guardian.co.uk: Apple's Chinese workers treated "inhumanely, like machines"

[Toe Jam]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/30/apple-chinese-workers-treated-inhumanely


An investigation into the conditions of Chinese workers has revealed the shocking human cost of producing the must-have Apple iPhones and iPads that are now ubiquitous in the west.

The research, carried out by two NGOs, has revealed disturbing allegations of excessive working hours and draconian workplace rules at two major plants in southern China. It has also uncovered an "anti-suicide" pledge that workers at the two plants have been urged to sign, after a series of employee deaths last year.

The investigation gives a detailed picture of life for the 500,000 workers at the Shenzhen and Chengdu factories owned by Foxconn, which produces millions of Apple products each year. The report accuses Foxconn of treating workers "inhumanely, like machines".

Among the allegations made by workers interviewed by the NGOs – the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations and Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom) – are claims that:

■ Excessive overtime is routine, despite a legal limit of 36 hours a month. One payslip, seen by the Observer, indicated that the worker had performed 98 hours of overtime in a month.

■ Workers attempting to meet the huge demand for the first iPad were sometimes pressured to take only one day off in 13.

■ In some factories badly performing workers are required to be publicly humiliated in front of colleagues.

■ Crowded workers' dormitories can sleep up to 24 and are subject to strict rules. One worker told the NGO investigators that he was forced to sign a "confession letter" after illicitly using a hairdryer. In the letter he wrote: "It is my fault. I will never blow my hair inside my room. I have done something wrong. I will never do it again."

■ In the wake of a spate of suicides at Foxconn factories last summer, workers were asked to sign a statement promising not to kill themselves and pledging to "treasure their lives".

click link for more

[skinsfan_1215]

They'll learn. Look at America's labor conditions in the late 1800s/early 1900s.

[China]

While not condoning the labor practices, I wonder how they compare to labor conditions in other Chinese factories? Why is Apple being singled out; as a way to draw attention to China's poor labor practices overall?

[Toe Jam]

While not condoning the labor practices, I wonder how they compare to labor conditions in other Chinese factories? Why is Apple being singled out; as a way to draw attention to China's poor labor practices overall?

Apple isn't the only one being singled out.

People went after Walmart a few years back.

[KAOSkins]

Better yet how do they compare with working conditions pre-industrialization?

[GhostofSparta]

While not condoning the labor practices, I wonder how they compare to labor conditions in other Chinese factories? Why is Apple being singled out; as a way to draw attention to China's poor labor practices overall?

My guess is because Apple is a big company that will draw more attention. Saying "factory workers for Cheap Plastic Toy Makers of China Inc. are treaty poorly" doesn't draw the same headlines as the same story involving Apple, Wal-Mart, etc. Same as how in the US saying that McDonald's pays its employees substandard wages draws more headlines than "Mom and Pop Restaurant in Nowhere, Oklahoma pay head cook/son $3/hour, violating minimum wage laws"

[Mad Mike]

Oh please. Foxcon produces parts and chips for EVERYONE. Singling out apple is pure bull****

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/06/02/steve-jobs-apple-foxconn-suicides/


Apple tends to get singled out about the Foxconn issue because it is the most famous of several huge high-tech companies whose products are manufactured at the industrial facility in Shenzhen. Other companies include Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Sony (SNE), Nokia (NOK) and Nintendo (NTDOY).

But of all the high-tech companies that use Foxconn, Apple stands out for praise: It has the most robust supplier audit program of any peer its size. In February, the company disclosed that child labor had been used in three cases to build its products, and pledged to redouble its monitoring efforts.

See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/glOB7l


This is an industry wide issue. You want cheep electronics to the tech industry uses the cheapest labor. If Apple were to pull it's production from china while everyone else stayed the only result would be Apple products too expensive to purchase and produced in too small a quantity for apple to survive while PC manufacturers and Foxcon would continue with business as usual. Apple uses Foxcon because it has to, just like everyone else. The difference is, Apple tries harder than any one else to push Foxcon for better working conditions.

