Apple Enforces "Supplier Code of Conduct" After Child Labor Discovery

reporter writes "Since 2006, Apple has regularly audited its manufacturing partners to ensure that they conform to Apple's Supplier Code of Conduct (ASCC), which essentially codifies Western ethical standards with regard to the environment, labor, business conduct, etc. Core violations of ASCC 'include abuse, underage employment, involuntary labor, falsification of audit materials, threats to worker safety, intimidation or retaliation against workers in the audit and serious threats to the environment. Apple said it requires facilities it has found to have a core violation to address the situation immediately and institute a system that insures compliance. Additionally, the facility is placed on probation and later re-audited.' Apple checks 102 facilities, most of which are located in Asia, and these facilities employ 133,000 workers. The most recent audit of Apple's partners revealed 17 violations of ASCC. The violations include hiring workers who were as young as 15 years of age, incorrectly disposing of hazardous waste, and falsifying records. In Apple's recently released Supplier Responsibility 2010 Progress Report (PDF), they condemned the violations and threatened to terminate their business with facilities that did not change their ways."

Comments

What's the problem?

[Vinegar Joe]

The kids get free black turtlenecks to wear after 10 years of employment. Sounds good to me.

Re:What's the problem?

[Bysshe]

Yeah... but they have to make the turtleneck themselves.

Re:What's the problem?

[Ihmhi]

overwhelmingly large homosexual user base engaging in homosexual child sex tourism in Thailand?

Sex Tourism?

There's an app for that.

Re:What's the problem?

[MagusSlurpy]

Yeah... but they have to make the turtleneck themselves.

Yeah, and who wants a crappy Chinese slave-labor sweater?

Re:What's the problem?

[Bysshe]

oh anyone who shops at the gap, abercrombie, target, walmart, old navy, zara, H&M, C&A, M&S. i.e. if you judge by dollars spent... pretty much everyone.

Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[AlexLibman]

It's amazing that the mainstream public can be this economically retarded, but it isn't very surprising given that their education is controlled by the government - the very entity that benefits from these sorts of regulations.

Individuals, including children, choose to work in "sweatshops" because that is better than other alternatives available to them: backbreaking subsistence agriculture, crime, prostitution, etc. Simply outlawing free market in labor will not make schools, hospitals, and personal wealth rain from the sky! Free market economies are able to go from child labor and sweatshops to banks and skyscrapers in just a couple of generations, while the "well-intentioned" socialist cesspools remain poor except for the handouts of others (often too through government force).

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[BadAnalogyGuy]

In fact, wealth does "rain from the sky" in the form of humanitarian aid.

Of course, undercutting the local farmer put him out of business too, but he can get his free rice from the nice NGO people like everyone else.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[polar red]

Free market economies are able to go from child labor and sweatshops to banks

Examples ?

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[erroneus]

There is something lacking in that train of thought. I think what is lacking is foresight and long-term thinking.

We know why children labor -- because the rich aren't willing to pay enough for a man to feed his family under his own pay. So what are the alternatives? Of course -- have more children who can them in turn, earn money. The problem with this? The children, and by extension, the workforce becomes very uneducated... even more than in places where the government controls education. Spending one's learning years at work means bad things for the future of a workforce and for a community. The whole point of child labor laws is to allow children to become educated and to decide for themselves what they will do with their lives when they are old enough.

Without this regulation against the free market, the market would drive its labor force to death and into animal-like stupidity.

Further, as you seem to believe in the free market, let's look at it another way -- by pulling workers out of the labor pool, we are making the labor resource more scarce making the resource more valuable and therefore raising the rates of pay for those who remain at work. So child labor laws might also serve to improve the amount of money that comes into individual families.

The very idea of nations "growing up" more quickly using the broken backs of 10 year olds is simply too repugnant to discuss. Even if this were viewed as a grand sacrifice, we know that only very few would benefit from this growth while the masses would remain in suffering.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[rubycodez]

this isn't "child labor", it's teenage labor. if a 15 year old can earn some money, let him. in our culture we have 15 year old babies that can't do a thing for themselves, high school is doing nothing for them.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[erroneus]

No one is arguing against a teenager getting a part time job in suburban U.S.A. What is being argued is what is wrong with child labor as in "this is what you will do for the rest of your life because you won't be able to go to school because this will stunt your mental growth" kind of thing.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[quadelirus]

"We know why children labor -- because the rich aren't willing to pay enough for a man to feed his family under his own pay. So what are the alternatives?"

Or because dad's dead and mom's debilitated. Most countries have the teenagers help out in the fields even if they don't get work in the factories. In fact, most western countries did that not so long ago. I agree with the OP above that this is less black and white than we make it out to be. A 15 year old works in a factory because it helps feed his family and that is the least heinous way for him/her to do it. If the family were already sufficiently fed, it wouldn't be happening. The problem, then, shouldn't be stated as "these countries have child labor and we should hand down our western view that this isn't okay" and more stated as "these countries are so poor that even their children have to go to work, how can we help them to become prosperous enough that this isn't required?" Simply not allowing that to happen is not the solution. What needs to happen is overall economic improvement of the country FIRSTLY, then work to lessen teenage labor since it is no longer necessary SECONDLY.

It is easy for us, as westerners in developed countries, to say, "Hey we don't need child labor and we think it is kind of icky so we are going to force you not to have it." It is a lot more difficult to say "we recognize child labor is a huge problem and that the underlying problem is poverty, so instead of trying to force our laws down your throat we will try to help you out of poverty while being sensitive to where you are economically and culturally so that we can gradually negate the need for these injustices."

Note that I am not saying that child labor is okay or that it is the way for a nation to grow up more quickly. What I am saying is that we need to treat the cause not the symptoms. Simply requiring countries not to have child labor is akin to lancing spots of a person with chicken pox. Sure we remove the pox from their skin, but they are left with chunks of their skin taken out and they still have the chicken pox. The only sustainable solution, then, is to treat the disease, and as it goes away we can treat the symptoms as well.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[mobby_6kl]

Hong Kong. Taiwan. Most of what we now consider to be the first world.

It sucks that children have to work, but that's not the worst option in underdeveloped countries. My grandfather had to start working at around 13, and that was in the worker's paradise that was the Soviet Union.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[Nadaka]

The USA? My grandfather cut sugar cane 14 hours a day, 6 days a week for 25 cents.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[Nadaka]

Addendum: of course, we had to outlaw child labor, and do dirty socialist public education and infrastructure projects to get here. ;)

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[ooshna]

And he had to walk uphill to and from school with no shoes in winter too.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[ZorbaTHut]

We know why children labor -- because the rich aren't willing to pay enough for a man to feed his family under his own pay.

Or, alternatively, because the owners aren't able to pay enough. I mean, let's imagine you have three options: don't pay enough for one person to keep an entire family fed, fire everyone and close down the factory, or go bankrupt, fire everyone, and then close down the factory.

Which do you choose?

by pulling workers out of the labor pool, we are making the labor resource more scarce making the resource more valuable and therefore raising the rates of pay for those who remain at work. So child labor laws might also serve to improve the amount of money that comes into individual families.

This line makes the broken window fallacy look practically unassailable in comparison.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[v1]

If my 15 yr old wants some spending cash you bet they can get their butt out on a paper route or babysitting or neighborhood yard work. I have no problem with "child labor" as a concept, it's a great idea on multiple fronts, teaching responsibility, the value of money, the benefits of being employed, etc.

The problem is it's so incredibly easy for big business to abuse, that it has to be outlawed for the most part. The idea is good, the practice is bad. Things like paper routes and babysitting tend to be self-limiting (due to the narrow window of time per day you can actually do them) so they're not really abusable. Manufacturing plants that can run 24/7 naturally are where the problems crop up.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[NtroP]

No one is arguing against a teenager getting a part time job in suburban U.S.A. What is being argued is what is wrong with child labor as in "this is what you will do for the rest of your life because you won't be able to go to school because this will stunt your mental growth" kind of thing.

As someone who grew up in a "3rd-world country" I have news for you. Most people are finished with school by age 12. A 15-year-old is considered an adult and often is married and has at least one kid by then. We treat teen-agers like children in the US and Canada and they fulfill that expectation spectacularly - in fact, you aren't a "real" adult until 21 and then insurance companies rape you and you can't rent a car, etc., until you are 25. We put up with and even encourage infantile behavior by our teens and young-adults. And then we impose our beliefs on the rest of the world.

If Apple wants to make it's world-wide policy match our expectations, fine. They talk about these companies hiring workers "as young as 15". Well, that 15-year-old, who very possibly is married with a family and obviously wanted the job (I didn't hear that they were rounding up workers at gun-point) and obviously capable of doing the job (what job was that? Taking out the garbage? Putting the manual and CD in it's sleeve?) otherwise they wouldn't have been hired.

I would applaud Apple for standing up for what they believe in, but I fear that it's more to appease the ignorant, myopic American public and their America-centric world-view than any real conviction on the subject. And I feel bad for the young adults who were fortunate to land an excellent, high-paying job (for that part of the world) who will now be unemployed.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[rubycodez]

*shrug* my wife is from Cambodia, she had 8 hour job at 14 selling cigarettes, umbrellas and fruit juice in restaurants. Eighth grade education normal for fortunate women there. For that matter, even my grandfather in USA had eighth grade education and went to work after that, normal at the time in part of country where he lived. How about we quit ramming our stupid culture down every other culture's throat?

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[KarmaMB84]

I know you grew up in a "3rd-world country" but did you bother learning enough American history before commenting on our world view to know we had child labor in this country and abolished it because it was a horrible thing?

