Apple Suppliers Linked To Uyghur Forced Labor in New Report (theverge.com) 95
Several Apple suppliers may have used forced labor in China, according to The Information. From a report: Working with two human rights groups, the publication identified seven companies that supplied products or services to Apple and supported forced labor programs, according to statements made by the Chinese government. The programs target the country's Muslim minority population, particularly Uyghurs living in Xinjiang. Six of the seven suppliers were said to participate in work programs operated by the Chinese government, The Information reports, which human rights groups describe as frequently offering cover for forced labor. Workers can be jailed for refusing to join the work programs, the report says, and those enrolled in the programs are often moved far from their homes. One of the suppliers operated in Xinjiang, the region of China predominantly populated by Uyghurs and where the most egregious human rights violations have reportedly taken place. The companies supplied Apple with antennas, cables, and coatings, among other products and services, according to The Information.
"But look! $6B beatiful campus!" (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple's distraction to issues in every one of their presentations: Apple Park.
Re: (Score:1)
Just wait for Apple to say they knew nothing about these slave labours
Re: "But look! $6B beatiful campus!" (Score:1)
To be fair (Score:5, Informative)
Re:To be fair (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple/Foxconn worker and environmental exploitation rationalization worksheet
Check all that apply
[_] Apple wasn't the first-ever client of Foxconn
[_] Making iPhones in a Chinese factory is better than being a Chinese peasant
[_] iPhones/Pads would cost too much if I had to pay my fellow citizens to make them
[_] iPhones/Pads would cost too much given environmental regulations I vehemently insist on for myself
[X] All the other manufacturers are doing it too
[_] Some/Many/Most Chinese workers appreciate 70 hour weeks and breathing my aluminum dust
[_] It's not Apple, it's Foxconn
[_] It's not Apple, it's the Chinese government
[_] They should quit if they don't like it
[_] It's just capitalism at work
[_] It's just communism at work
[_] Apple's disposable workers are paid better than non-Apple disposable workers
[_] Apple's auditors didn't find any serious issues
[_] Some day the Chinese will be too wealthy to exploit
[_] Your Android is Foxconn too
[_] You're an Apple hater using Apple as a scapegoat
[_] I also work 60/80/100/120 hour weeks at my IT job
[_] Apple designers are in the US
[_] The US did the same thing to the British
[_] The US had slaves once too
[_] The US has prison labor today
[_] It's up to the Chinese to stand up to their oppressive government
[_] There are lines of eager workers outside Foxconn factories
[_] If any company were to stop the exploitation, I really think it'll be Apple
[_] Your free Linux runs on Chinese hardware too
[_] Foxconn workers think they have it great, so it's ok!
[_] Foxconn worker suicide rate is lower than Chicago's murder rate
[_] Foxconn worker suicide rate is lower than China's suicide rate
[_] We can't pollute the whole world!
[_] Half of all US households have an Apple product
[_] If we don't exploit them they'll never develop
[_] The suicide's families get the insurance money
[_] You're posting from a macbook/iphone/ipad right now
[_] There are suicide nets on American bridges
[_] Interns in the US don't get paid
[_] They don't beat the workers, apparently.
[_] Why is this news? We expect this from China.
[_] It's their country; we have no right to judge.
[_] If it's voluntary it's ok; their body, their choice
[_] Only 11 hours/day? Come over to the U.S. and do 12-hour days!
[_] Things are tough all over; I had a job in high school
[_] isn't this the case for all smart phones, of all brands?
[_] an iPhone is more important (than workers rights)
[_] Android phone assemblers were abused worse
[_] That's how it was in the 19th century
[_] I'm tired of the Apple Shaming Society
[_] We should automate all jobs
[_] At least China isn't bombing the Uighurs like the US did [_] It's not slavery. It's reform!
Re:To be fair (Score:4, Interesting)
As the parent poster said, basically all companies doing business with China are also linked one way or another to Uyghur forced labor. That specific report probably mentions other companies as well, but everyone's going to mention Apple as if they're the only ones having this problem.
Re: (Score:2)
And no, I'm not going to read that report. This is Slashdot, after all.
Re: (Score:2)
Just a regular Apple user here. Just because everyone does it is indeed not an excuse, but rather a statement of the fact that Apple is not the only guilty party here as the headline would like you to believe.
Re: (Score:2)
I loathe Apple
It's not a "rationalization". It's a sad fact about China in general.
Re: (Score:2)
It is indeed a rationalization, whether you loathe Apple or not.
Thanks for the new "sad fact about China" entry.
