Chinese Supplier Gets Dumped By Apple For Fraudulently Using Underage Labor 206
jones_supa writes "Another report from Apple regarding Chinese labor practices surfaces. After conducting its 2011 audits to 339 sites, the company found that cases of underage labor had jumped from 6 to 74 in one year. It was concentrated in a single circuit board manufacturer, which Apple says was willfully conspiring with families to forge age-verification documents. According to a new report, Apple didn't find any cases of underage workers at its final assembly suppliers in 2012, but it plans to continue going deeper into the supply chain to ferret out violators. We are talking about Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics Co., with which Apple has now terminated its relationship."
Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics Co. (Score:2)
That's got to be a mistranslation.
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Re:Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics Co. (Score:4, Informative)
what's "underage" (Score:3, Insightful)
how old were they, if poor teenagers want to help their families by earning some extra coin, better that than being punks in a street gang
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well, probably old enough that forging the papers is an option.
but there's the kicker.. they're kids, not detached drone workers of the family.
Under 18 (Score:2)
the employment of children in any work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful.
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] citing The International Labour Organization [ilo.org].
So we're not talking about teenagers sweeping the floor in a factory after school.
screw that definition (Score:2)
I don't have any problem with a 16 year old doing hard labor for money.
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Exactly, except for where it is pretty much the exact opposite of that.
they go back to school , not on the street (Score:5, Informative)
Did anyone who's already posted even read the article? Apparently, the children are placed back at home and their education is completely financed by the violator. Apple follows-up regularly to make sure they are complying.
The child probably went to work in the first place because the family could not afford an education, so they had to choose between sending the child to school or putting food on the table. So now they can put the child back in school, and someone else in the family can work to put food on the table, and not have to worry about paying for an education for the child anymore.
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Did anyone who's already posted even read the article? ...
In case you haven't logged on Slashdot in the last decade, we don't read the articles before posting anymore.
Re:they go back to school , not on the street (Score:5, Informative)
If you read the article further yourself, not only does the company have to pay for their education, but also pay the child the same wage it was earning!
To quote the article:
When new violations are found, Apple requires its suppliers to return the workers back to a school chosen by the family and finance their education. "In addition, the children must continue to receive income matching what they received when they were employed. We also follow up regularly to ensure that the children remain in school and that the suppliers continue to uphold their financial commitment," wrote Apple in its latest report.
I don't think anybody who has posted read the article at all.
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though now they terminated with that company so what does the company care?
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Having lived in communist Poland, I can tell you that this is what communism is about. The works of Marks and Lenin were pure lies even according to their authors. And since every single implementation of communism in history resembled the Animal Farm, you can't say they weren't "true communism". The whole design is wrong, not merely "good but broken by corrupt leaders".
Communism has only one real purpose: to give every layer of the Party power according to which layer you belong to. For example, the ve
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The whole design is wrong, not merely "good but broken by corrupt leaders".
s/wrong/working as intended by their authors rather than victims/
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The works of Marks and Lenin were pure lies even according to their authors.
If you ever bothered to read them you might know his name was spelt "Marx" not "Marks".
I actually think he has some very good points about labour, especially when taken in the context of the time he wrote in. Of course this is very different from saying any real world example of communism is a good system, since almost all examples of communist countries came about long after he was pushing up daisies.
I guess Marx is like anyone trying to do any sort of social commentary about systems they themselves are pa
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If you ever bothered to read them you might know his name was spelt "Marx" not "Marks".
... or grew in a country that spells it "Marks" [wikipedia.org] (surprising as we use the Latin alphabet just like the original, but that's probably because most communists who invaded us spoke russian [wikipedia.org] natively).
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If you ever bothered to read them you might know his name was spelt "Marx" not "Marks".
... or grew in a country that spells it "Marks" [wikipedia.org] (surprising as we use the Latin alphabet just like the original, but that's probably because most communists who invaded us spoke russian [wikipedia.org] natively).
Wow, wierd. In my country we pretty much always spell peoples names the way they were actually spelt be the person we are referring to and try and guess the pronunciation correctly based on country of origin so in my case I would try and pronounce his name in a slight german accent :)
I guess it is because we have so many foreign words and place names in our vocabulary already, the same thing that makes English such a sod to learn I believe.