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[sourcerror]

We know why children labor -- because the rich aren't willing to pay enough for a man to feed his family under his own pay.

My mother started doing field work at the age of seven. This was in the fifties and under socialist* government (Eastern block, Hungary).

* By socialist I mean REAL socialist (you know, a Marxist-Leninist one, which is building communism), and no, Sweden is not socialist, it's social-democrat.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[sourcerror]

Further, as you seem to believe in the free market, let's look at it another way -- by pulling workers out of the labor pool, we are making the labor resource more scarce making the resource more valuable and therefore raising the rates of pay for those who remain at work. So child labor laws might also serve to improve the amount of money that comes into individual families.

No, it means invidual workers get more, but for the average family the income stays the same. As children can't work they only mean cost and no income, so having more children will be a financial disadvantage.

But eventhough we're not considering that with child labour there'll be a higher GDP and higher investment in local infrastructure (that the businesses do for themselves).

But these are only the market effects. To actually improve living conditions, wages, education you need appropriate government policy*, it can't be done in a lasseiz fare model.

* .e.g. setting appropriate minimal wage, some form of free education etc.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[trapnest]

Did you read anything past that to the fact where the "child" probably has a child of his own and needs the job to support them?

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[Culture20]

Did you read the other violations?

Core violations of ASCC 'include abuse, underage employment, involuntary labor, [...]

Underage employment and involuntary labor often go hand in hand. I assume involuntary labor means slavery where someone earns a wage (otherwise "involuntary labor" is just a euphemism for slavery).

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[node 3]

It's amazing that the mainstream public can be this economically retarded

Hmm, I'll say. But I don't think we're talking about the same group of people...

but it isn't very surprising given that their education is controlled by the government

Tinfoil hat time, here we go!

the very entity that benefits from these sorts of regulations.

The government benefits every time a child doesn't work, every time a pill doesn't kill someone, every time a student becomes a doctor or a scientist, every time a factory recalls tons of e. coli tainted beef... Well, in a sense, that's actually true, in the US, since We The People *are* the government.

Individuals, including children, choose to work in "sweatshops"

Bullshit. No child "choses" to work in a sweatshop. They are forced to by their parents, or by circumstances, but in no way do they think, "boy, I sure wish I could work 15 hours a day and get 2 pee breaks!"

Simply outlawing free market in labor will not make schools, hospitals, and personal wealth rain from the sky!

No. "Socialism" does this. The free market has never, and will never, provide schools, hospitals and personal wealth to reach the masses. A truly free market school system would leave the poor uneducated. A truly free market health system would leave the poor sick.

As for child labor, no free market on the planet would *ever* eliminate it. The only way to eliminate child labor is to outlaw it outright. This is because if it's legal, some company is going to engage in it, and some children are going to be forced by their parents or by circumstances into it.

Free market economies are able to go from child labor and sweatshops to banks and skyscrapers in just a couple of generations, while the "well-intentioned" socialist cesspools remain poor except for the handouts of others (often too through government force).

No free market has ever left child labor behind. You *are* correct that free markets will lead to banks and skyscrapers, however. You are wrong that socialism leads to poor nations. What you are thinking of is communism.

The trick is to gain the benefits of capitalism (banks, skyscrapers, etc.) while avoiding its negatives (exclusion of poor people, child labor, etc.). The way to do that is with laws (outlawing certain practices) and socialism (free education and health care) *AND* capitalism (skyscrapers and banks).

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[Swift2001]

I bring your attention to the many years and many attempts that were necessary to abolish child labor in the U.S. of A. Laws that did so were ruled unconstitutional by the same kind of ideologists that we have on the court today. And it was fought tooth and nail by that era's Glenn Becks. As far as I know, no single state, no single law ever was passed against kids working for the summer, or having paper routes -- there's a disappearing job -- or any of the "learning" jobs that obviously do kids some good. So that's an obvious straw man. The target of child labor laws was those who used their factories to maximize profits by working children for long periods of time doing boring and monotonous, often dangerous work, when they could be in school, learning a trade or learning how to run a factory. China is perfectly capable of dealing with these problems. They should let their currency float, which would lower their exports and increase their imports. They're simply not that poor anymore. They can certainly afford to pay their factory workers a decent salary.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[korean.ian]

This is not about "culture" but about the rights of mankind. It's not that they have to go to school, it's that they have a choice. How about you ask your wife if she would have preferred the chance at education over working at crappy jobs?
We have the advantage in the "developed" world of not forcing our kids to work 12 hours a day in manual labour positions. We arrived at this advantage in part through exploitation of workers in other countries. Do you not think we have a moral obligation to try and correct this situation?

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[cyber-vandal]

I have news for you. It's not that long ago that our countries had much the same system. Our ancestors fought long and hard to allow children to be educated rather than forced into working in factories to support their familes. The huge advances in our way of life in the last 150 years show that it was worth doing. Let's hope the leaders of your former country can be persuaded of that too.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[polar red]

and after so many years, so many people in the US have trouble paying bills, while working very hard and many hours.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[Swift2001]

You mean "communist." They called themselves "socialist" as a way of softening their image.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[Swift2001]

You know, not everything in the world is economics. To think that is to be thinking remarkably like a... oh, what would you call it? "Totalitarian"? Is it good for children to learn about the world of work by having a job that gives them a little money? Probably. Is it good for children, or anyone else, to have to work 60 or 70-hour weeks just to stay alive? I'd say not.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[sourcerror]

To actually improve living conditions, wages, education you need appropriate government policy.

Reading comprehension for the win.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[sourcerror]

No, the one party called Communist Worker's Party.
It was no disguise socialism and communism are different stages of the same thing. But both require a one-party state.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[sourcerror]

Actually they never tried to implement communism, which would have meant the abolition of money. In official propaganda communism was always a goal to strive for, a kind of Nirvana.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[sourcerror]

Followers of the party called themselves communist, but the system they implemented was socialism.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[shutdown -p now]

Hong Kong. Taiwan. Most of what we now consider to be the first world.

In most of what we now consider to be the first world, we've got to the modern age of prosperity by cracking down hard on monopolies, and enforcing labor laws, such as 8-hour work day, and - yes - restrictions on child labor.

If you want to see how the glorious capitalist paradise with happy laboring children actually looked like, just look up the Gilded Age on Wikipedia...

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[rubycodez]

anwer is she was so happy as teen to be making more money than her mother who sold groceries at street market. she had plenty of food to eat for the first time in her life and good clothes and could go to dentist. For more than eight years prior, hungry, bad clothes, sore teeth and other problems. "job better than school", she says.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[rubycodez]

and no, it is not our moral obligation but their future one. for now, it's good thing they can take in money from us and other countries, it's the *only* long term plan to getting better standard of living.

their culture allows teens to work. also to drink or smoke or have sex. hmmm, kids over here doing same thing but not working.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[Just Another Poster]

Laws that did so were ruled unconstitutional by the same kind of ideologists that we have on the court today.

Of course, you mean those who could actually read and understand the Constitution, and the Tenth Amendment.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[bmajik]

I'm not convinced you've thought about this very hard. I won't hold it against you, because nobody, least of all government schools, will teach you this stuff.

Capitalism is simply this: individuals decide for themselves.

Socialism is simply this: some people decide for others.

There is no idelogical difference between socialism and communism. Both words mean: the state is absolute, and any individual can and will be made to sacrifice for the "good" of others. Who are the others? The presiding oligarchy. Sometimes, it claims to represent some of the people [european social democracies], sometimes, it doesn't bother [the USSR].

Coercion is the object, violence is the method, and submission is the response.

Socialism will always suppress the best a man has to offer because he will be forced act [or not act] contrary to his own wishes.

As long as it must contend with humans, socialism is a dead end. The essence of man is his mind, and its free excercise is his purpose. To the extent that socialism suppresses this, it will kill the lifeblood of everything that has created and provided worth in "your" schools and "your" healthcare and "your" skyscrapers.

Faced with oppressive socialism, men of the mind will invariably take one of three courses:
- die
- revolt
- stop thinking

When enough have done this, the socialist state will finally die.

You can pick up "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal", which is a collection of essays that will help you understand where I am coming from.

Now, I can explain why this specific story [and the "ethical labor" stuff, in general] is absolutely ridiculous very easily:

Let's consider the broad spectrum of employment opportunities for _15 year old asian girls_ who are poor and desperate enough to work in an electronics factory. The framing narrative is that this factory is hell, and no child should be forced to work, and they are paid a pittance wage, blah blah.

Let's suppose that all of that is true, yet still these girls are showing up to work anyway. Whatever horrors await them at work, something still worse must be pushing them to show up.

Now, you've taken away their factory job, but you didn't address the reality that _something_ was keeping these girls going to work. Compared to their broader situation, that factory job [i]was[/i] the lesser evil. And now they must confront their situation head on -- now with _no_ income, instead of their former "paltry" income.

What do you suppose desperate female children in poor countries do to get money when they've got no better alternative?

I dont have the numbers in front of me, but I'm going to take a guess: the number of people who "lift themselves out" of "oppressive" factory work are probably quite a bit higher than the number who lift themselves out of.. what you're leaving them with.

So much for not wanting to exploit children.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[node 3]

I'm not convinced you've thought about this very hard. I won't hold it against you, because nobody, least of all government schools, will teach you this stuff.

Having an opinion different from yours is not a sign of not thinking something through.

Your simpleminded Ayn Randian view of Capitalism vs Socialism is fundamentally delusional. You say things like, "There is no idelogical difference between socialism and communism. Both words mean: the state is absolute, and any individual can and will be made to sacrifice for the "good" of others." and "Socialism will always suppress the best a man has to offer because he will be forced act [or not act] contrary to his own wishes."