The above article is a hit piece by an irresponsible rag.

[Leonard Washington]

Apple can't control the labor practices of one of its contractors. I'm sure their contract doesn't specify that the units will be produced in accordance with US labor practices. I'm sure they can try but it could also be that our labor practices are illegal over there. It seems like Foxconn (who made the motherboard of my PC) should be catching all the heat.

[Bang]

This is outrageous.
These people deserve better working conditions and the same wage that an American worker would get for secretly implanting all of our phones with surveiilance devices.

~Bang

[DeaconTheVillain]

They should have known


http://watchplayread.com/files/2011/04/350px-HumanCentiPad01_press.jpg

[jnhay]

So, I guess Apple doesn't give their contractors enough business to have a say in their labor practices?

[BlueinBuf]

Oh please. Foxcon produces parts and chips for EVERYONE. Singling out apple is pure bull****

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/06/02/steve-jobs-apple-foxconn-suicides/



This is an industry wide issue. You want cheep electronics to the tech industry uses the cheapest labor. If Apple were to pull it's production from china while everyone else stayed the only result would be Apple products too expensive to purchase and produced in too small a quantity for apple to survive while PC manufacturers and Foxcon would continue with business as usual. Apple uses Foxcon because it has to, just like everyone else. The difference is, Apple tries harder than any one else to push Foxcon for better working conditions.

The above article is a hit piece by an irresponsible rag.

I was just about to say the same thing, Foxcon is huge, it's basically a city. And that's where the problems lie, not with Apple or anything they do it's the way Foxcon runs. Apple just happens to be a huge part of Foxcons production.

Imagine leaving work everyday but not, you just walk to your "dorm" on a different floor of the same damn building. That's why the people were killing themselves, who would want a life like that. If you go to Foxcon right now they have installed safety nets around the roofs of all buildings because people were jumping off to commit suicide. There's something fundamentally wrong there. I seriously hope Chinese workers realize they deserve to be treated better, but with the way everything is run over there I fear it could be quite a long time before that happens.

[PokerPacker]

As much as I love to hate Apple, I have a hard time blaming them for this. This is a problem with Foxconn.

[DRSmith]

Apple can't control the labor practices of one of its contractors. I'm sure their contract doesn't specify that the units will be produced in accordance with US labor practices. I'm sure they can try but it could also be that our labor practices are illegal over there. It seems like Foxconn (who made the motherboard of my PC) should be catching all the heat.

Actually Apple and other large multi nationals can control the conditions in those places as they can say this is how employees will be treated or we will move our manufacturing else where,

[Thiebear]

How can you not blame the companies that look the other way?
They sell a phone/ipad whatever for 400$+ each while watching slave labor.

and people say: Well you can't blame them for contractors? Thats crap.
The soon to be #1 country in the world is held to no standards?

[Bang]

How can you not blame the companies that look the other way?
They sell a phone/ipad whatever for 400$+ each while watching slave labor.

and people say: Well you can't blame them for contractors? Thats crap.
The soon to be #1 country in the world is held to no standards?

Hey, we talk a good game!


And up until recently, that worked out just fine.
You don't expect us to hold up to the standards we pretend we want, do you?
Dammit, i need to play Angry Birds!

~Bang

[Larry]

There's a thought that's been going through my head for quite some time, regarding things like this.

I think we all agree that this isn't an Apple problem. I suspect that we can all agree that this isn't a Foxcon problem.


I suspect that there are several members of ES who would argue that this isn't a problem. There seem to be quite a few people who are of the opinion that anything is moral, if a corporation does it based on a motive for profit. That anybody who so much as attempts to use the concept of morality and business in the same paragraph is an idiot, if not downright Satanic. People who will, in fact, argue that any company that doesn't behave this way, is literally behaving immorally.

I think they're full of it.

I do think that when things get this bad, then something needs to be done.

I do think that there is a virtue in encouraging international trade. I'm not an isolationist or a protectionist. I think there's a payoff in raising the standard of living in other countries.

