Apple Turned Blind Eye To Supplier Breaches of Chinese Labor Laws (theinformation.com) 51
Wayne Ma, reporting for The Information [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]: In 2014, Apple executives became alarmed when China enacted a new labor law meant to protect workers' rights. The law required that no more than 10% of a factory's workforce be temporary workers. Typically these employees have fewer benefits and legal protections than permanent ones, but Apple's suppliers increasingly relied on them in China's tightening labor market. Apple surveyed 362 of its supplier factories in China that year and discovered that nearly half were over the quota for temporary workers. Eighty factories used temporary workers for more than half their labor force, according to an internal Apple presentation reviewed by The Information. Apple asked its suppliers to come up with plans to reduce their use of temporary workers by a March 2016 deadline, when a two-year grace period for the law expired. However, by the time the law went into effect, little progress had been made.
According to four former Apple employees familiar with its labor issues, Apple for years took no major action against its suppliers for violating the temp-worker labor law out of concerns it would create costs, drain resources and delay product launches. Three of the ex-Apple employees were members of its supplier responsibility team, which is in charge of monitoring violations and enforcing penalties, while the fourth was a senior manager familiar with its operations in China. The former employees, as well as a review of internal Apple presentations and the company's own data on factory hiring between 2013 and 2018, suggests that Apple's strategy for managing its supply chain made it difficult for its three biggest contract manufacturers -- Foxconn Technology, Quanta Computer and Pegatron -- to remain compliant with the labor restrictions. The issue surfaced again publicly last year when Apple admitted that Foxconn had broken the law at its massive iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, which can employ as many as 300,000 workers. Apple says it requires suppliers to abide by local laws and pledges to remove those that won't comply.
According to four former Apple employees familiar with its labor issues, Apple for years took no major action against its suppliers for violating the temp-worker labor law out of concerns it would create costs, drain resources and delay product launches. Three of the ex-Apple employees were members of its supplier responsibility team, which is in charge of monitoring violations and enforcing penalties, while the fourth was a senior manager familiar with its operations in China. The former employees, as well as a review of internal Apple presentations and the company's own data on factory hiring between 2013 and 2018, suggests that Apple's strategy for managing its supply chain made it difficult for its three biggest contract manufacturers -- Foxconn Technology, Quanta Computer and Pegatron -- to remain compliant with the labor restrictions. The issue surfaced again publicly last year when Apple admitted that Foxconn had broken the law at its massive iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, which can employ as many as 300,000 workers. Apple says it requires suppliers to abide by local laws and pledges to remove those that won't comply.
Only Profits Matter (Score:3)
Money is more valuable than the law.
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Labor laws are anti-working class.
Sorry, but there's 5000 years of history to clearly demonstrate that's utter crap, just like the rest of the Libertardian fantasies. Do you know WHY there are labor laws? It's because companies will fuck over their employees every chance they get. My dad used to work in an iron foundry where people regularly lost eyes and fingers and where at least one guy had been killed in a bath of molten iron because the company was to cheap to buy safety equipment. OSHA exists because of shit like that, as do MSDS
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your dad could have told the iron foundry to shove it
And go where? Back to the cherry processing plant, which had been even worse? Start a new foundry? Really? It's not a software company that can start with a couple of guys in a garage, and venture capitalists didn't exist until the turn of the century anyway.
cost them millions and millions in lawsuits
And here is the dumbest part of Libertardianism; its reliance on thundering herds of lawyers, incorruptible judges, a perfect court system totally immune to manipulation, and juries full of modern day Solomons. Put down the Ayn Rand and look at the
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Well, I've decided that what would be good for myself is the water you're irrigating your fields with. Since I'm upriver there's nothing to stop me from diverting it and using it any way I want, including selling it to your neighbor. Since I can now use the money from the sale of the water to hire an expensive attorney, and with withered crops you can't, then I win. Hooray for Libertardianism!
I've got some contaminated grain here that I got for really cheap. I can sell it, sure it killed your livestock
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Freedom matters. I want to work for someone, and someone is willing to employ me.
That is a reasonable viewpoint. Flexible labor laws make it easy to fire workers, but also make it easier to HIRE workers, and generally lead to higher overall employment.
But that is all irrelevant. This isn't about what is economically sensible. It is about what is LEGAL. Using more than 10% temp workers is a violation of Chinese law and is a violation of the code of conduct that Apple promised to abide by.
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Freedom matters. I want to work for someone, and someone is willing to employ me. We agreed on a price for my labor, the law should not have anything to do with it. There is no slavery if I can quit, and I am paid the wages promised for my labor (by time or otherwise). Labor laws are anti-working class.
I love your optimism, but don't confuse how you think things should work with how they actually do.
The world is a nasty, dirty, exploitative place. You take for granted the effects of the very laws you dismiss.
Labor laws only reduce the employment for those unable or unwilling to produce good and services at a value worthwhile to the employer to make at least that much gross profit from it.
The employer-employee relationship is neither fair nor balanced. Employers have all the power unless a larger entity (the government, in most cases) is willing to enforce some level of fairness. Labour laws are the only thing keeping you from effective (if not actual) slavery, for all but the most hig
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Money is more valuable than the law.
And this is especially true in single-party rule countries like China. However, the headline is that Apple is ignoring Chinese labor laws and not that Chinese law enforcement is ignoring Chinese labor laws.
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Not supprised (Score:2, Interesting)
Apple needs to sell about a million units a day to meet demand.
When demand is high ethics is first to go out of the window.