Such thoughts are easily disproven. You have this idea of Socialism as being where the state will absolutely tell you everything you can ever do, and that's simply not true. You have the notion that Capitalism means you are free to do anything you are physically and mentally capable of. This is simply not true either.

Additionally, every society that has ever existed has had both capitalistic and socialistic aspects. Simply being able to barter your goods and services, or being able to whittle a piece of wood for your own enjoyment, is Capitalism, and having any sort of government whatsoever is Socialism.

The intelligent society would be one where the two forces are used to best serve the people.

Your simplistic view is a result of not being able to hold two diametrically opposed views at the same time. Everything is either all out black, or all out white, and grey is a failure.

Socialism is great. Capitalism is great. Pure Socialism or pure Capitalism are both evil, although if I had to pick one to be pure, I'd most definitely pick Capitalism (if I were rich) or Socialism (if I were poor). Fortunately, I'm not an imbecile, and I can choose both in varying measures for varying things.

Oh, and to address your notion that Socialism and Communism are the same thing, the difference is that in Communism, everything is done for the state. In Socialism, everything is down for the people. The formal definitions are that the state owns/controls the means of production (Communism) or the people own/control the means of production (Socialism).

In Capitalism, those with capital own/control the means of production, but looking a it from the opposite direction, everything done is done for those with capital. If you don't have capital, Capitalism sucks.

You rail against public schools, but I can promise you one thing. In a purely Capitalistic society, education would be much worse unless you were rich. It's only by Socialism that everyone in America has access to school, and is able to, if they can, learn.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[vegiVamp]

Imposing your views will not magically create schools for their education, it'll only lead to them not having a job. Let them have their own development, and maybe they'll end up with their *own* culture instead of yours.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[Jedi Alec]

It was no disguise socialism and communism are different stages of the same thing. But both require a one-party state.

Ehmm, why? Take the following scenario:

1) country used voting to elect government and has a typical modern capitalist system
2) by popular vote, the entire country switches to a socialist system, with the government controlling and running the means of production.

What's to stop this hypothetical country from maintaining a democratically elected government on any level?

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[sourcerror]

What's to stop this hypothetical country from maintaining a democratically elected government on any level?

Marxist-Leninist ideology.

By the way it's really nice to discuss hypothetical situations, but we had 40 years of that in Eastern Europe,China,Vietnam and North-Korea and none of them are democratic.

Anyway there's peacefule conversion from socialism to capitalism, but not the other way. The rich rather has a civil war than lose their property.

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[inviolet]

Additionally, every society that has ever existed has had both capitalistic and socialistic aspects. Simply being able to barter your goods and services, or being able to whittle a piece of wood for your own enjoyment, is Capitalism, and having any sort of government whatsoever is Socialism.

You are free to define 'socialism' and 'government' in that manner if it pleases you, but I find those definitions to be useless, because even a pure-barter society needs protection of property and enforcement of contracts. The third-party agent that does so needs a name, yes? And such an agent must always be a monopoly.

I find it more useful to define socialism as government-mandated transfers of wealth -- presumably to destinations that Capitalism would normally shy away from -- that are not inherent in the protection of property and the enforcement of contracts. In this meaning, all societies have some elements of Socialism, with Communism being the system in which nearly 100% of generated wealth is directly transferred away (with other benefits presumably arriving back later).

Re:Child labor laws keep millions in poverty.

[bmajik]

You should read the book mentioned. I'm only assuming you haven't because there's a lot of stuff to get out in the open if you've read it and have a number of fundamental disagreements with the base material.

Now then, I didn't say what you've claimed I did about socialism; I did not say that in a socialist system no individual has any amount of autonomy, I said simply that in socialist socities, others [the state] make decisions for you. The difference is simply between freedom and coercion. Note that you do not disagree on this distinction between capitalism and socialism, infact you reconfirm it.

I'm glad that you seem to agree that communism is fundamentally evil. What is strange is that you attempt to put distance between socialism, which you think is "Great", and communism, which you think is awful, only by saying that the difference is in degree, not ideology. You've essentially agreed with me that socialism and communism are the same, interms of being based on the suppression of the individual to further the aims of some group, but as a practical matter, they are different because while both have the same underlying assumption, they differ on how far they explore the ramifications of that assumption, and to whom they designate as the recipients of the sacrifices of the many.

A few specific nitpicks

and having any sort of government whatsoever is Socialism.

I don't think this is accurate. Socialism posits that the society is superior to the individual. But a constitutionally limited republic, such as the US, is defined protect the intrinsic rights of the individual. The society has no rights to protect -- nor would they need protecting. After all, absent some government, the mob always gets its way. The government of the united states exists, theoretically, for the singular purpose of protecting the individual against his neighbor(s). And this task is delegated to government so that it may be done uniformly and predictably.

The intelligent society would be one where the two forces are used to best serve the people.

Nothing serves "the people". Each "thing" a government does benefits some and ignores or harms others. Besides, "the people", collectively, have no rights. They are a non-entity. Only individuals exist in a meaningful way.

Your simplistic view is a result of not being able to hold two diametrically opposed views at the same time. Everything is either all out black, or all out white, and grey is a failure.

Ironically, Rand (and Orwell) go on at some length about how the looting class must condition themselves to beleive in two diametrically opposed things and bury the cognitive disonnance required to still function as a human. In 1984 this was called "doublethink". I figured both books were probably accurate assessments, but I never expected anyone to come right out and admit it about themselves so honestly.

Naturally, I don't think of what you describe as especially virtuous.

You rail against public schools, but I can promise you one thing. In a purely Capitalistic society, education would be much worse unless you were rich. It's only by Socialism that everyone in America has access to school, and is able to, if they can, learn.

The literacy rate in the US was 98% before compulsory schooling arrived. Read "Education, Free and Compulsory" by Murray Rothbard to understand the motivations and effect of compulsory schooling.

My assessment of how hard you've thought about these things comes not from the fact that you disagree with me, but because you gloss over and do not implicitly [or explicitly] refute so much outstanding thinking and writing contrary to what you've written. There are many people who espouse your eminently compatabile and pragmatic seeming view. But if they honestly assess their axioms and epistemological foundations, they find them wanting, or all

Wait a minute

[Random5]

Hiring 15 year olds is illegal? Quick, someone tell the authorities about McDonalds!

Re:Wait a minute

[QuantumRiff]

I don't know where you live, but where I grew up, 14 and 15 year olds were not hired by McDonalds.. Maybe it was just my states weird laws about not letting kids work near stoves, grills, vats of boiling oil, etc... However, I did work at one when I was 16..

Re:Wait a minute

[sethstorm]

Except that reporting a safety violation at a McDonalds in the First World isn't an implied death sentence. It's more likely to have the violation corrected.

Re:Wait a minute

[DarkKnightRadick]

Here in TN, with parental consent forms signed, you can work at McDonald's at age 15+ (16+ w/o such a form).

What makes a 16 yr old any more responsible then a 16 yr old is beyond me, though.

Re:Wait a minute

[BeanThere]

Hmm, I recall I was voluntarily working from as young as 13, and in fact I've worked basically every year since then. I just wanted to, it just seemed like the natural thing to do, as I've always loved making money. Gee, it never even occurred to me that I'd stumbled into being a 'victim' of child labor. I'm glad nobody "saved" me; the money I earned helped contribute to my cost of living while studying at university.

Re:Wait a minute

[Runaway1956]

In Penna, I worked at a McDonald's clone at age 15. 20 hours per week, max, I had to be OUT OF THE STORE before 11:00 PM, no grill work, but I did drop fries into the deep fryer. Child labor is legal here, but it's strictly regulated. Oh yeah, as I recall, I had to take some form to school to be signed.

I eventually quit that job, because I made more money at age 14 mowing lawns. In today's world, a 14 year old kid mowing lawns would probably call some guy name "Juan" his boss.

Re:Wait a minute

[maxume]

Magic.

Re:Wait a minute

[misfit815]

I started out at 15 making $5/hr assembling 386's. There's a problem here, but it's not strictly about the age. It's *what* you have 15yo's doing and under what conditions.

Re:Wait a minute

[Random5]

Here (australia) it's allowed from about 14 up with parental consent and limited hours. Over there conditions certainly aren't going to be that great but the alternatives aren't good either for a lot of people.

Re:Wait a minute

[Lars T.]

Here in TN, with parental consent forms signed, you can work at McDonald's at age 15+ (16+ w/o such a form).

What makes a 16 yr old any more responsible then a 16 yr old is beyond me, though.

The same thing that makes 12 year olds responsible enough to be tried for murder as adults, but 20 year olds too young to drink.

Re:Wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

Minimum wage increases ensure that people can actually afford to live. I mean its all nice and stuff having me work at 5 dollars an hour, but if you expect me to continue being able to work, you should pay me more, i mean if i cant afford good housing from the elements, ill get sick and cant work, if I cant afford healthy food, ill get sick and cant work, if I cant afford car gas and insurance (for many areas in the US) then I cant make it to work.. see the problems here, you have to pay me enough to survive, so when things in the open marketplace get more expensive, if you want reliable hard workers, you will need to pay them more... This is a hard concept for you?