I think it's to our advantage to stimulate the economies of other countries.

But I also think it's a problem, when (to exaggerate things to an extreme) most of the world's view of The American Way is of starving children being chained to industrial machinery 24-7, in a factory that is poisoning the river so badly that entire villages have been killed off, 20 miles downstream.

And I think that it's a fact of nature that, if left alone, businesses will do that. (And, as they become more and more powerful, their abuses will become worse and worse, and they'll do it in more and more places.)

Now, though. I look at the "tactical situation". I observe that we don't have the power to force China to implement a 40 hour work week, a minimum wage, or pretty much anything else. (And even if we did have the power. If this were taking place in some other country where we did have power, you could certainly argue that we don't have the right.)

I observe that people refer to the US as being #1. But frankly, we're only #1 in certain things, now days.


We're #1 in military power. But this really doesn't look like a job for military power.

We're #1 in borrowing money. But that doesn't seem to help much, either.

However, we're still #1 at buying things. The impression I get is that the world sees the US as the world's biggest customer. They really don't need or want anything we make, any more. They want to sell us things.

And I observe that frankly, when we're talking about the "playing field" of business, the #1 customer does have a place at the negotiating table.

Larry the hippie ACLU 60s flower child has this idea. We create some kind of organization, that will have the power to issue some kind of stamp or logo to products. (Something like the UL label, or labeling something as Kosher.) Something that certifies that the product inside this box has been manufactured in accordance with certain standards of ethical treatment. Some standard that isn't necessarily nearly as high as the rules in the US. But something that says that there are some rules. (Just not very high ones.)

Maybe, in order to get this label, every employee who made the product (and every component that went into the product) mush make some minimum wage. Not $10.hour. But maybe $1/hour.

Maybe they wouldn't be limited to a 40 hour work week. But maybe they'd be limited to 60.

Maybe, to get the label, the factory would have to be tested to meed some minimum level of pollution prevention.

Some standard whereby a foreign company can compete against the US, without the company actually flirting with slavery or abuse.

The standards for getting the label would be the same, no matter where the product came from.

And then, the US refuses to permit any product that doesn't have the label, to be sold in the US.

Should the US impose a "minimum wage" on all goods imported into the US? Some "minimum standard of corporate conduct" which, if a company doesn't live up to, then you can't sell to the US? (Nor can you sell to anybody who sells in the US?)

[Bang]

last post

All well and good, except we've already shown that we willingly will sell out our future to save a dime here and there on paper towels.

Ask people if they want to take a stand for human rights, or if they want to be able to download their video games faster, and which will they pick?
(Now, the best thing to do would be to make Human Rights into a video game.. then maybe we'd get somewhere.)

As much as I hate sounding like a pessimist, my overwhelming experience with pretty much everyone I've ever met is that they are too selfish and way too shortsighted to even consider mounting the type of campaign you're describing. In fact, I think that asked the question over which they'd prefer, most of us will **** an eyebrow as if you're crazy to even consider thinking of anyone else.

Our comfort and convenience is simply way too important.

~Bang

[Larry]

Our comfort and convenience is simply way too important.

~Bang

I think you've got a point that the American Consumer certainly has some major responsibility in this trend.

Before I had to quit to take care of Mom, I used to work for a small, Mom and Pop computer store.

When I first started to work there, service was the product we really delivered on. Things like inkjet printers, for example, we routinely sold at cost, just so we could sell them for one dollar cheaper than Wal-Mart. We made our money selling things like cables, and ink cartridges, and repairs and service. (Frankly, our biggest profit source was performing warranty service on HP and Compaq products that people had bought at Wal-Mart.)

In those days, you could buy a printer at Wal-Mart, and it would come with a one year warranty. If it failed within that year, you could bring it to us (even though you didn't buy it from us), hand it to us, and we'd fix it (our typical turnaround time was two days), HP would pay us for the repair. (And they paid pretty good, too. We'd joke that we'd typically sell one inkjet printer every 3-4 weeks, whereas Wal-Mart would sell 10 a day. But, if one out of those 10 printers broke, then we'd make more money from repairing that one printer, than Wal-Mart made from selling 10 of them.)

