. (Score:2)
"Will the public ever sour on Apple devices in light of the constant media attention on supplier working conditions?""
Do people still by Nike products?
"overtime criminality" (Score:2)
Get some perspective (Score:2)
ABC (Score:4, Informative)
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I see you don't understand the nuance of the supply chain. The reason that iPhones and so on (and other devices like Xboxes, HP computers, Playstations, Android phones and other things made in that same factory as the iPhone) are not made in the US isn't really a wage issue, it's a worker numbers issue, as well as a logistics problem. All the pieces that make a product are made nearby (or a great many of them are), so moving the assembly to the other side of the world creates huge issues unless there is a v
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It's easy to understand that people like you were not around at the beggining of this century in the US. When people worked 6 10hour days a week for minimal wages. It wasn't modernization that stopped the practice. It was people on the streets demanding it. Unions and a lot of violence and heartace.
People in China don't have that option. Unions are illegal, and there is no recourse for poor working conditions. There is no reason to believe in fact that things will ever change over there, or that we
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This is China we're talking about, they need time to grease the right wheels and get the law changed in their favor.
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My guess would be existing contracts. Their existing contracts with companies (apple, dell, hp, etc) specify their rates for product, if they raise wages, hire more workers and have to continue to deliver product at their existing contract rates, they'll be losing millions per day.
Now obviously, the companies could let Foxconn out of the existing contracts, and/or renegotiate now to raise wages, but they probably don't want to do that... Also, Foxconn probably can't hire an extra 100,000-200,000 workers in
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I'm not saying its right or good, but if China isn't going to fine them for the violations, then what incentive do they have to stop? If China wants this to stop they need to fine Foxconn more than they are making violating the law.
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I think I'll try that one should I get pulled over for speeding. Honest officer, I'll try to slow it down within a year or so.
Should I offer to pinkie swear?
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ok genius, lets see you change every single bad thing for what? damn near half a million workers, retrain management and make it all work without cutting productivity... overnight...
I will be awaiting your perfect solution in the morning, I wake up at 6AM CST
for fucks sake, I work for an American company supplying OEM electronics for American factories, with a team of about 60 people over 2 shifts, and running 10 prototype boards though 4 pick-n-place machines and their solder ovens took an hour of negotiat
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What a loaded article. It sounds like Foxconn's working conditions are actually much better than most companies in China...
Attack of the Apple apologists. What it actually shows is that Apple in fact has done little to correct the widely publicized working condition problems in its supply chain. Whether these problems exist in China or anywhere else is immaterial: Apple is the beneficiary of these oppressive labour practices in any case. Now Apple is faced with trimming its fat margins as opposed to its usual strategy of hammering its suppliers in underdeveloped economies in order to maintain its precious stock price. As it sho
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I'm sure the millions of extremely poor subsistence farmers in China who have an unstable food supply, outdated housing and plumbing, and no healthcare are super appreciative that nice white folks like yourself know what's best for them and prevent Apple from exploiting them with a job that pays several dollars per hour and provides comfortable shelter and plentiful food.
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You gotta go down and join the union
You got to join it by yourself
Ain't nobody here can join it for you
You gotta go down and join the union by yourself
Working in the factories would kill a dog
Working on the belt line killed your soul
Working in the limestone and cement quarries withered your lungs
Working in the cotton mills shot your legs and feet all to hell
And working in the steel mills burned up your spirit
Like a gnat that lit in the
Re:Please stick to "news", Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like the same kind of arguments used to support slavery in this country.
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Sounds like the same kind of arguments used to support slavery in this country.
GP said, "let the Chinese figure out what's best for themselves." I would love to see a citation, anywhere, that shows someone from the 1800s justifying slavery by saying, "let the black people figure out what's best for themselves." That's kind of the opposite of slavery.
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So, let me get this straight. You Apple apolgists are in favor of oppressive working conditions in the sweatshops that make Apple's shiny toys, is that it? Because whatever semantics games you are playing, your real meaning seems clear enough.
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Although their situation is better, I'm having a hard time agreeing with the "We still treat them like shit, but it's not as bad as their otherwise bleak existence!" argument.
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Okay let me make it simple for you. You're an American steel worker in a country that doesn't make steel any more, so we say we're going to help you out. We are going to give you a job for a couple dollars an hour, which is way more than you're making now on welfare, and you will work the hours we tell you, you will live in a dormitory we provide for you. You will eat what we feed you. You will do what we say with serious repercussions to your future health, happiness and longevity if you don't comply... an
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Also, I think the 800-lb gorilla in the room is: If you have unfair labor practices, terrible hours, etc; why not quit? If that were true, I would. Why are 500,000 people voluntarily working there? Is a gun being held to their head?
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Apple apologist much?
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Back to the topic: "If I found out a company I was outsourcing my work to was treating its captive workforce badly, I'd say something to them 'BECAUSE I HAVE A FRIGGING CONSCIENCE!'"
Well, since Apple has been performing audits and improving conditions since 2006, they must be your favorite company: http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/ [apple.com]
I'm glad I read.
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The suicide rate in these places is shocking.