Of course none of this changes my central point: That his writings a
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The concept of intellectual property (ie: copyright) is a cornerstone of capitalism
Hell no! The cornerstone of capitalism is free market. So-called "intellectual property" is state-enforced monopoly, something that's an anathema to free market, about as antithetical to it as bailouts. It deprives people of freedom to use their own actual property, just because someone obtained monopoly rights.
And even actual property is not that important for free market, all that matters is that no one can deprive you of what you have. Copyright and patents destroy the right to create things while no
subcontracted work out this is the isses as well (Score:2)
subcontracted work out this is the issue as well the main supplier / contractors should get fined as well.
In usa cable co's do this some times it ends up very bad.
http://consumerist.com/2011/10/05/couple-sues-cox-after-cable-guy-kills-their-son/ [consumerist.com]
Cases "Jump" from 6 to 74 in one year? RTFA (Score:2)
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And that "Jump" was from an audit of the second year Apple did the study, 2011.
Actually, they've been doing the report annually since 2007.
Everyone picks on Apple... (Score:5, Informative)
Apple gets a lot of flak for 'letting it happen', but Apple is the only company I know of that is actively trying to do something about it.
If this is happening to Apple, you KNOW it's happening to everyone else. And I have yet to hear a single report of Samsung doing a similar thing to what Apple is doing now.
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Samsung is also under fire for this [engadget.com], but because they use Android and make some of the best Androids, they're the darling of the tech world, so it was mostly buried.
Thoug, to be fair, Samsung looks to be starting to also audit their supply chain [engadget.com] to prevent an Apple-like thing from happening to them. Then again, Samsung does have the benef
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So, now that Apple has shown that enough criticism can and will lead to action to stop (or at least curtail) child labor,
Just saying that Apple started doing these reports in 2007, years before anyone criticised them. And a huge amount of so-called criticism was one American actor who blatantly lied about what was happening - he claimed that he personally saw hundreds of children, as young as twelve, working at Foxconn, which was just made up to further his career.
So forgive me for believing that criticism didn't do anything, but Apple's long standing efforts to improve working conditions did.
child labor builds work ethic (Score:2)
I think an outright ban on child labor (at least in the US) has led to several generations of people with a huge sense of personal entitlement and no work ethic. They spend the first 16-18 years of their life having all their wants and needs just handed to them on a silver platter without having to expend any effort to get those things, then they turn 18 and don't know how to deal with the real world.
One example of this entitlement effect is people who start a business, run it for only 8-10 years before hir
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nothing wrong with voluntary child labor (Score:2)
I started working at around the age of 10, but no one was forcing me. I had saved up several thousand dollars by the age of 13. I could work as much or as little as I wanted, and I was able to keep the money. As long as the child has the freedom to refuse and is allowed to keep the money for themselves (if they want) I actually think forbidding child labor is what is wrong. Like adults, children tend to be happier when allowed to do what they want to do. If they want to do some useful work to buy themselves
Overcapacity warrants for searching new excuse (Score:2)
happens in US often enough (Score:2)
How about just dumping the Third World entirely? (Score:2)
The most likely occasion is that this just repeats with a nominally different supplier. Just cut to the chase and cut out the areas that pull this stuff.
Sounds like FDR knew of this kind of threat well before business even thought of it as an opportunity:
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
China not only has hundreds of millions of such necessitous men, they also have women and children of that variety as well. That, and they have the dictatorship as far as the workers are concerned - where critics disappear or get smeared (in the case of A
Re:it's the children that suffer (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. The choice in places like this isn't slaving away for 22 hours a day in a Dickensian nightmare vs. kicking balls around in a field with butterflies and songbirds.
It's working in a factory vs. living in grinding poverty that makes Appalachian nightmares look like Bill Gates' guest house. The West lifted themselves out of this, now China is.
Imagine someone from the Galactic Federation pulling into orbit in 1850 and hauling out vicious criticism of England. No friend of humanity, that's for sure. If what you care about is actual measurements of well-being, which exploded thanks to factories at that time...vs. grinding poverty, not vs. imaginations of butterflied fields.