But over the years, things changed. Every printer HP made started coming in two versions. A version that was sold in the Big Box stores, and a version sold in stores like ours. The version we sold was identical to the Wal-Mart version in every way. But we couldn't say we were one dollar cheaper than Wal-Mart any more, because their unit had a different model number. (Which wasn't entirely bad, because even though we were selling for one dollar less, nobody bought from us, anyway. And even when somebody did buy from us, we didn't make any money.)

Then the warranties became 30 days. Then they cut the amount that they paid us for fixing them in half. Then they started this new policy where, if we ordered a part to repair something, and it turned out not to fix the problem, and we needed to order a second part, then we didn't get paid for the second part. And, if we used more than one part more often than once a month or so, then they'd cut the amount we got paid for all repairs. (And oh, BTW, at about the same time, about one part out of 15 they sent us turned out to be defective. So we'd get punished for replacing two parts, even if we were replacing the same part twice.)

Now, in order for us to be certified to repair HP and Compaq computers, every technician in our store had to be certified, by HP and Compaq, on each individual model of computer or printer. Our techs had to be certified on the individual model that you owned. (And I had to maintain a certification where, the only way to get the certification was for me to go spend a week in Atlanta, and pay $6K tuition, for a training class, then pass three exams, after being network certified by Novell and Microsoft. (Those were prerequisites.)) Whenever we repaired a unit, HP/Compaq would contact the user to survey them if they were happy with the repair. On a scale of 1-5, 92% of our customers had to rate us a 5, or our pay got cut. (Typically, 100% of our customers would rate us a 5, and they'd punish us, anyway, because not enough customers responded to the survey.)

Then Compaq decided that they wanted to sell computers at Radio Shack. Largest electronics retailer in America. (In terms of number of stores.)

Poof! Every Radio Shack in the US instantly became certified to perform warranty service on Compaq computers. Without having to meet any of the qualifications that we (still) had to meet. Simply because they were a big company.

Our store went from being the only location in the county (and in the surrounding counties. In fact, we were the only one within an hour's drive in any direction.) that was authorized to perform warranty service on HP and Compaq equipment, to one location among five in the county. (Ourselves and four Radio Shacks.)

If your HP/Compaq printer/computer failed under warranty, and you took it to us, our certified, experienced technicians behind the counter would repair it for you, typically in 2-3 days. If you took it to Radio Shack, the commissioned salesman behind the counter will take your unit and put it in the back room. When they have 4-5 units waiting, then they will box them up and ship them to Jacksonville. From what we heard from people who went there, typical turnaround was 6-8 weeks, and about 75% of the time, the problem wasn't fixed.

People started complaining about the (lack of) service they got at the Radio Shack. Compaq changed their policies. Whenever a customer calls Compaq with a problem, and asked where to take the unit for repair, their employee was required to send them to the closest location, regardless of that location's customer satisfaction, and were prohibited from telling them that there was another, nearby, place, that delivered much better service.

Then they changed their policies again. When a customer called tech support, tech support was required to try to fix the problem over the phone, They weren't even allowed to mention to the customer that he had the option of taking the unit it, unless the over the phone fix failed, first. Then they changed policies again. Tech support was required to try to talk the customer into letting Compaq ship the part to the customer, and have the customer replace it, himself. Only if the customer refused were they allowed to mention the possibility of carrying it in.

Then they changed it again. The units that were sold from the Big Box stores, were not allowed to be repaired, by places like us, or anyone else. If the unit failed, the HP would ship the customer an empty cardboard box. Customer puts the unit in the box, puts a label on it, and ships the unit to HP. HP will repair/replace the unit, and ship it back to the customer. (Typical turnaround, 2-3 weeks.)

(Places like Radio Shack were still allowed to list themselves as "authorized repair locations". They simply put the computer in the box for the customer, and shipped it to HP.)