You lost all credibility right there. There's plenty to criticize about Apple, the suicide rate at a contractor's factories is not one of them.
The Foxconn worker suicide rate (1.5 per 100,000 at its worst, in 2010) [wikipedia.org] is lower than the general Chinese population (22.23 per 100,000).
It is lower than New York (6 per 100,000) [huffingtonpost.com], which itself is over half the national average (11 per 100,000).
It is lower than US soldiers soldiers (20 per 100,000 as of 2008) [nih.gov], which was already an 80% jump over the rate in 2004.
It is
Re:Oh fucking Christ (Score:4, Insightful)
What, exactly, is your point?
Apple gets singled out due to its extraordinary profile and profitability. That is inevitable and entirely legitimate. The fact that Foxconn also happens to be central to the supply chain of practically everything with a power cord only highlights the vast scope of the issue. Our electronics are the product of exploitation, abuse and the systematic avoidance of regulatory scrutiny, and it is high time for that to end.
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Re:Oh fucking Christ (Score:4, Insightful)
That point is pure bullshit. The US sustained a large manufacturing sector for decades, and it in turn sustained an expansive middle class. The reason for that is unions. Once the unions began to crumble, the manufacturing became outsourced, or the jobs paid less, and the middle class started to crumble. US households now work twice as many hours per week to make what they once did just forty years ago.
The idea that we can't have nice things unless they are made by slave labor, or that the Chinese that make our nice things should be happy with their oppressive conditions, is just bullshit. Apple, for their part, is sitting on nearly 100 billion dollars cash, and could do a lot to improve the quality of life for the people who make their products. The current situation is exactly why we, and the Chinese, need stronger unions.
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My Amiga 2000 has Foxconn parts. How much older are you aiming for?
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The "no alternatives" defense is just the typical excuse given by the exploiters to justify their status quo.
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The reason for that is unions.
- wrong.
The unions impede on the ability of the economy to grow faster, how come the government is all over companies that are supposedly monopolies, but when people form a monopoly on their product - labour (labour also needs to be bought, like all other products), then it's all OK?
It's not OK when government protects monopolies, be it monopolies of the banks or monopolies of the unions on labour.
The reason USA had the largest middle class was because USA had the most freedoms compared to all other countr
Re:Oh fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
The right answer is it's actually nobody's fault; the simple fact is the US had a booming manufacturing sector for decades because there was very little competition, with possible competitors either communist, third world, or first world but recovering from WW2.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the outsourcing would have happened regardless. Unions just happened to have accelerated this process via a positive feedback loop.
Well perhaps you can explain why that didn't happen in Germany, which has far stronger unions than USA? Germany remains a manufacturing powerhouse and is only getting stronger. Of course they play to their own strengths. In Europe at least, the market for German products is strong because they are well engineered and accurately made. You want a decent coffee grinder? Trust me, German grinders are amazingly much better than the next best thing. How about a knife? A car? A camera lens? Etc, etc, etc.
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the American middle class manufacturing sector fell was because of unions not because the unions fell but because they got greedy. Unions became inflexible and businesses said FUCK IT
Of course, it's never quite this simple but if anyone was paying attention the last 3-years they would have seen lots of proof of this point. Living in Wisconsin we had some real big names in manufacturing prove this very point. Kohler (Kohler, WI), Harley Davidson (Milwaukee, WI), Mercury Marine (Fond du Lac, WI), Miller Brewing (Milwaukee, WI), and Thomas Industries (Sheboygan, WI) all went through tooth-and-nail fights with their unions just to get concessions to sustain their manufacturing. And it's
Re:Oh fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but look at what unions are fighting for now and what workers are going on strike for. People are striking for a living wage and to be able to take their kids to a doctor and not be financially ruined by doing so. American workers are quick becoming third world workers thanks to a corporate monolith that is reducing the global work force to the lowest common denominator. I too would fight tooth and nail too to be able to get a high enough wage to only have to work one job and have both a roof and not starve (or have my family starve.) Look at Walmart, a company that trades heavily in China, and pays its worker so little that their health plan is Federal and State Health Care plans for people below the poverty line and these folks get food stamps. Americans subsidize Walmart's bottom line by paying their employees their basic benefits. What part of that isn't obscene?
Americans are desperate. We've been taking a beating so long, we'll settle for just not standing in food lines or having to ask for food stamps. That's not a rampant sign of unions out of control. Corporations have pushed the American worker to the edge of extinction. If we lack an infrastructure for production its not because we lack skilled labor. Its because American Corporations abandoned American for higher profit margins and bigger bonuses for their Boards of Directors. The United States has been in economic free-fall for most of 3 decades. American corporations have been cannibalizing America making trillions as they siphon off the flood of wealth leaving our country. How long before America has been bled dry. From what I can see, not long.
Global Corporations are now predicated on the fallacy that they can do unlimited social, moral and environmental damage without ever having to pay the price. This doesn't seem crazy only because they've gotten away with it up until now. There is a carrying capacity, and human economies are quick reaching that barrier. There is no indication that those who steer our economies will address the insanity of their behavior until they succeed in crashing the world. Therefore it is up to men and women of vision and conscience to say enough. It is time to re-engineer society, humanity and global enterprise.