Re:it's the children that suffer (Score:5, Interesting)
While it is undeniable that a combination of superior machinery and fossil fuels kicked off an era of unprecedented prosperity for humans on average, there are a couple of complicating factors to consider, both boiling down to distribution issues:
The most obvious one is that child labor(since it is usually cheaper, and since children in the workforce raise the total supply of labor) tends to depress wages and reduce the slice of the industrial prosperity that accrues to the workers(especially in per-labor-hour terms). Certainly, it will generally be the case that a given household will be better off with an additional salary(especially if something prevents one or both parents from working, like being unskilled, infirm, dead, etc.); but workers as a group are better off if children are removed from the labor force, reducing labor supply and allowing children to accrue education and other human capital. Part of the "West lifted themselves out of this" process was precisely the eventual success of the working class and any allies swayed by moral sentiment in legally forcing restrictions on child labor across the board. Since, structurally, such restrictions are essentially a cartel arrangement(since any individual defector will be better off through violating the agreement; but the group as a whole wins if nobody violates it), it more or less had to be done by force of law.
Second consideration involves looking at whatever conditions in the agricultural sector are sucking so much that a ready supply of child factory workers exists. England had its 'Enclosure Movement', which helped swell the supply of impecunious urbanites. I'm less familiar with the Chinese case; but the disparity between urban and rural conditions there is pretty remarkable.
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There's no "pie" to slice from, unless that pie dynamically shrinks and grows (it's not a zero-sum-game.) If you're a regular slashdot reader, I'm sure your familiar with the concept that a pirated song isn't a lost sale. If somebody didn't want to spend the money to buy it anyways, they still wouldn't have bought it. When you lower the price, you increase demand. In the case of a song, free is a pretty low price. As an anecdote, I recall one time a soda machine was misconfigured to sell sodas for 5 cents,
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These same rules apply to labor, and likewise, decreasing the supply of labor doesn't (typically) result in higher wages when it comes to luxury goods, rather it most often results in lower supply, therefore higher prices, and therefore less demand (remember, people who already didn't want to pay the cheaper price still wouldn't have bought it anyways, and now even fewer people will buy it.)
This is not how luxury market works. Also affluent market != luxury market. Iphone is NOT a luxury, 7 year old electronics of a feature phone wrapped in diamonds and marketed by Vertu is luxury.
Re:it's the children that suffer (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Very few arguments apply 'without limit', and this one certainly doesn't. In broad strokes, it starts to break down once the supply of jobs available(given the narrowed definition of the labor pool) falls below the number of economic entities who need incomes(depending on the prevailing social arrangements, such entities might be individuals, nuclear families, extended families, or other). Exactly what equilibrium point is reached in practice is mostly empirical: child labor, at least outside the family, seems to have few moralists on its side and tends to significantly retard education, so it often gets the chop. Limits on working hours are another means of reducing the labor supply that has achieved broad adoption and popularity.
Restrictions on individuals within the adult population definitely exist; but tend to be carved out by much more idiosyncratic means; formally-illicit-but-common discrimination against certain groups, various professional exams and licenses, that sort of thing. Because they tend to badly fail the 'number of jobs roughly equals number of economic entities' rule, wholesale restrictions typically only achieve support if the group excluded is supposed to be a member of some already employed entity(exclusion of women, say, becomes deeply problematic if single-income families are not the ideal and the norm) or if the exclusion is from a specific profession rather than from the workforce entirely.
2. As with sellers of any other good, sellers of labor who wish to maximize their slice of the pie are striving to hit the optimal compromise between units sold and price per unit: If you simply gave labor away, you'd sure see a lot of new factories; but it wouldn't help you much. If you charge $1,000/hr, you probably won't have a job. Some number of new factories is clearly beneficial to workers; but the returns aren't unbounded: If the additional demand for labor produced by lowering its price doesn't make up for the lower price(and loss of time you could be using for other things) it isn't terribly helpful. Exactly how many factories constitutes a local optimum is, naturally, a messy empirical question.
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Limits on working hours are another means of reducing the labor supply that has achieved broad adoption and popularity.
At initial glance you'd think something like that increases wages and reduces unemployment, but in practice it does neither, and in fact results in the opposite in all cases of implementation. It's pretty easy to see why when you consider a few things:
As I explained in another post, the economy, and even resources in general, aren't a zero-sum-game. There is no "pie". By artificially decreasing the supply in labor, you're also decreasing the supply of goods produced. For necessity goods, this generally resu
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However, the GP's metric of "prosperity" is not solely dependent on increasing wages and reducing unemployment, and the popularity of limits on working hours isn't necessarily because of a belief it will promote the latter two metrics. Other factors apply, particularly health, safety, quality of service and quality of living. There are numerous professions where sleep deprivation due to long work hours is an immediate hazard to life and limb of themselves and/or others, and other assorted professions where
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However, the GP's metric of "prosperity" is not solely dependent on increasing wages and reducing unemployment, and the popularity of limits on working hours isn't necessarily because of a belief it will promote the latter two metrics. Other factors apply, particularly health, safety, quality of service and quality of living.