Lets say your basement is flooding. How much are you going to tolerate a Union Plumber who needs to take a mandatory hour break. You might pay him something extra to work over his break, or threaten to not pay or get a different plumber if he doesn't go back to work. It will take a person who has a strong Labor Rights mindset to be understanding of his time off, while your basement i
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Odd to compare a flooding basement to demand exceeding a supply, an almost non-problem that can be addressed by simply raising prices if you wish. A flooding basement will cause loss and destruction, what loss and destruction is caused by demand exceeding supply?
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It's funny how easy it is to spot those who haven't learned history.
Let's say there's a town. In this town lives a dude. This dude owns everything in said town, including the general store and the only factory where 90% of the town's people work. This dude doesn't pay his employes with real money; he pays them with coupons that are only valid in the general store and the town's other commerces, which, of course, he also owns.
And by the way: This dude is also the town's mayor, because nobody would dare run a
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This I know well, the correct answer to the flooding basement is to hire multiple plumbers on shifts. I just found it odd to describe demand exceeding supply as some kind of desperate problem when it's hardly a problem at all.
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You city folk with your multiple choices of plumbers.
If you live even 20 miles out from the city, you can go down the list of plumbers and they will all go we don't service your area. Until you fine one company, who actually their main job is to deliver Home heating oil, but they have a Licensed plumber on staff to help fix the odd furnace.
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That sounds like more than 20 miles from the city, maybe 20 miles from the nearest small to medium sized town? I'm more like 40 miles from the nearest major city and I could theoretically cause a plumberpocalypse by bringing an insane number of plumbers to this location.
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That was called a 'Company Town', my great-grandparents escaped one on back roads in the middle of the night so that the company guards wouldn't catch them. My grandmother said that the proudest moment in his life was when five years later he went back and paid his debt to the company store, the only member of his shift to have done so.
Apple says ... (Score:2)
Apple says nothing. Some Apple employee said this; a person who does not give a shit about other workers, especially those in another country. This employee should be: found, named and shamed.
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What if in said other country, child labor or slavery are perfectly legal ?
Laws are a thick veil behind which the immoral and unethical like to hide.
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I'm sure that's what the directors and shareholders of Apple tell themselves before they go to bed each night.
If you were in need of a good electrician and the one recommended to you was one of the best and charged a fair price, but also happened to be a pedophile and child molester, would you still hire him ?
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Good. That tells me all I need to know about you.
Now you know why evil not only still exists in this world (it will always exist), but also why it's controlling and ruling every aspect of human society all over the planet: Because of all the "not my problem" people like you who turn a blind eye and, if not willing to be part of the solution, can't even be bothered to at least not be part of the problem.
"All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"
When I look at the world today, all I see
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Because Apple is paying them for a lot of goods, so Apple has the leverage to ensure that the people who do the work are given reasonable working conditions. It is a moral thing as much as anyone else. Maybe you do not give a shit about other people, but I, and many others, do care. In England there has been a great deal of concern about where goods come from and the conditions of the workers. One example: Primark [fashionunited.uk], there are plenty more. We also care about the quality of life of the animals that we eat, eg
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Did I say that I did ... or are you just trying to find something that you think is rude to say about me ?
Corporations manufacture in China (Score:2)
Incredible (Score:2)
Re:It's China's law, right? (Score:4, Interesting)
This was going to be my question - why is it a company's responsibility to enforce a nation's labor laws?
There are two equally distressing sides to this point. The first is that if a company knows about a violation by a supplier, they should stop using that supplier. I don't think this is merely a question about profit - there may just be insufficient alternative supply, so that if you don't use those suppliers, you have no (or less) product. It is unknown if this is better for society or not, though I personally tend to lean toward "less products are better" until the lower availability and demand means I'm out of a job.
The second implication is worse - if you are saying that yes it is up to companies to enforce laws, then you are indeed giving companies sovereignty over states. Given companies are already non-geographic, do we really want to give them powers typically reserved for governments?
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Yeah, this is definitely puzzling. If they were Apple factories then it makes sense to call out Apple on it. But that's not the case here.
Of course Apple should strictly ban suppliers if it was about slavery, worker abuse, child labor or other human right violation, but don't think they need to be the enforcers in this situation, or have any responsibility here.
iSlave (Score:2)
Fake news, obviously not true (Score:1)
Tell me one thing (Score:3)
Address the root cause. (Score:2)
Why do companies like Apple feel it is beneficial to move manufacturing to another country? There are many reasons of course but one of them is the cost of labor in the US. That requires a deeper dig then. Why is labor so expensive? It took years to create this issue and it will take years to get rid of it. But none of our elected officials, and those that put them there are willing to engage in the long-haul effort needed to fix the issue. Everyone just wants a quick fix or a Band-Aid and unwilling to sacr
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More than labor is the lax enforcement of inconvenient laws, like forcing employees to work unpaid overtime or dumping chemical sludge in the river. A lot of those jobs would actually be cheaper to bring back here if the US were equally lax, but for some reason people seem to think that uncontaminated drinking water is important.
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Apple didn't move iPhone/iPad/AirPod manufacturing to China, it grew there. The US didn't have the necessary parts or skills to start this manufacturing economically, and it would be a Herculean task now. China has access to a very large skilled workforce, imports of raw materials on an unbelievable scale and supply chains that US manufacturers can only dream of.
Here's one brief analysis. [theverge.com]
Mandatory living wage and safety. (Score:2)
Apple (Score:2)
Mind you, an Anti-Apple headline is always preferred here.