Re:Wait a minute

[OrangeTide]

When I was growing up, it was not unusual for 15 year old kids to work at places, even in a warehouse (but not in a factory). But they were only able to work for a limited number of hours per week, the job had to be relatively safe and they needed permission from their school to work at a job. Generally schools were allowed to choose the criteria, such as grades or behavior to allow a student to work, while still giving a principal the ability to make exceptions for students who needed to bring money home to their family badly. Usually the jobs involved cleaning up the dirt, paper and box debris that litter a warehouse. Or collecting the carts from the parking lot. Although occasionally a kid would be able to work in an electronics repair shop fixing things under supervision, or working in an automotive shop cleaning up and working on cars under supervision. I used to hang drywall boards when I was 15 during the summer, as far as I know it was perfectly legal for me to work.

Re:Wait a minute

[trapnest]

When I was 15 I wished I had a job. Can you imagine all the Yu-Gi-Oh! cards I could have bought? Maybe I wouldn't have had to share a dialup account with my friend from school.
I also think if I had started doing grunt computer work at a younger age I'd be more established in the field now, and not be worried about finding a job. :(

Re:Wait a minute

[Culture20]

Hiring 15 year olds is illegal? Quick, someone tell the authorities about McDonalds!

I usually see an 18 yo high school graduate who learned spanish as a second language acting as a translator for a crew of very responsible and capable adults in their 30's and 40's.

Re:Wait a minute

[DarkKnightRadick]

And typos. The second 16 yr old should be 15 yr old.

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[Random5]

It's the chinese manufacturers who are doing this, apple is cracking down on it and fining them for it you moron. (And I hate apple BTW)

Make it in the Third World, what do you expect?

[sethstorm]

That is, does one expect them to actually follow the rules? No. The ASCC is a whitewash given that it has no real ability to exact meaningful punishments.

Those are about 133,000 jobs on the wrong side of the US and Western Europe - where they might actually respect the law for once.

Re:Make it in the Third World, what do you expect?

[Phroggy]

That is, does one expect them to actually follow the rules? No. The ASCC is a whitewash given that it has no real ability to exact meaningful punishments.

Those are about 133,000 jobs on the wrong side of the US and Western Europe - where they might actually respect the law for once.

Apple has threatened to terminate its business relationship with these companies. If the companies fail to satisfy Apple, and Apple makes good on its threat, I'd call that a meaningful punishment.

If Apple stop doing business with a company that won't ensure a safe working environment for its employees, will the root of the problem get fixed? No, of course not, not right away. Apple will switch to another company, and the first company will have one less (rather large) customer. But they'll be able to find other customers, perhaps who are less scrupulous, and the employees will still have unsafe working conditions.

Or maybe, they won't be able to find other customers. Or the other customers they find, will have similar policies in place. Maybe the owners of the company will realize that if they want to continue to attract Western business, they need to make some changes - not due to respect for their employees, but because they need to pass these inspections in order to keep their customers happy.

Re:Make it in the Third World, what do you expect?

[DarkKnightRadick]

The meaningful punishment is the loss of Apple's business (which would be quite significant).

Re:Make it in the Third World, what do you expect?

[Grygus]

That is, does one expect them to actually follow the rules? No. The ASCC is a whitewash given that it has no real ability to exact meaningful punishments.

Those are about 133,000 jobs on the wrong side of the US and Western Europe - where they might actually respect the law for once.

Assuming that Apple is a major client and significant source of income for these companies, then they do have real clout. Money clearly is a motivating tool for these people since that's the main benefit of child labor in the first place.

Re:Make it in the Third World, what do you expect?

[sethstorm]

Since there's no Reply All in slashcode:

If they enforced it to the letter and did so strictly(given the various means for which it is ignored or circumvented), then it wouldn't be the exception to hear of good conditions and living critics.

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[Anonymous Coward]

And I have to give Apple my kudos for this.

Age restrictions work against them

[BadAnalogyGuy]

In these countries, many families struggle to put food on the table. By allowing their children who are able to work go to work in the factories, these families are better able to care for each other.

These are dangerous smelting factories or weapons manufacturing plants. They are electronics assembly lines. Lines which could essentially be replaced by robotics except that humans are cheaper. No kid is in danger of having his arm sliced off.

Enforcing Western-style regulations in Western countries makes sense, but in poor countries, having an extra set of hands working besides mom and dad is a real boon.

I can't believe I'm reading about Apple, of all companies, enforcing regulations like these overseas. It's more White Man's Burden than Protect The Children. But really, when you think about it, those two concepts are essentially the same, and it reeks of condescension.

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[KiahZero]

From TFA:

In the case of the underage labor, three facilities had hired 15-year-olds in countries where the minimum employment age is 16.

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[Xugumad]

> I can't believe I'm reading about Apple, of all companies, enforcing regulations like these overseas.

Really? Every time there's even a hint that Apple's subcontractors are hiring underage workers, or not paying them enough, or have dangerous conditions I see a dozen articles about how soul-suckingly evil Apple must be to allow this to go on (behind their back). Of course they're going to enforce the regulations...

I'm inclined to agree though. Addressing the issue of child labor in poor countries by firing all the children is not a solution. A much more useful response would be to examine the situation of these 15 year olds (are they pushed into it by a family that's just being greedy, or by circumstances) and to resolve the underlying cause, not just ban the situation and hope everything works out.

Reminds me of a lot of the arguments against prostitution (that the women are forced into it by being poor, which clearly leads to the conclusion that making prostitution illegal will stop people being poor).

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[khchung]

And how many of those countries had a minimum employment age of at least 16 in order to avoid being accused of employing child labour by the West?

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[Fnkmaster]

That's a violation of an employment law, but it's not an egregious child slavery operation. 15 year olds working when the minimum employment age is 16 is very different from putting 8 year olds in effective slavery in factories. I think that was the GP poster's point.

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[rtb61]

These conditions are enforced to maximise profit. When citizens of countries working under conditions like these seek redress there is an inevitable violent corporate sponsored government led retaliation against those seeking better conditions. If after extended period of revolution violence better conditions become available, corporation simply shift t the next country to exploit their population.

Trade should not occur upon a basis of exploitation, you are importing those working conditions along with those products, don't think so, then why are corporations and their political puppets continually saying that first world workforces has to compete, not once but over and over again. Are you ready to compete, no sick pay, no holiday pay, 50 cents an hour and, unsafe work conditions as normal practice including toxic chemicals.

It is disgusting to think anyone deems it appropriate to sponsor conditions on workers in other countries that they themselves would not accept. It reeks of greed and lies to assume that somehow poor people in other countries are born to work in poverty, they are bred to be mindless factory drones from birth, cheaper than robots.

Yet look around you, at your fellow migrants, people who escpaed from those conditions who managed to gain a better life, according to you, they couldn't possibly exist because they are happy to be factory slaves so why would they leave.

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[couchslug]

For countries to grow, they must each have an Industrial Revolution where they compete with the tools available. That means low wages and often child labor. The alternative is to lose, not to bypass the process and leap straight to a modern world with union benefits in a socialist utopia.

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[jedidiah]

Yup.

They need to waste 13 years in school before starting their factory job.

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[tukang]

In these countries, many families struggle to put food on the table. By allowing their children who are able to work go to work in the factories, these families are better able to care for each other.

These are dangerous smelting factories or weapons manufacturing plants. They are electronics assembly lines. Lines which could essentially be replaced by robotics except that humans are cheaper. No kid is in danger of having his arm sliced off.

Enforcing Western-style regulations in Western countries makes sense, but in poor countries, having an extra set of hands working besides mom and dad is a real boon.

I can't believe I'm reading about Apple, of all companies, enforcing regulations like these overseas. It's more White Man's Burden than Protect The Children. But really, when you think about it, those two concepts are essentially the same, and it reeks of condescension.

American child labor laws were passed in the 30s, a time when the US economy more closely resembled that of today's developing countries. I think that children are especially vulnerable in places where poverty is prevalent because parents are more likely to neglect their children and often come to the wrong conclusion that trading their children's education for a job is in the child's best interest.

Education is the only way to break the poverty cycle and because impoverished parents may (understandibly) be tempted to send their children to work, I think that these policies make perfect sense.

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[Bob Battle]

Apple is practicing a great business model and showing good corporate ethics. Surely this "poor nation" can find people that can work in accordance with Apple's requirements (or every one needs to get a raise). The position will be filled by someone - the money into the country is a constant - they can still put their slave/child labor to work between 40and 80 hours a week in a support business (restaurants etc) that would not reflect poorly on Apple. Apple sells their products at a small premium based on outstanding design and brand recognition. Brand recognition means they have to satisfy not only either own ethical standards, but those of the majority of their customers. They are right not to sully their good name with companies that violate their code of ethics and they are enforcing it at a level that is reasonable and apparently above the level of most other companies. Heck, I would prefer if their parts were made in the US. but apparently its cheaper for us to pay high taxes, build up massive debt, and deal with unemployment, than to pay workers a living wage and expect a good work ethic. Bravo to Apple for maintaining and enforcing reasonable standards, while turning a profit.

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[Blakey Rat]

Fuck, I lived in the US and I worked picking beans at 15. And that was much harder labor than assembling electronics. (Well, I assume...)

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[UnknowingFool]

I can't believe I'm reading about Apple, of all companies, enforcing regulations like these overseas. It's more White Man's Burden than Protect The Children. But really, when you think about it, those two concepts are essentially the same, and it reeks of condescension.

So instead of complaining that "OMG!! Apple is EVIL. They use child labor and destroy the environment!!!" you say "OMG!!!! Apple is EVIL. They impose their condescending Western ways on this poor Asian country.!!!" Sounds like Apple can't win either way.

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[phantomfive]

These conditions are enforced to maximise profit. When citizens of countries working under conditions like these seek redress there is an inevitable violent corporate sponsored government led retaliation against those seeking better conditions.