On that aspect, I think such metrics should be considered by the worker themselves since they are all personally relevant. For professions where there are substantial hazards due to overwork, these are dealt with via liability and higher pay. I see no argument there for a universal reduction in how many hours a person should be allowed to work.
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I can't see any argument either, for a *universal* reduction in how many hours a *person* should be allowed to work. I do however see arguments on historical, sociological and physiological grounds for *professional* limits on how many hours *people* should be allowed to work.
No amount of liability insurance can resurrect the dead. Perhaps someday that may change, but not today.
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So, since we know that drinking 50 gallons of water in a day is fatal, the only rational conclusion is that we must never consume water in any form?
Likewise for point 2, there is a balance to be struck. Workers never breaking even while owners never want for anything ain't it.
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Contemporary crusades against minimum wage by economic libertarians are often shouted down as racist, but when minimum wage laws were enacted, they were obviously racist against blacks. You see, before minimum wage laws, blacks commanded lower wages, largely because Americans at the time were racist fucks. In old silent movies you can see signs in the background that say 'colored waiters wanted'. Guess what, they didn't want 'colored' waiters because the
Re:it's the children that suffer (Score:5, Insightful)
China is a bit behind, but it isn't in the 1850's. Child labor (defined as employment of people under 16 years of age) is illegal, and there exists compulsory education for children (as best as can be implemented in practice, of course), the same as any modern country* I'm quite certain that Apple and the Chinese government are on the same page with regard to their moral/legal stance on child labor. What bugs me is that there's no mention of the local government taking charge on the issue, and that Apple is tasked with doing what the government should be doing.
*Translate with your preferred service:
http://china.findlaw.cn/laodongfa/zhuanti/tonggong/ [findlaw.cn]
http://baike.baidu.com/view/63809.htm [baidu.com]
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The question is whether the situation of the those children will in reality get better or worse by being "fired". It may well be that those children will still end up working, just in some other sweatshop that has even worse conditions, or that they will not go back to school but will be starving on the street. I can tell you for a fact that child labor in some African countries saves their lives from starvation or begging on the street (yes, those countries also have laws against child labor and compulsor
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Apple's position is somewhere between a rock and a hard place on this one. As stated by Tim Cook, their goal has become to produce a seismic shift in the way things work - since Apple is the poster-child for child-labour in Chinese sweatshops, they've decided to turn this around into an advantage (for the workers) rather than just let it be a whipping post for Apple when lazy editors need to fill some column inches.
They're making *all* the reports available, even when it reflects badly on Apple. Then they f
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China isn't exactly unified. The cities are, but much of the country is still rural - small villages, far from central government, where the law is a distant force and the local officials can easily look the other way.
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China isn't exactly unified. The cities are, but much of the country is still rural - small villages, far from central government, where the law is a distant force and the local officials can easily look the other way.
Add to this the well-known practice of bribing officials in China, the local government might already have been in the practice of looking the other way.
As bad as child labor is in the West, laws against it plus compulsory education ignore the real-life challenges such as starving while growing up or not having skilled jobs available in the area (which is a chicken / egg issue if there isn't skilled labor in the area to begin with). I do think Apple's efforts would minimize the practice and hope to see
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this level of unemployment cannot be fixed by manufacturers moving jobs around. stopping the populace from breeding like rabbits is about the only useful solution. There's a very good reason china is pushing for "one child per family". Their bean counters know how to do math, and see what's coming. It's a problem that takes a generation to manifest. They're already trying to head it off, yet they're already getting their feet wet in the problem. I'd say they took action right on time.
I also find it ir
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I assume you do realize that you sound pretty much exactly like the rich factory owners of 19th century England and America criticizing the attempts at labor laws and unionization at the turn of the century and are making an ironic joke?
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And once again almost EVERYTHING you just ranted about was true 100 years ago in the US. Do you disagree with the child labor laws established since then in the US, too?