Re: (Score:3)
What computer do you use then... (Score:2, Insightful)
And what computer are you typing yup your checklist on that was built outside China?
Thought so.
At least Apple TRIES to keep the China connections worker friendly. Not so on whatever computer you are using.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple/Foxconn worker and environmental exploitation rationalization worksheet
I think you are missing the
[_] You cannot buy anything not made in China nowdays (even if you are willing to pay extra)
I had a Fujitsu laptop made in Japan 15 years ago. That was the closest I've been.
Re: (Score:2)
You missed the valid rationalization: linking a supplier to X is not the same as linking a client’s supply chain to X.
Apple may be sourcing “antennas, cables, and coatings” from these companies, but if the forced labor is only being used to produce car doors at a location where none of Apple’s parts are coming from, that doesn’t mean that antennas, cables, and coatings are being produced by forced labor. It doesn’t mean it’s fine either, to be clear, but Apple and o
Re:To be fair (Score:4, Insightful)
Like most Silicon Valley companies Apple partakes in corporate social justice mob activism (although its such a widespread phenomenon they are far from the worst) of cancelling individuals and groups for infractions that a relatively minor compared to slavery and always preaching about how ethical they are.
You don't understand. Posting on Twitter that some some comedian doesn't recognize the 35th gender is important and costs nothing, but paying an extra 15% for an iPhone to avoid slave labor and literal genocide hits the purse strings a little too hard. We all do what we can!
Re: (Score:2)
It was a short lived form of advertising.
Keurig accidentally discovered it when they withdrew ads from Hannity over his support of Roy Moore. Initially they panicked but it soon became clear that those videos of people smashing their coffee machines were actually millions of dollars if free advertising and sales were going up.
The Nike took it a step further, not just joining a boycott but actually creating the controversy. They put out an ad with Colin Kaepernick and played both sides like a fiddle... A due
Re: (Score:2)
Re:To be fair (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the answer to this would be to not do business with China, not just throw your hands up and say "Whelp, that's just how it is.".
Re: To be fair (Score:2)
The problem is if you buy your goods elsewhere in China, they'll find a way to fill that void somewhere else in the supply chain. The only real answer to this is sanctions against the country similar to what we do with Iran and North Korea. Good luck with that.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is if you buy your goods elsewhere in China, they'll find a way to fill that void somewhere else in the supply chain. The only real answer to this is sanctions against the country similar to what we do with Iran and North Korea. Good luck with that.
I have no issues with it personally, though I know politically it would be nearly impossible to push through.
The result would be a massive increase in the cost of goods - particularly your cheap/disposable knick-knack type of goods that the American populace is so in love with these days. At the end of the day though if the price of those goods is only achievable through slave labor and gross human-rights violations, then we either have to choose to willfully accept that stuff as just a cost of doing busin
Re: To be fair (Score:4, Insightful)
So, what've you got against the poor?
It was noted a long time before most of us were born that the poor are the people who buy the "cheaply made crap", since they can't afford to buy the expensive stuff.
And yes, it's more expensive in the long run, but poor people can't do "long run" - they have to buy what they need NOW, with the money they have NOW.
Re: (Score:3)
(Below is less reply to the above post - more just general rant, MBGMorden, so don't take it personally. Unless it applies to you, and if it does, remember - we're sniping at each other on a site with the tagline "News for Nerds" that features polls with joke answers a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh the fucking comedy. Seriously, you really haven't thought this through.
The people who buy the cheaply made crap are typically buying it because they don't have enough to *buy* the higher quality stuff.
Let's assume you're right, even though that would be entirely ignoring that wealthy people can choose to buy cheap crap too and have sensible reasons why they might, and entirely ignoring that the cheap products may match or exceed the quality of the expensive products.
We still need to understand why the same product made with the same materials is cheap. Here's a hint: Cheap labour.
The answer here is Option C, which is a higher paid workforce
So your answer to stop people buying things made by
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It'd be nice to see these companies at least offering a choice. I'm thinking of the "American" guitar manufacturers like Fender and Gibson. For all their faults and outsourcing, they still do offer USA-manufactured models, if you're willing to pay 3-4x the price of their Asian and Mexican models. (It seems a lot of people are.)
I guess in Apple's case, they're already charging you 3-4x what they should, and their phones historically were never made in the US anyway. People just assume that's the way it has t
Re: To be fair (Score:4, Informative)
Here's an interesting thing about those guitars: In the 1980s when Fender branched off to Asia, they had a Japanese branch that made guitars for the domestic Japanese market. Unfortunately for Fender, their U.S. unit was in a state of decline and the Japanese Fenders gained a reputation for being much better than the American ones and people began importing them. Starting in the early 90s Fender made a concerted effort to put an end to this practice, improving the quality of their American guitars and not allowing the Japanese ones to be better.