Yeah, or it could be that Steve Jobs and Al Gore and some other people on the board have real moral compunctions about destroying the environment and hiring kids to work on their stuff. I mean, you're making some huge assumptions about these guys, how do you know so much about their motivations? Have you talked to them, read interviews, or are you just guessing what they are thinking based on your preconceived ideas?

Think about it seriously, if you became a CEO of a large corporation, would you suddenly feel the urge to make poor people suffer industrial accidents? Or would you set up a program to make sure your employees aren't abused?

then why are corporations and their political puppets continually saying that first world workforces has to compete, not once but over and over again. Are you ready to compete, no sick pay, no holiday pay, 50 cents an hour and, unsafe work conditions as normal practice including toxic chemicals.

You have to compete, that's basic economics. There was an interview in the weekend Wall Street Journal with the CEO of Ford claiming that America CAN compete with the world, and he is doing fairly well at it. Ford is now making small cars in the US, and this is with unions and all the benefits they bring. So your argument that you have to compete by working with no sick pay, no holiday pay etc. is a red herring.

It reeks of greed and lies to assume that somehow poor people in other countries are born to work in poverty, they are bred to be mindless factory drones from birth, cheaper than robots.

OK, look, you may have a solution to this problem, but I seriously doubt you even know what the problem is. I've gone to poor countries and talked to people, seen how it is. These people LIKE factories opening in their country, because it is an extra option for employment. The people who work there typically have no skills whatsoever, and by no skills, I mean, they have been subsistence farmers all their lives and don't know how to get to work on time, keep a schedule, or sometimes even read a calendar. The factories actually are helping them by giving them skills.

These are jobs for unskilled people. Those who have graduated from high school can usually find better paying jobs. However, the cost of living is so low in some of these countries that they can actually make MORE working in a factory than on a farm. 50 cents an hour sounds bad until you realize that rent is only 6 dollars a month.

Actually I think your 'outrage' is more from your fear of losing your own income than it is about the actual poverty in other countries. Don't worry too much, there will always be enough jobs to spread around, as long as you are flexible enough to retrain for the jobs available.

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[Swift2001]

Our agricultural lobby always worked very hard to exempt farms from the child labor laws. Seems if they were mostly Mexican, they couldn't vote!

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[shutdown -p now]

Did you pick beans instead of going to school, though? Or just as a work on the side to have some extra pocket money?

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[rtb61]

I would do they sane reasonable thing, I would endeavour to produce the goods as close a practicable to the point of consumption using a skilled workforce, robotics and do so in an environmentally sound manner. I would not seek to put out of work potential customers, destroying whole communities in the process. I would not seek to reduce wages and working conditions to the point where they can not longer afford the products produced. I would seek to create working conditions they I would be happy with and would work in those positions at regular intervals to validate their suitability. I would seek not to inflate my ego to the point where I consider the value of the whole of the work force as being less than me.

Point of fact, I trained logically in the part of economy that can never be imported, construction. My concern is enlightened, I have no wish to see my neighbours suffer to inflate my ego and I can not be part of a healthy and happy society unless the majority in that society are healthy and happy. I abhor gated communities, the idea of creating and living in a country where you feel unsafe in the larger neighbourhood is absurd, I have walked from my home in the burbs to the city centre and back at night on my own and felt relatively safe, can you do the same.

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[CodeBuster]

How typical of the western attitude towards such things. Alright, suppose that we could enforce working conditions in every country on earth such that non-labor costs of doing business were substantially similar in just about every respect. What would be the result of that theoretical policy? Many of the people presently working in the aforementioned countries would not be able to compete with better educated and more productive workers in other more developed nations. In the absence of any useful work to perform the people who were before merely poor and working in poor conditions, or as you chose to put it "exploited", are now starving to death because you have removed from them the only job they could reasonably perform. Now of course, not all of them would starve to death, but there is a limit to the number of people that can be supported in subsistence agriculture and the present population in much of the world is already above that carrying capacity (i.e. in the absence of modern technology and the green revolution these people never would have been). The answer is not to render poor people unemployable by imposing first world style US or European regulations on them. Economic development must come first, even at the expense of better working conditions or standards; otherwise you are just kicking people off the bottom rung of the economic ladder and back into the dust. You aren't really helping them by doing this.

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[MrResistor]

Reminds me of a lot of the arguments against prostitution (that the women are forced into it by being poor, which clearly leads to the conclusion that making prostitution illegal will stop people being poor).

That reminds me of an interview I once read with an ex-lawyer who had become a prostitute at one of the brothels near Las Vegas. IIRC, she said the money was about the same, and at least it was honest work.

Re:Age restrictions work against them

[phantomfive]

What I hear you saying is basically, "if I were in that position, I would be different." Everyone says that, and it's easy to say until you get into that position and have a completely different viewpoint than you had before, see things completely differently than you saw them before. It is not easy to see both sides.

I have walked from my home in the burbs to the city centre and back at night on my own and felt relatively safe, can you do the same.

? I'm not sure what the point of this is. I have no problem in the Tenderloin of San Francisco, I stay out of Doublerock (in San Francisco). Some neighborhoods are dangerous.

Parent poster ignores the Third World cronyism.

[sethstorm]

The problem is that the countries that still have it as a problem also have a government-business relationship that is "too friendly". Those factories could willfully ignore law and kill their critics.

Just because it may be their only practical choice does not invalidate that it is a bad one. Rewarding those businesses for pursuing that government policy is not going to make it any better.

15 year olds in 3rd world countries NEED jobs

[White Flame]

Different cultures have different ages where they need to become self-sufficient, or become responsible to help out with the family income. This whole 18 or 21 year old "western" ideal of adulthood is destructive to our own development in many ways, and should not be forced onto other countries with drastically different ways that the people grow up.

Re:15 year olds in 3rd world countries NEED jobs

[BryanL]

Your tirade would carry more weight if the country in question did not set a minimum work age at 16. Basically, the company was breaking the law. Your 18-21 straw man is not applicable in this argument.

Re:15 year olds in 3rd world countries NEED jobs

[Swift2001]

The older age of economic maturity -- of full-time employment -- is not a cultural factor, but economic. The industrialized countries of the world all exhibit the same history: they took rural people and brought them into the cities by giving them jobs in factories. The living conditions at first were deplorable. Child labor was only part of it. (On the other hand, the life of being stuck as a peasant was worse.) When the capitalists had been around long enough to amass a fortune, then reforms began which stopped those practices and brought salaries up. The truly exploitative tactics were no longer required nor tolerated in an advanced industrial society. The defeat of the USSR empowered the world's capitalists to expand the pool of labor, searching for the poorest, to repeat the success they had in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and it empowered the Chinese communist party to adopt a strategy which would have gotten them shot by Mao. Their impoverished peasantry embraced jobs in factories. They have built up a large fortune. Now it's getting to be time that they launch their own reforms.

Western Ethics

[wisnoskij]

If they want western ethics then get suppliers in countries that have laws and in general follow those rules.
Unless they are incompetent, they expect them to break Apples rules and are OK with this since they will also supply them with cheap labor.

Exactly the opposite, genius

[Weedhopper]

From page 13 of the summary report:

[quote]During most of our audits, suppliers stated that Apple was the only company that had ever audited their facility for supplier responsibility.[/quote]

IOW, other companies don't give a shit about abusive labor practices from their suppliers. They might pay lip service but no one's really doing any audits to actually check. Apple, OTOH, is going out there and digging around to make sure their suppliers are in compliance with labor and environmental standards.

New low? This is leadership in defining a more responsible way to do business.

Re:Exactly the opposite, genius

[Anonymous Coward]

From page 13 of the summary report:

[quote]During most of our audits, suppliers stated that Apple was the only company that had ever audited their facility for supplier responsibility.[/quote]

IOW, other companies don't give a shit about abusive labor practices from their suppliers.

Two things.

First, they stated that during most of the audits the supplier told them they hadn't been audited. Most is not defined here: it may have been 50.1%, with the other 49.9% of suppliers having never been audited by anyone else because they don't supply anyone else. On top of that, if the supplier had been audited by another company and found to be in breach of their standards, are they likely to tell Apple that for fear of Apple getting concerned?

Second, despite what that report implies Apple aren't the only company to do this:

"In 2008, HP conducted 129 supplier site audits...Ninety-nine of our 2008 audits were follow-up audits to measure progress in reducing nonconformances found during initial reviews...To date, we have assessed and audited (for high-risk sites) suppliers representing over 95 percent of our product materials and manufacturing spend."

"Our priorities include protecting workers’ rights, dignity and respect, raising health and safety standards, minimizing the environmental impact of producing and distributing our products, and upholding the highest standards of business ethics."

  (Taken from here and here.)

I haven't even checked if any other company does it, so who knows who else does. Bear in mind that the Apple report was written by Apple. They're not going to kick themselves in the nuts if they can help it.

Re:Exactly the opposite, genius

[kwark]

And many others, Made in China is quite interesting to watch.

Re:Exactly the opposite, genius

[Lars T.]

IOW, other companies don't give a shit about abusive labor practices from their suppliers. They might pay lip service but no one's really doing any audits to actually check. Apple, OTOH, is going out there and digging around to make sure their suppliers are in compliance with labor and environmental standards.

New low? This is leadership in defining a more responsible way to do business.

See, and that's the new low - that's just Apple marketing to make the others look bad.

Re:Exactly the opposite, genius

[Captain Splendid]

Yet again Apple is heralded on Slashdot for "inventing" something the rest of the business has been doing for years.