Re:Pure Horseshit (Score:2, Interesting)
The desire for a reasonable slice of the pie shouldn't be referred to as greed, especially in light of what's on the opposing side of the equation.
The labor unions fought for "more" from management and the "ownership society" (in the vernacular of the neoconservative right wing) because it was there and could have been shared, easily, for the betterment of all concerned. The high tech mfg isn't the auto-industry, which failed because it refused to deal with reality and build better cars. Audi and BMW, which
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Union or not, they would have outsourced. $20/hr for union work, vs $10 for non, vs $0.50 in the orient.
There was a way to control this - tariffs. Of course that ship sailed, so they'd have to gradually increase tariffs on things until manufacturing starts to move back. (If you suddenly put a 100% tariff on any finished good from the third world, the US would be in a rough spot while tooling up...)
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Wo do have the power to steer Apple: don't buy Apple.
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Our electronics are the product of exploitation, abuse and the systematic avoidance of regulatory scrutiny, and it is high time for that to end
1. You seems to imply that the systematic avoidance of regulatory scrutiny only happen in countries such as China or Thailand or Indonesia
Tell you a fucking truth --- same thing also happen in the U. S. of A.
2. How prepared are you in paying an arm and a leg for s simple hard disk drive? Or a thumb drive? Or an LCD TV? Or your smartphone?
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Re:Oh fucking Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
The other reason Apple gets singled out is because of their singular ability to change things if they had the will to do so - manufacturer’s will bend over backwards for an Apple contract in a way that they won't do for any other company.
Close, but no cigar (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think the point is, that this question at the end of TFS, "Will the public ever sour on Apple devices in light of the constant media attention on supplier working conditions?" is simply flamebait. Nobody's disputing that Foxconn's working conditions are problematic, in light of this audit. Foxconn manufactures devices for far more companies that just Apple. So why single out Apple devices as things "the public should sour on?" Should they buy Samsung, HTC, Sony, Motorola, or Nokia devices manufactured
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And if we do the latter, do you really think the million or so people out of work at Foxconn would *thank us* for sending them back to working as subsistence farmers in third world poverty?
You're right. It's much better to work long hours in an unsafe manufacturing environment while living in third world poverty.
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Exactly... and the Chinese are hard at work trying to get worker's suicide entered as an Olympic sport for this Summer's competitions in London, and they're certain they can snatch a gold!
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Have you ever seen the slave labor camps in Redmond! It'd make a Marine Drill Sergeant cry like a baby!
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>>>Every computer, laptop, and Smartphone you own was either manufactured by Foxconn
No actually my Commodore was manufactured in the USA.
Oh you mean CURRENT products..... well yes that's probably true. My windows computer is 10 years old but probably does have some Foxconn parts inside it. HOWEVER apple is supposed to be better than the other manufacturers. They are supposed to be the "good" alternative for us hipsters.
And they really aren't. Their OS is better but not their hardware.
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How much was Apple doing to improve the lives of people making their products before they started getting negative press?
Fox con irony. (Score:4, Interesting)
What's mildly amusing about this is that some of those worker complaints we heard about were the worker's demand for more overtime.
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A report from China Business News (via MIC Gadget) profiled Foxconn worker and iPad assembler Wang Xiaoqiao (who opted to hide his real name). According to Wang, iPad line workers are beginning to work fewer hours and get more days off as supply meets demand. Wang said iPad production was ramped up in March, bringing assembly time from 10 hours a day down to 8 hours. However, he is not happy about working less. Wang explained:
“The new iPad production started earlier this year, with one class of workers at each assembly line. Nearly 1,000 units will be mass-produced in a standard shift of 8 hours, plus 2 hours of overtime work. 150 – 180 units were produced during a peak iPad production run in February. However, in March, iPad employees worked fewer hours, and sometimes regular weekday shifts could not be archived My base pay is 2,350 yuan, and I need to pay 190 yuan for social security tax, 120 yuan for housing fund, 110 yuan for accommodation fee, and some money on having meals. I’m going through a difficult time for this month,”
While this might sound like a positive thing for a company often accused of making its employees work excessive hours, Wang said he is not happy about making less money and the lack of bonuses for overtime:
Wang is actually upset about it, since working fewer hours means no bonus pay. Last month, Wang worked six days a week, and got a day off. Today, he gets 3 days off, and work for only 4 days in a week. He was planning to buy new furniture by doing overtime work for more pay, but that seems to be impossible now.
http://9to5mac.com/2012/03/28/as-supply-meets-demand-ipad-line-workers-get-more-days-off-but-are-they-happy/ [9to5mac.com]
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So what Wang is complaining about is that after they tax him, take money out for his room and board (we call that working for the company store here in the U.S.) and all the other ways they nickel and dime the poor bugger there's nothing left to send home unless he's working a 60 hour week.
Its not that he wants more hours, its that he needs more hours if he's to have anything left after being financially raped by his keepers. That's not exactly a powerful argument for humane treatment.
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I don't think those articles show what you think they show. Either that or you think liberalism is based around the idea that people hate Apple products.