And we are talking specifically about CHINA here, RTFA. Have you been to China recently? Or ever? It's now the world's 2nd largest economy, has had a sustained GDP growth over over 10% for years, and is creating thousands of new Chinese millionaires every year. China's "undernourished" population has fallen under 10% (in the US it's sti
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Goodbye acceptable working conditions and decent pay, and say hello to sweatshops and brothels.
When you need to survive, you'll be willing to do anything.
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And the company soon goes under because the children to whom they're paying half-wages only do 1/3 of the work of adults because of their little girly arms and having to drive two to a forklift, one at the wheel and one on the pedals.
Re:it's the children that suffer (Score:5, Insightful)
Read the article idiot!
When new violations are found, Apple requires its suppliers to return the workers back to a school chosen by the family and finance their education. "In addition, the children must continue to receive income matching what they received when they were employed. We also follow up regularly to ensure that the children remain in school and that the suppliers continue to uphold their financial commitment," wrote Apple in its latest report.
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Re:it's the children that suffer (Score:5, Insightful)
Or it discourages them from employing underage workers.
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It looks to me like a great incentive for parents to try as hard as possible to get their child employed; free money once they're caught!
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Still haven't read the article - is it really worth reading?
Re: it's the children that suffer (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA
âoeWhen new violations are found, Apple requires its suppliers to return the workers back to a school chosen by the family and finance their education. "In addition, the children must continue to receive income matching what they received when they were employed. We also follow up regularly to ensure that the children remain in school and that the suppliers continue to uphold their financial commitment," wrote Apple in its latest report.â
Sorry to rain facts on your parade.
Re:it's the children that suffer (Score:5, Insightful)
Months ago, when talking about underage workers was all the rage, people were decrying Apple for profiting from child labor. Now that Apple is taking a strong stance against it, they're causing the children to suffer. Right, that's not biased.
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Months ago, when talking about underage workers was all the rage, people were decrying Apple for profiting from child labor. Now that Apple is taking a strong stance against it, they're causing the children to suffer. Right, that's not biased.
Just saying that Apple has taking this strong approach against child labour for at least six years, and this is not the first company losing an Apple contract (and the same situation, more than 2/3rds of all underage employees found at a single company). And that Apple has never _profited_ from child labour. It seems that most of the companies employing one or two underage workers didn't profit, because these workers were hired with forged proof of age, so they were paid the same money as legal workers were
Re:it's the children that suffer (Score:5, Insightful)
Hooray, instead of working they now can live on the street and starve to death.
Gotta love Slashdot. Its hatred is for Apple runs so deep, there are many here who would rather children be forced into labor than admit that Apple does something non-evil, or even (dare one say it!) something *good*.
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Gotta love Slashdot. Its hatred is for Apple runs so deep, there are many here who would rather children be forced into labor than admit that Apple does something non-evil, or even (dare one say it!) something *good*.
Did they fire the company when they caught them with only 6 child laborers? THAT would have been doing something non-evil. They're not looking harder for illegal labor practices now because it is the right thing to do, they're doing it to cover their own asses because other people caught them using contractors who break every rule imaginable.
And dislike for Apple predates Slashdot for a lot of us. Chronically malfunctioning Apple II floppy drives were enough to turn me against his highness Jobs back in t
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They're not looking harder for illegal labor practices now because it is the right thing to do, they're doing it to cover their own asses because other people caught them using contractors who break every rule imaginable.
Even though every other tech company also uses those same Asian contractors. What computer did you use to post? For sure it was made using those same contractors.
Apple's the company doing the most to get the child labour problem fixed. But because you hate Apple (going back to the 80s), rationality no longer plays a part in this for you. You still believe Apple is the problem. You are a hypocrite.
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Did they fire the company when they caught them with only 6 child laborers? THAT would have been doing something non-evil.
In other words, whatever they do, you just define "evil" as that. Got it.
They're not looking harder for illegal labor practices now because it is the right thing to do, they're doing it to cover their own asses because other people caught them using contractors who break every rule imaginable.
Blah, blah. They are go far above and beyond what anyone else does to try to do the right thing, but to you it's them breaking "every rule imaginable" (really? I can imagine quite a number of rules they aren't breaking. Perhaps your imagination only works in one direction?).
And dislike for Apple predates Slashdot for a lot of us. Chronically malfunctioning Apple II floppy drives were enough to turn me against his highness Jobs back in the 80's.