Bullshit. A quick text search shows that you're the only one here using the term "invent". Go build a strawman somewhere else.

Re:Exactly the opposite, genius

[Duradin]

Which part of the summary heralds Apple's invention of this idea?

Re:Exactly the opposite, genius

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Yet again Apple is heralded on Slashdot for "inventing" something the rest of the business has been doing for years.

Please provide a citation.

See EICC [eicc.info] or Dell's [dell.com] involvement in it which started in 2004.

What Apple has done differently that I see, is they actually openly published the results of their audits so others can check and so the public can see how long they keep doing business with companies that violate their code of conduct. Clearly Dell and every other company has a published code of conduct created by their PR department. So far I haven't yet found any other company that has actually published the results of an audit yet, nor what companies they have stopped doing business with. Mostly I just see weasel words like about making partners progress towards less human rights violations, which does not even make it clear if they refuse to do business with companies that make no progress and don't stop these abuses, if said companies even know about it.

I'm not even excusing Apple here. I'm just saying they took one small step towards transparency and real accountability in the industry and that deserves our praise. I'll be just as loud decrying them if in two years Apple hasn't checked back, hasn't stopped doing business with these companies, and it is discovered the unfair practices have not been stopped.

Re:Exactly the opposite, genius

[DurendalMac]

Ah, I see. Apple ignores abusive labor, they're horrible. Apple actually does something about abusive labor, and it's just for PR to shame other companies. Got it. They can't do anything right no matter what because you said so.

Re:Exactly the opposite, genius

[dgatwood]

"In 2008, HP conducted 129 supplier site audits...Ninety-nine of our 2008 audits were follow-up audits to measure progress in reducing nonconformances found during initial reviews..."

And this is why it's obvious to me that HP doesn't really care about these violations. If they were serious, then 99 of those audits would be follow-up audits to verify that all compliance problems had been corrected. If they were serious, any problems found to be uncorrected during a re-audit would result in immediate contract termination.

Without that level of teeth, Chinese suppliers will simply continue to do what they always do---ignore your code of conduct, lie to you about their compliance, and if/when they get caught, pretend that it was a misunderstanding due to the language barrier, promise to improve things, make a few very visible changes to create the appearance of compliance for the two days while your compliance person is there, and revert to SOP the very next day.

I know multiple people who regularly deal with Chinese manufacturers directly, so what sounds like cynicism in this comment is based on actual experiences. After hearing the tales they tell, I wouldn't trust any Chinese manufacturer as far as I could throw them. Unless you've either dealt with Chinese companies directly or know someone who has, you can't imagine just how untrustworthy many of these companies can be. Some of the things I've seen include:

• Agreeing to an order, then when you go to pay for it, revealing that they've licensed that technology out exclusively to another company and can't fulfill the order.
• Sometimes fulfilling the order anyway.
• Agreeing to take an order, then suddenly changing their minds without warning after another company they supply puts pressure on them.
• Manufacturing a device for you and claiming that they designed it to your schematics when it's really just an off-the-shelf circuit that they designed fro someone else a couple of years earlier (who rejected it due to severe problems and >50% initial defect rate).
• Failing to test said devices and delivering them overseas with a >50% initial defect rate.
• Using poor manufacturing processes to build a ribbon mic, resulting in a >50% rate of stretched ribbons.
• Claiming that a product comes with 12AT7 tubes, then putting cheap Chinese 12AX7 tubes in and grinding off the markings.
• Using junk pieces of scrap metal welded together for the core of a toroidal power transformer, resulting in massive EMI problems and having to basically scrap an entire lot of equipment.
• Substituting Chinese electrolytic capacitors (instead of the Japanese caps specified) with a typical life expectancy of a year.
• Substituting fake name-brand NPN transistors randomly in place of PNP transistors (which, of course, results in nonfunctional hardware, which they claimed to have tested before it left the factory on a ship bound for the U.S. a month before). I think I might even have some of these fake parts lying around my house....
• Flagrant patent violations.
• Failing to tighten screws down, resulting in nuts bouncing around loose inside equipment.
• Dropping extra washers inside equipment and leaving them there through the assembly process.

I could go on for a while like that, and that's just the crap that I or people I know *personally* have encountered. And I'm talking about some fairly sizable companies here. I'd hate to think how bad the smaller companies might be. The cost of all this deception is built into the cost of the products you buy, of course, but given the outright fraud I've seen from Chinese companies, I'd imagine most of these companies wipe their asses with copies of U.S. companies' codes of conduct.... The only way you don't get completely screwed dealing with Chinese manufacturing is to audit *everything*, audit it *regularly*, and be ruthless in enforcing codes of conduct. Anything less is a token gesture that will be summarily ignored.

Re:Exactly the opposite, genius

[LWATCDR]

Or other companies rely on the nation the factory is in to enforce their own laws?
That is honestly a valid business practice. After all do you check that every supplier of every product you buy is following any labor rules?

Of course I think the answer to this problem is to not do business with companies in countries that don't enforce even modest labor laws.

Apple could always just open factories in the US and make stuff here. In the long run it would be better for them. If you keep the money in the US the more people in the US will have more money to spend on Apple products.
Also I think made in the US might actually sell more items if they did it right.
But then I am all in favor of the idea that we have got to start making stuff again.

Mod parent down for supporting cronyism.

[sethstorm]

Not supporting such government-business relationships is not condescending at all. In a way, it is doing them a favor by providing the right incentives to end it by cutting outside support.

They aren't going to use robotics if those extra set of hands keeps them from political pursuits. That is, political pursuits that bring an already unstable country to a ill-timed(for them, well-timed for the US) regime collapse.

underage employment

[wisnoskij]

Whenever I hear underage employment I always wonder is it really all that bad?
In countries that practice it they have children starving on the streets, so no matter how bad the conditions are relative to how we would want the conditions to be I am sure the children would rather work for cents a day then to starve to death on the streets.
Now I am sure in many cases it is doing the children a favor to stop underage employment, but I always wonder how many children have starved to death because of Western ethics.

Re:underage employment

[hackingbear]

Our family was from China. When my elder brother was 14 in the late 1970's, he had to go work as a construction worker because there were not enough to eat. When I was 14 in the late 1980's, I sat in the computer lab of my middle school, fiddling with BASIC programs on 8-bit micro computers; we were not rich but we didn't have to worry about food anymore. Today, kids in cities and towns spend most of their off-school times in video games, texting on their mobile phones, and have no ambition. There are still very poor people in rural area, just like there are equal poor people in Harlem. People in this country consider everything their "rights" just like kids thinks they are entitled to the next video game console, and forgot everything has to be paid for by somebody, no matter how basic it sounds like. No doubt the country runs into trillions of debts.

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[falcon5768]

except you know, they dont charge any more than anyone else. There IS NO APPLE TAX anymore. Stop comparing POS computers to a standard Apple configuration and actually you know configure a Dell to match a Apple. You WILL be surprised.

To those who support it...

[sethstorm]

...a bad choice is not made any better if you have no alternatives.

The age wouldn't be an issue if critics didn't end up dying, and those who worked there didn't resemble the output end of a meat grinder. That's not condescending at all to ask that critics be allowed to live, and those whom work there have some actual choice in the matter.

What are you doing? These are mine!

[assemblerex]

These are my workers. They should be on my train. They're skilled ipod workers. They're essential. Essential girls. Their fingers polish the insides of ipod metal casings. How else am I to polish the inside of a 8GB ipod casing? You tell me. You tell me!

Re:What are you doing? These are mine!

[sethstorm]

(yes, I know the sarcasm)

Robots.

They'll shine them faster, better, and you don't have to kill them(since they really don't complain). They'll pay for themselves in a short time.

Save your guns for the critics outside.

Got to love weasels

[SmallFurryCreature]

"In general," Apple said in the report, "annual audits of final assembly manufacturers show continued performance improvements and better working conditions."

Or translated into English, "it used to be we didn't care, but now we have announced once a year inspections, we find that each time they get better at hiding violations from us".

I wonder what the Toyota scandal will do with all of this however. They are paying the price for random outsourcing to safe some bucks and it is costing them a fortune and decades of good will as the most reliable cheap car maker are shot to hell. (And yes I am aware that the problems occurred in the US, but that is a low wage country compared to Japan.)

When you outsource everything, what is left of your company? And once you put in place all those checks to make sure people half way across the world are working as you want them, how much have you actually saved?

Re:Got to love weasels

[sethstorm]

Your core business. At least that's what's purported to be the case. The reality is that you've dumped the accountability in the process.

I'm betting that you're also aware of Toyota Tsusho, and their Myanmar / China operations - as well as the Chinese immigrants that make those Japanese cars(in Japan, of all places).

Re:Got to love weasels

[Culture20]

You are so correct. And the "not so funny thing" about the Toyota thing is, the cars were made in America, in Kentucky or West Virginia...hummmmmmmm....Japan outsourced to us, and got "Bad workmanship" we "Outsource to India", and they become the new American dream, well all except that pesky little thing called "Child labor laws." But the way our country is going, we might all be bidding for the chance to get a B1 visa to go work in India in the next few years and take those Jobs away from those kids....

At least those kids in India live in the most enivonmentally friendly living conditions known to man.

Look at Korea

[mangu]

Free market economies are able to go from child labor and sweatshops to banks

Examples ?

South Korea is a notable example of this, because it's right next to North Korea, which shares the same culture and history, up to 1950. Then the country was split in two and each half adopted a different economic orientation. Look at the results today.

Re:Look at Korea

[sethstorm]

The chaebols/jaebols aren't much better in that regard. The underlying problem still exists, except that they have an actual choice in the matter.