Starting in the 90s, a lot of guitar manufacturers started making their cheap stuff in Korea and that trend continues today. But the Korean ones are just made with cheaper materials—there's no reason Asian guitars from any country, even China, can't match the quality of the American ones. They have the technological prowess to do this, especially when you consider that Korea today is like what Japan was in the 80s. Because guitars are such a mature technology, they actually make the "budget" guitars suck on purpose. Today, Fender makes their budget guitars in Mexico and these guitars are almost as good as the American ones. If you take a Mexican Fender and put better pickups in it, the difference between it and an American one is marginal.
However, having an American Fender has prestige attached to it. The guitar market is unique and this can translate to some markets (tools, cars), but not others (computers).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not really fair or helpful to punish 1.4 billion people for the actions of their government, which most of them have no control over and don't know is even happening.
Obviously don't do business with anyone linked to forced labour, just like you avoid any company linked to poor working conditions in other countries, even in your own country. The UK has modern slavery and illegal factories, we have to be vigilant no matter where we get stuff from.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: To be fair (Score:2)
Re: To be fair (Score:2, Funny)
Except its all bollocks. There is no slave labour.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's paid but they have no choice but to accept those jobs, or "re education". The goal is to systemically destroy their culture and identity, which is why it's described as genocide even though they are not being mass murdered.
If they are doing factory jobs for Chinese companies they not only integrate into the culture, but their own businesses cease to exist and they become dependent on those jobs.
Re: (Score:2)
No it's genocide because they are literally sterilising the women without even telling them they're doing it. The "re-education" is basically prison camps, there is no option to leave, the people are often in them for years.
Re: (Score:2)
Hope this helps.
Rah Rah! (Score:2)
Was that a Rah Rah rant for wage slavery?
Re: (Score:2)
I would go further and say that any company of note will specifically have components made in "dodgy' areas of China. That is, if (say) Starbucks suddenly needed a left-handed 900Mhz antenna in great quantities, China would find a way to manufacture it in the least upstanding areas of China that it could find. That way, if there was any criticism of China, that important supply could be interrupted until critics were silenced.
slavery? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Are they getting paid with no choice but to work?
Actually, that almost sounds like everyone on the planet except the 1%...
Re: (Score:2)
"Essentially no choice" is not the same as "absolutely no choice". I need my job to pay bills, but if my boss pisses me off a little too much I can just say "fuck it" and go home. It might not be wise, and I may or may not be able to find another job right now, but its still my choice.
Also, just having to work in general is not the same as being made to work at a specific location. The more realistic option that does happen pretty frequently is you just bide your time and look for another job then jump s
Re: slavery? (Score:2)
In point of fact, unless it's a smaller private company with an owner who treats his employees fairly, the best way to force wages to go up is to look for another job every 2-3 years and after.getting a serious offer go to your boss and demand a matching pay/bennies scale.
Re: slavery? (Score:2)
And they do indeed have a choice...
Re: (Score:2)
While definitions and use in common parlance vary, the traditional one would actually be an unequivocal 'no': Nobody is claiming to own the Uyghurs; they're just being more or less locked up and put to work... which is is 'forced labor'.
Re: (Score:3)
That seems like the ultimate in semantic bullshit. You have no rights, you're not allowed to leave, and you have to perform work, but if I don't claim to own you (merely exert complete control over every facet of your life) then you're not a slave?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't like the definition much myself, but it's one of the standard ones used throughout history. One of the major differences falls under the case of property rights: Killing somebody who's under forced labor is still some variant of murder/manslaughter/etc. Killing a slave is in the vicinity of property damage.
I'm not sure if a court case under modern(-ish) law has ever worked in this direction, but I wouldn't be surprised if somebody tried to use the argument that 'property' killing a 'human' is the li
Re: (Score:2)
(Clarification: That's based on the standards utilized in modern western culture; a lot of other cultures, who don't hold as much sway over the perception and utilization of slavery in the last few hundred years had distinctly different policies. The Byzantines, for example, codified capital punishment for the intentional death of a slave; China had varying punishments for the abuse of a slave, based on the type of the abuse and if it was 'justified'.)
Re: (Score:3)
> more or less locked up and put to work.
If they have self-ownership they can leave.
If they can't leave they don't have self-ownership.
If they don't have self-ownership then somebody else owns them.