By "a lot of us", you mean "almost none of us". Of course that's neither here nor there. The fact remains there are plenty of you that hate Apple and don't really c
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Did they fire the company when they caught them with only 6 child laborers? THAT would have been doing something non-evil. They're not looking harder for illegal labor practices now because it is the right thing to do, they're doing it to cover their own asses because other people caught them using contractors who break every rule imaginable.
You could have read the article. It happens quite often that someone under the age of 16 tries to get a job by forging papers showing their age (whether it's the child, or the parents, or some agency being the driving force), and Apple educates companies how to spot this and avoid hiring anyone under 16. Mistakes happen. Apple conducted a few hundred audits and found about 30 underage employees at 10 companies, plus another 74 at _one_ company. _All_ the kids were sent back to school, with the companies pay
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Still... the only thing I walk away from this is the idea some parents will abuse Apple's attempt to 'do the right thing'. No pity for the companies involved mind you. Just law of unintended consequences.
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Used ''fanbois' as opposed 'fans' because while I have no issue with someone liking their product, I've issue with blind adoration, same with Linux ('Wow, your friend wrote it so it must be better?
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It's still good business sense to drop them.
Quite apart from the economics of child labor, there's also a pack of very finicky customers who will turn up their noses at Apple if they don't crack down on this.
Sales that are poisoned by bad PR can outweigh cost savings quite easily.
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There are also fine economic arguments in favour of slavery. What's your point?
America should legalize slavery and then we can kidnap these poor children from developing nations, feed them, shelter them and clothe them and put them to work in American factories. Then they'd be better off!
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Apple requires its suppliers to return the workers back to a school chosen by the family and finance their education. "In addition, the children must continue to receive income matching what they received when they were employed. We also follow up regularly to ensure that the children remain in school and that the suppliers continue to uphold their financial commitment," wrote Apple in its latest report.
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You may rationalize child labor and slave labor all you like.
I don't need to know how these children may survive outside the factory. I know for certain that unethical SOB's will take advantage of the kids, given the chance.
I know for certain that Apple has taken full advantage of Chinese practices. They have taken the fruits of these children's labors, given the items produced a thousand percent markup, and sold them on American and European markets.
Now, today, they are doing damage control, trying to di
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Reminds me of a similar case in Pakistan (Score:2)
You may recall, there was a child labour scandal about footballs in Sialkot. The Companies reacted by implementing harsh penalties for child labour, and that was that. Or was it?
You see, while indeed there was child labour involved, it was still preferable to the alternative. It was quick clean work, nothing more dangerous than needle tip, which was easily remedied by a thimble. There was no dangerous chemicals involved, no dangerous work place environment. People used to pick up the materials from the fact
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Look, if you want me to take you seriously, stop spouting "infidel" like an ignorant berk.
Re: it's the children that suffer (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Forge your child's birth certificate (maybe bribe a local official, not uncommon)
2) Send your kid to work at a supplier to Apple
3)
4) Profit! (Tuition paid and a monthly stipend for the family)
Disconnect in step... (Score:4)
2) Send your kid to work at a supplier to Apple ...which does not work because policies like this make most suppliers check for age before hiring anyone.
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You just need to find a supplier that believes their document forging procedure is foolproof.
If it actually is foolproof, you can always tip Apple off about it.
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2) Send your kid to work at a supplier to Apple ...which does not work because policies like this make most suppliers check for age before hiring anyone.
Yes yes, just like Olympic committee
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2010-04-28-olympic-medal-underage-gymnast_N.htm [usatoday.com]
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Long story short, would you be equally concerned if Apple chose to discontinue their business relationship for any other reason? Apple will still need the products so those jobs will reappear other places that follow the rules. The only ones that really will be out of a job are those who are so young they shouldn't be working in the first place.
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Apple ends their business relationship with this manufacturer.
Does the company fold because Apple was their main client, everyone loses their jobs?
or
Does the company fire all the underage workers for failing to pass inspection?
or
Something else?
I'm assuming the families of these kids put them to work out of necessity, so what happens to these kids and their families now?