Re:Look at Korea

[korean.ian]

Except South Korea doesn't have a history of using child labor. What they did do is work extremely hard to build a strong export-led industry combined with high import duties that ensured domestic production would remain high. Oh and most of those industries were given state funding (as the banks were all nationalized), and were not grown in a laissez faire free market economy.
Prior to Japanese colonization, Korea would have used children to help in the farms (much like on American farms), but not in factories, because they were primarliy an agrarian society.

Re:Look at Korea

[mangu]

and most of those industries were given state funding (as the banks were all nationalized), and were not grown in a laissez faire free market economy.

So, if you think that's the reason for the comparative prosperity of South Korea, then I guess North Korea has private banks and a laissez faire economy, right?

Re:Look at Korea

[korean.ian]

you do understand the difference between a laissez faire free market economy and a market economy don't you? This is basic Korean history post-Korean war. Park Jung-Hee nationalised the banks and directed capital flows to the companies he thought had the best chances of producing products for export in a competitive manner.
North Korea has no export led industry, and no market economy at all (actually that's not entirely true, there is a very very very small internal market experiment being conducted, but it is only at farmer's market level).

Bring back the jobs to the US!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all nice of Apple, but why not giving 133,000 jobs to Americans that need them.

I am happy a 15 years old is not going to be exploited in China, but I would be happier seeing Apple being a true American corporate and not a hypocrite firm that outsources jobs overseas

Re:Bring back the jobs to the US!

[OzPeter]

This is all nice of Apple, but why not giving 133,000 Jobs to Americans that need them.

What American in their right mind would want their own Steve Jobs? And how the hell did Steve manage to clone himself 132,999 times without anyone noticing?

Re:Bring back the jobs to the US!

[Fnkmaster]

Ummm, seriously? Assuming the average fully laden cost of a US worker is $50,000 a year, you are talking about $6-$7 billion dollars in direct labor costs here in the US. But now your factories need to be built here in the US, you need US land, factory equipment and machines sourced in the US (these can be 3-4 times more expensive than the equivalent sourced in China), you raw materials have to be sourced here, and you need to maintain larger inventories of components that are still only made in Asia. I would imagine that this would add at least $12-15 billion dollars in total cost to Apple's business, perhaps even more (direct labor costs usually are less than half the cost difference between manufacturing in the US and manufacturing in Asia). Their EBITDA is currently around $14B, and net income is about $9B. You have now taken a highly profitable company and made it into another large American manufacturing company selling lots of product but hemorrhaging *billions* of dollars a year. Just like our auto industry.

Anyway, just pointing out how the economics work. There's a reason relatively little manufacturing is done in the US anymore, except for highly taxed and protected industries like defense or aerospace, high end or luxury niches, and products where the value/volume ratio makes it unprofitable to manufacture abroad and ship to the US.

Re:Bring back the jobs to the US!

[Fnkmaster]

No, I was talking about the *average*, *fully laden* cost of your staff in a manufacturing operation. I'm assuming an average salary of something like $35k. By the time you finish paying payroll taxes, health insurance, benefits, and so on, you are easily at $50k. The standard practice is to add about 50% to the base salary to account for these other costs when doing budgeting, probably slightly more now that health insurance costs have gone up so much.

Even in rural areas where manufacturing still occurs in the US, I'd say $25-30k is the minimum you can pay a semi-skilled, decent factory worker. And you need a mix to make a factory run of manufacturing engineers, skilled technicians, HR personnel, managers and the like who all get paid more like $45k-$75k depending on their background (again, not including benefits, etc.). So that's where I get $35k as an average figure.

Maybe the average would be slightly lower in Canada, but I'm not really confident that's the case when taxes and everything else are taken into account. And in any case, the point here was about US labor costs vs. Asia labor costs and what it would cost a company to move this scale of manufacturing to the US.

Re:Bring back the jobs to the US!

[Animats]

There's a reason relatively little manufacturing is done in the US anymore,

The US, with a third of China's population, still does more manufacturing than China. US manufacturing output is still over twice that of China. US manufacturing employment, though, continues to drop. Manufacturing automation works very well today.

Re:Bring back the jobs to the US!

[Fnkmaster]

Read my post again, and you'll see I mentioned what sort of manufacturing *does* occur in the US. I do have some experience with manufacturing for big box retailers in the US, and know what companies and segments still make stuff here in the US. Of all the consumer goods out there, it's basically niches. Most mass market retailers buy stuff in Asia and don't even want to talk to you if you make stuff in the US anymore. Buyers want to meet with their suppliers in China. Hell, if you want to buy plastic molding machinery or any number of other major manufacturing equipment types in the US, you basically have to get second hand equipment because the people who used to make the manufacturing equipment have gone out of business and the market has been so flooded recently with second hand equipment that you have to go that route to be competitive.

And as for automation, yes, the only companies that manufacture in the US rely heavily on automation. However, you have to generally load up with debt to finance all that equipment for automation, and you still have very carefully cost out automation investments relative to what an Asian competitor spends on labor. In other words, your volume has to be high enough for the allocated cost per unit added by your automation machinery is less than the labor cost of a Chinese guy turning a wrench, or else Chinese competition will put you out of business. So yes, automation works, but it works much better in some industries than in others.

Furthermore, I have seen these statistics before and I highly suspect that they vastly misrepresent the amount of manufacturing activity going on in the US relative to a place like China. If manufacturing output in measured in dollars, but every dollar spent here on manufacturing could be replaced by 10-20 cents spent in Asia, the measure will be inherently distortive.

Additionally, if you look at the National Association of Manufacturer's data, the largest manufacturing industries in the US as of 2007 are Chemical and Food/Beverage/Tobacco products. Not what you traditionally think of as manufacturing at all. The chemical industry has no assembly work to speak of and is very automatable (thus its strength in the US). Food/Beverage/Tobacco has fairly strong economic barriers to import (not that there aren't plenty of imported foods and beverages, it's just hard to import cost effectively to compete with bulk market goods). The next category down is computer and electronics - which has gone from 14% to 8% of the US manufacturing output in the last 7 years. After that is fabricated metal products, then machinery, then motor vehicles. And I'd be willing to guess fabricated metal products and machinery consists in large part of companies that service the defense, aerospace and automative industries (which are highly protected industries), however I haven't been able to find information on that.

Finally, we are now only the 3rd largest manufacturing exporter in the world, after the EU (combined exports out of EU) and China.

See the NAM's report for the source of my statistics.

Anyway, the basic difference in interpretation is that I don't believe that all manufacturing in the US has magically become super-efficient. Rather, it's that only the manufacturing that was easy to automate or legally or structually protected has stayed here in the US, and I think the statistics seem to back me up on this. The stuff that couldn't be easily automated has moved to places with lower labor costs.

Re:Bring back the jobs to the US!

[celle]

"high end or luxury niches"

Have you seen the prices for apple's garbage? They are a luxury niche.

sarcasm/ I see chasing the cheapest worker has produced real security, product quality, and stability of any kind. And why do you think that we can't get parts except from overseas, eh? It's not like the technical know how doesn't exist here, just the financial balls don't. /sarcasm

Re:Bring back the jobs to the US!

[cyber-vandal]

So between the time when manufacturing workers from the developed world managed to get a decent standard of living and the time when manufacturing companies moved to outsourcing, how did any manufacturing industries make any money?

Re:Bring back the jobs to the US!

[Fnkmaster]

Well, in part, there were a plethora of retailers. Without huge amounts of retailer concentration, manufacturers were in a significantly stronger position to squeeze enough gross margin in that they could turn a profit. These days any industry that sells products principally at retail has to deal with the massive amount of retailer concentration we now have in the US, and increasingly, in most of the developed world, and the retailers can essentially beat the profit out of the manufacturers by simply threatening to go to an alternative source. This even seems to apply if you've got a strong brand in your product category - because the retailers will say "fuck you, we'll just put our own brand on a product made by some Chinese no-name manufacturer if you don't give us the price we demand and give up any profits".

This leaves manufacturers today to make a profit on the ever-shrinking segment of business that isn't large, consolidated retailers.

And your fallacy is assuming that manufacturing companies are behind the push to make stuff in other countries. In some industries that may be the case, but in many cases, the retailers have pushed it down their throats ("if we can't buy it from you in China, we'll buy it from a Chinese company in China").

Companies like Apple, of course, defy this trend because they simply reject doing business with the big box retailers out there and sell directly. Yes, and now Apple has their own retail channel too in the Apple Stores.

But you have to have a REALLY strong brand and a REALLY differentiated product to just bypass retailers entirely. Apple can do that, most other products in most other consumer-focused industry segments can't.

Re:Bring back the jobs to the US!

[cyber-vandal]

So how did Apple make any money before they outsourced to China?

Apple admits using subtle and precise child labour

[David Gerard]

In its annual supplier report, Apple has admitted that its Chinese factories have employed children to build its gadgets. "Ones with a particularly refined sense of aesthetics."

Apple revealed the sweatshop conditions inside the factories it uses. The child workers were found in a facility with high vaulted ceilings, elegantly crafted marble work benches and a classical quartet playing in the background in a corner of the floor. Young geniuses sat in their Aerons and levitated components into place with the powers of the mind, burning the famed Apple logo into the back of the assembled device with but a glance of terrifying but controlled power. Some lunches, with only an hour's break, would involve wines of less than ten years' vintage.

Competitors were outraged. "We are shocked, shocked to hear of Apple's ruthless exploitation of the chilll-drennn," said Steve Ballmer of Microsoft. "But then, what do you expect when they actually ask their suppliers about this stuff. Don't ask, don't tell! That's what made the 360 great!"