If somebody else owns them, they're enslaved.
This is a good primer: https://youtu.be/muHg86Mys7I [youtu.be]
Re: (Score:2)
So what you're saying is that prisoners are slaves.
Re: (Score:2)
So what you're saying is that prisoners are slaves.
A lot of the time they are. In the U.S. slavery is forbidden with one major exception: prisoners.
13th Amendment:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Re: slavery? (Score:1)
No, they're not.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It'd have to be a new term for your question to make sense. Perhaps if you're poorly read and your reading is composed entirely of social media, you might have never come across it until it was "trending" on Twittube or Slashdot.
However, within this single sentence, you also managed to shoehorn the phrase "cancel culture" into a discussion where it has no relevance whatsoever. The issues on display, then, extend beyond ignorance and into some kind of deeper cognitive dysfunction.
Re: Now we just need the standard trolls (Score:2, Funny)
I agree with them. Please add me to your list.
Re: (Score:1)
what's the proof for all these allegation? I don't see any solid proof. Please, show me one.
Apple Makes Headlines (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Apple Makes Headlines (Score:5, Insightful)
because it drives the most website clicks.
And so it should. After all those other companies have dedicated an entire website [apple.com] (not webpage, a whole site with multiple pages) telling the world how awesome they are and how serious they take supplier responsibility. On the flip side this is something bad so it would be more news if the other companies you list *weren't* involved.
If I walk down the street knocking kids icecream off their cones and kicking dogs, it probably wouldn't come as much of a surprise if you learnt I also beat my wife. If on the other hand I go around everyone telling them how perfect I am, spend all my time volunteering at a women's rights group, and go to starbucks to buy coffee just so I could give it to homeless people, the same revelation most certainly would generate... how did you put it ... "more website clicks".
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft has a "we're so responsible" webpage too: Devices sustainability at Microsoft [microsoft.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, a single link on responsible sourcing that spits out a PDF to their sustainability report. Totally the same as dedicating an entire website to the topic. /s
Which is consistent really when you think about the amount of Chinese manufacturing Microsoft does with their couple of devices compared to Apple, the consumer goods giant. But yeah we should treat them both as equals because "poor Apple, the media is out to get you".
Re: (Score:2)
Pretend that, for years, you’ve been going to a particular restaurant every weekend. They eventually open a second location across town and seem to be doing well. A few years later, you get linked to an article about how a waitress at the restaurant has accused the manager of sexual harassment and that she seems to have a really strong case: a laundry list of documented advances, demands for sexual favors, threats of firing her, repeatedly hugging and trying to kiss her in front of patrons, etc.. You
China opresses, West Colludes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: China opresses, West Colludes. (Score:5, Informative)
You mean, that time when the Chinese government had to bring in troops from Mongolia to gun down student protestors, because local troops refused to fire on them?
That funny time back in 1988 that has evidently been erased from the consciousness of the Chinese citizens by strict censorship?
We don't care about Uyghur though (Score:2)
I don't know why we don't, but the plight of the Uyghurs doesn't really mean much to folks otherwise motivated by unjust treatment of people. I don't really understand why not, but you can rest assured Apple won't be canceled for this.
Re: (Score:1)
Many Uyghurs are unlawful combatants [uighur.nl] in a border dispute
Re: (Score:1)
someone downvote this without response. A coward who can't provide some facts. He/She may just have the ability to reiterate the lies from media like talking points.
Re: (Score:2)
This is Slashdot. People can moderate or reply, not both.
The reason nobody else replied is that they probably decided you're paid by the Chinese Government to post misinformation and aren't worth their time.
Re: (Score:1)
Yes. That's what I mean.
I don't care whether the video is made by CCP or anyone else as long as it is the true. Is there anything that makes you think it is not the truth other than that the video is made by CCP?
CNN and BBC fabricated tons video and 'stories' out of nothing. And you seem to believe them whole-heartedly. Are you a true believer of CNN and BBC?
The following video has BBC's report on 'forced labor', which is fabricated from CGTN's video. See for yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
you know how i feel when i hear this (Score:2)
Shit, don't tell them about Christmas lights! (Score:3)
I'm surprised that people don't wake up more to the fact that China has used slave labor for centuries; It didn't stop suddenly in 1946. Shit, do you ever wonder where your Christmas decorations come from or how they're made? [npr.org]
While we all clutch our baubles of technological wonder, just remember it's not just China that has this kind of slavery in your tech supply chain, think of the kids mining the cobalt that Apple uses too. [theguardian.com]
Will that stop you from buying their junk? probably not.