And through all of this, our store continued to sell commercial HP and Compaq units. Units that still had three year warranties. Warranties that allowed the customer to bring the unit to us, for repair in 2-3 days, with 95% of the customers giving our service department a rating of 5 on a scale of 1-5.

And virtually nobody bought from us. A few businesses did. Customers who we'd won, by delivering service to them for years. (Well, they stayed with us, until HP began contacting them directly, trying to convince them that they should stop buying from us, and buy from HP directly, and removing us from the picture.)

I've observed, personally, and for over a decade, that the American consumer says he wants service after the sale. He says he wants knowledgeable employees. He says he supports local businesses.

But, when it's time to buy a new printer or computer, what he does is: He goes to Wal-Mart or Best Buy, and he buys whatever's cheapest.

And then he complains because, when he has a problem, he dials the phone number, and he's talking to India, and India won't help him unless he formats his hard drive, first.

----------

But, leaving aside that incredibly long rant . . .

I also observe that America passed a 40 hour work week. We passed a minimum wage. (And many states even raise it.)

My brother lives in Oregon. When self-serve gas was starting to catch on, Oregon decided that people who pump gas for a living, don't have a lot of career alternatives, and if self-serve catches on, then all the people who are pumping gas, today, will be tomorrow's permanent welfare recipients. They decided that it would be better, as a state, if all of those people retained their jobs, and if gas was two cents a gallon more expensive.

The people in Oregon decided not to allow themselves to chose between saving two cents a gallon, and increased unemployment.

If America were to create some kind of "minimum corporate conduct", and impose it on ourselves, then consumers won't have a choice between going to the local business and getting service, or going to Wal-Mart, getting no service at all, and (they think) saving some money. Instead, consumers will have the choice between Company X, which meets the minimum standards, and Company Y, which also meets the standards.

Yeah, when individual consumers are "voting with their wallets", they're lazy. They go to the place that they think is cheap. (Even if it isn't.)

But when they're "voting at the ballot box", I could see them voting for a slight price increase, in exchange for some idealism.

(Maybe.)

(And let's face it. That Foxcon motherboard? It's total manufactured cost, at the factory, is what, ten bucks? And that factory is virtually run by robots. The employees get how much per motherboard, a quarter? If a new regulation were to cause their labor costs to double, it would add how much to the price of that computer? A dollar?)

[DRSmith]

People have no problem with slavery they just do not want to see it, or call them migrant workers

[Bang]

We need a government program to investigate why businesses will use cheap labor overseas to make affordable products for US Consumers instead of businesses with union that have a CBA. :rolleyes:

Lets see... because historically companies and corporations will use slave labor if they can get away with it to max out profits, thereby having made unions a necessity to give every day average people an opportunity to at least live a halfway decent life in exchange for the work provided.

but hey,, go ahead and lay yourself at the mercy of the corporation.

I bet your ass hurts afterwards.

Either that, or you become satisfied living like a slave, and happy to give your kids the same opportunity.

~Bang

[China]

Explosion at Foxconn's Chengdu plant kills two (http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/20/explosion-at-foxconns-chengdu-plant-injures-several-could-affe/)

An explosion occurred at Foxconn's Chengdu plant earlier today, with reports claiming several workers have been injured. The Taiwanese company has yet to release a statement regarding figures and the cause of this tragedy, but according to 21st Century Business Herald, witnesses saw a lightning hit the A05 building before the explosion took place -- it is believed that this is a case of dust explosion, and security guards were allegedly warning evacuees that the smoke was toxic. At the time, hundreds of workers were present in the affected workshop which houses an iPad 2 assembly line.

Sina Tech is reporting two deaths and sixteen injured people, with three in critical condition.

[Popeman38]

While not condoning the labor practices, I wonder how they compare to labor conditions in other Chinese factories? Why is Apple being singled out; as a way to draw attention to China's poor labor practices overall?Because the Apple Fanboys are annoying as hell, and this is something that will shut them up for at least a minute?

[DRSmith]

I wonder how much more they are going to let wages increase in order to prevent a massive worker uprising soon