Don't worry about them. http://www.gd-realfaith.com/en/displayproduct.html?proID=100990419 [gd-realfaith.com]
Pingzhou electron becomes the largest global sub-contractor of TDK who is the world-famous electronic industry brand, it products occupy global market share of 13 %, and the products are wildly used on scopes of mobile phone, computer hard disk, automobile, digital camera, air-conditioner etc. In Y2006, Pingzhou electron started to develop own brand in new and high-tech markets according to Real Faith Group reform strategy, start with R&D, production and sales for LED driver, packing and assembling, and have gained matured markets. At present, the LED driver had already been applied to the Egongji tunnel Guangwu highway, Linjiang tunnel Pearl River New City Guangzhou, Wulongshan tunnel Guizhou, Dongmiaochong tunnel Guihuang highway, Caoyuan tunnel Quansan highway Fujian etc. Packing load products had been selected as A grade supply by TDK Japan.
Pingzhou electron is always adhere to the "innovation for breakthrough and innovation for development" company spirit. Established a strong R&D team, cooperated with colleges on manufacture, learning and research, obtained many inventions, utility model patents, became a high-tech enterprises in Guangdong. Pingzhou electron had gained the ISO9001 and ISO/TS16949 quality management system, ISO14001 environment management system, OHSAS18001 career safety management system, IECQ-QC080000 without harmful substances management system, and CE certification of EU.
Looking for the future, Pingzhou electron will uphold "become a competitive well-known enterprise" as the target, adhere to "green manufacture, green products" the environment-protecting concept, will be devoted to develop green technology, with practical action to contribute to the community and society, to gain enterprise lasting business.
Looks like the kids' jobs will be safe.
Re:My concern... (Score:4)
Companies paying a living wage, here and in China.
2012 was another record year for corporate profits, and a record for how little the people who actually do the work share in those profits.
Since 1979, worker productivity has increased by several hundred percent and their incomes didn't measurably increase. Somebody benefited from that increase in productivity.
Governor Romney, you know you shouldn't be drinking this early on a Sunday.
They are making a living wage in China (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies paying a living wage, here and in China.
That's what Apple is doing already.
Apple is the ONLY company to give workers in China bonuses, and to make sure they don't work too much overtime. Workers in China are making less here, yet they are providing not just for themselves but for whole families.
Just how ignorant do you have to be to not understand that a living wage can differ drastically between countries?
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Right now the Americans see themselves on a moral high ground for opposing child labor. Currently, that is one of few labor laws that means anything. However there are plenty of politicians - slashdot idol ron paul amongst them - who would like to overturn those laws as well. In the name of "liberty" they want to remove "market restrictions" to "grow industry". This will, of course, only reduce the wages across the board for working class people while making companies more profitable and increasing executive compensation. They also want to increase the rights of the wealthy and reduce those of the poor. While some conservatives claim they want to stop the "class warfare", this pushes it to a terrible conclusion. In other words, under the guise of liberty - but with the true goal of profit - some people aspire to bring fascism for the people.
I wouldn't call that facism, exactly. Just an undoing of labor laws taking us back to the working conditions of the late 19th century
But I wonder who these people think their customers would be in their brave new world of economic freedom.
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OK, why is the angle on this story not "Apple caught using child labor"? It was the last time this story happened.
Would be a bit unfair considering that the information comes from a report created by Apple. Not that that would stop anyone...
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Because Slashdot for some strange reason decided not to lie this time? I don't know what this place is coming to.
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OK, why is the angle on this story not "Apple caught using child labor"? It was the last time this story happened.
Because it was Apple that caught the company employing children as well as the labor agency supplying them and who reported them to the authorities.
Oh, and they did this a year ago.
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Gosh, being the most profitable company in the world sure is hard work! Why bother?
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Well, except for the option where Apple makes sure the kids get money and education and don't have to work.
I wonder if the article might tell us if they might have happened to do exactly that?
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OK, let me spell out exactly what I meant since everyone missed the point.
No matter what Apple does they are going to be criticized here.
Was it really that difficult?
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I'm not sure it even means that. A poster above raised the question of translation, claiming that Chinese company names often include abstract concepts that don't translate well. The word given as 'faith' might really mean something different, but that cannot be concisely rendered any other way. Only a fluent Chinese speaker can answer this question, and I am not one.
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From what I've understood from Tim's interviews on this topic (and he's asked that frequently) is not the point of taxes or more expensive workforce. It's the lack of expertise. You guys don't seem to have enough experts to do the R&D and product and material development because of reducing standards in education in comparison to China. Sure they could do the final assembly by drones in US, but why do all the production of high end components in asia, then send the items to US for assembly and then dist