Apple's Chinese manufacturing facilities were the site of controversy last year when one young worker at Foxconn, who had teleported an iPhone home overnight, was found to have committed suicide by leaping from the top of the building, first breaking his own neck, and tearing out all his own fingernails on the way down. He was found with Apple logos carved into his back, obviously also self-inflicted. "A tragedy," said the report.

This is pretty callous, even for Slashdot.

[sackvillian]

I love cracking jokes about children being forced to make our crap and defending sweatshop labour as much as the next guy, but some of the comments on this story have my stomach turning. If the choice is between having families out of work and having them work for little money, then fine; run the factories. But that is a very selective framing of this issue and is utterly uninformative. The developed world (not "the West", which is a meaningless term) and our corporations interact with the third world in an extremely complex way which the above scenario completely oversimplifies.

Between extremes of us taking advantage of cheap labour, and us setting the scene for that cheap labour to exist, we are far closer to the latter option. See the progress of the IMF and the World Bank for examples.

I know the rebuttal: Well, how would you feel about paying 10x as much for your electronics !11!!1 But even if costs would escalate that high - and they wouldn't because employing our own workers instead would have loads of offsetting, positive effects for our economies and increasing salaries for impoverished workers by a factor of 10 only increases total costs by a portion of that - I'm more comfortable with that than saying that some people's lives are essentially worthless because of where they're born. And I suspect that if consumers were forced to really consider how their dollars 'supported' poor economies, maybe if all stores had to show in-store videos of their factories chugging along, then paying a little more for a higher quality product and higher quality lives wouldn't seem so bad.

Re:This is pretty callous, even for Slashdot.

[phantomfive]

I'm going to say that the proper rebuttal is that factories are actually helping third world countries. I say this based on what I've actually seen in third world countries. The wages tend to be a little lower than average, but they are livable. They give the workers experience, and a step up from subsistence farming (unless you like subsistence farming, then you could consider it a step down). These are people who have to learn extremely basic skills, like how to wake up on time, and how to keep a schedule.

Furthermore no one is forced to work there. A lot of people treat it like an entry-level job, and then move on after a few years. I've never heard anyone complain that there are more employment opportunities than they need.

How about the others?

[Mordac the Preventer]

Do any of the other manufacturers of consumer electronics do this kind of audit?

Re:Code of conduct?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

So Apple is to give a new code of conduct for it's suppliers, I too have a code of conduct, "Don't buy Apple products." I think mine trumps Apple's code of conduct, whatever their PR department says.

So you buy your computer hardware from companies that do not have an enforced code of conduct for labor overseas thereby contributing to horrible human rights abuses? Seriously, I want to know who you buy hardware from and why you think that is less evil.

Re:Thank you Slashdot...

[mdwh2]

It's the standard rule for Apple. If they do something, or if there's even a mere rumour about a new product, it gets reported wildly by the media, with tonnes of hype and sensationalism, even if there have been other actual products doing the same for years beforehand.

You can't have it both ways, and go crying when it backfires. Let's wait for the special pleading now - "It doesn't matter that Apple weren't the first to employ child slaves, the point is that they were the ones to popularise it"...

Re:With the mac pro costing about $1000-$1100 more

[jedidiah]

My "workstation" doesn't require a needlessly expensive CPU. It actually works out much better overall that way.

My $600 machine does a whole lot more than Apple's $600 machine that way.

For what Apple charges, they could build their machines in the US or Europe.

All of this happened before...

[Mark19960]

Did they not get caught doing this same crap, and sing the same tune a few years back?
I seem to remember this from 2 or 3 years ago... same tune... do it again and we won't do business with you.
Apple is full of hot air... who will make their Chinese overpriced computers for them if they don't use these suppliers?

Stuff like this: http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2006/06/71138

Ya.. Apple is really going to do something about it this time for sure... mmhmmm.....

Re:All of this happened before...

[Mark19960]

READ. i said they got CAUGHT 3 years ago.
So what if they admitted it this time..... what are they going to do about it?
They released this same code of conduct 3 years ago and they are STILL doing it...

I am biased because these bastards repeat the same nonsense over and over.. 'we did something... we did something...'
Yet it continues.
The audit was done to keep Dick Durbin off their asses, he is sniffing pretty close.

Business as usual...

[Plekto]

"they condemned the violations and threatened to terminate their business with facilities that did not change their ways.

In other words, no change at all. Just enough press coverage and feigned outrage to cover themselves and shift the blame if required to do so at a later date. But nobody got fired. Nor did any contract get canceled.

Re:Business as usual...

[gnasher719]

In other words, no change at all. Just enough press coverage and feigned outrage to cover themselves and shift the blame if required to do so at a later date. But nobody got fired. Nor did any contract get canceled.

If you had read Apple's report, you would have known that this is wrong. One of the companies that got caught _did_ have their contract cancelled. And $2.2 million got paid to workers who had been charged unfair fees by employment agencies.

Re:Business as usual...

[Plekto]

I have read it and the number of companies with severe problems is actually over a hundred, total. *One* got canceled and the rest were essentially "warned" not to do it any more. I'm just simply not impressed with the lack of teeth in their policies. The report reads like typical corporate BS as well, showing that they are "tough" by having one token supplier face real sanctions. The wage issue also implies that they only covered wages where they were legally required to do so by the countr(ies) in question(charging fees to get jobs).

***
At 60 facilities, we found records that indicated workers
had exceeded weekly work-hour limits more than 50 percent of the time.
Similarly, at 65 facilities, more than half of the records we reviewed indicated
that workers had worked more than six consecutive days at least once
per month. To address these issues, we required each facility to develop
management systems--or improve existing systems--to drive compliance
with Apple's limits on work hours and required days of rest.
***
In essence, no money or back wages were paid - just a slap on the wrist and corporate "programs". That 2.2 million only was in the case of agencies requiring fees, which was illegal under those countries' laws.(but evidently where labor laws are lose, they did nothing)

My point in all of this is that Apple is just like any of the other billion dollar plus companies out there. Now, if they were up front about it like most of them are, that would be fine. But I do get seriously tired of seeing them try to pass themselves off as some sort of "moral" or "upstanding" company that's faultless and pure.

What a surprise!

[Dr_Ken]

I am shocked, (shocked!) to discover capitalists exploiting people for their own profits! Shocked I tell you!

Re:What a surprise!

[Duradin]

In Rand Land profit is the Prophet and the Prophet says greed is the only good.

Kudos and Catcalls

[assertation]

Catcalls:
Um, if you outsource your business to the 3rd world you know from the start your workers will not be treated like kings.

Kudos:
Apple HAS *some* standards and DID something about it. You can't say that about too many businesses, especially IT businesses, these days.

Re:Kudos and Catcalls

[Mark19960]

Yeah... same bullshit 3 years ago...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13357555/

What happened to that code of conduct 3 years ago?

Re:Kudos and Catcalls

[Swift2001]

I think if we looked through our businesses, I believe you would find a lot of workers mistreated.

Re:Kudos and Catcalls

[assertation]

If you mean offended or treated unfairly, the U.S. labor force lives on planet Earth.

If you mean child labor, slave labor, sweatshop labor or living in squalor you will have to go to Asia, like Apple did, to find it.

I'm not singling Apple out. If this story is more than public relations they care, at least a bit.

However, if their standards of ethics were their first concern, they would be doing their manufacturing in their home country, not exporting it to the 3rd world.

Yawn

[deblau]

Apple "condemned" and "threatened". Big deal. Wake me up when they actually fire someone.

Re:Yawn

[Jerry Rivers]

Wake up and RTF report.

"In one instance, Apple's 2008 audit had revealed falsified records for working hours and days of rest. When Apple returned in 2009 for a core violation reaudit, the facility again falsified records--presenting worker timecards, daily production output records, and quality control records that indicated no violations related to working hours or days of rest. When Apple investigated further, we uncovered additional records and conducted worker interviews that revealed excessive working hours and seven days of continuous work. When confronted with this information, the facility provided Apple with accurate timecards. Based on the repeat core violation and inadequate actions, Apple is terminating all business with this facility."

That's normal...

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

I don't think apple would have a problem with documented 16-year-olds working 2-8 hours a week while they were doing well at school. This has to do with kids working full time or more, particularly if under terrible working conditions. In terms of safe disposal, it has other implications with terrible health effects for certain destitute communities. (Google it.)

Re:That's normal...

[DarkKnightRadick]

Probably not, though lately I'm not entirely convinced the current structure of the education system in at least the U.S. (the only one I have any experience or knowledge about) really prepares anyone to be anything but sheeple, but that is really besides the point.

Kudo's to Apple either way.

Hypocritical crap

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Almost everything you eat, wear or buy comes from overseas, where child labor, or slave labor conditions exist.

Slavery has never been eliminated, only renamed and exported where we wouldn't have to look at it, or more importantly, pay for it.

Apple suddenly realizing this is like suddenly noticing that the sky is blue. All the rest is PR kaka.

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[DurendalMac]

Sooo...Apple tells these guys to shape up or ship out and that makes them even lower? You wouldn't happen to own a Chinese sweatshop, would you?

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[DurendalMac]

They did cut off a factory for falsifying records to cover up violations. Also, when was the last time ANY company did this? I guarantee you that a great deal of products in your home were made by sweatshops, child labor, indentured workers, etc. What are all these other companies doing about it?

I don't care what the reasons are. I'm glad that SOMEONE is doing something and that hopefully this will galvanize other companies into doing the same.

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[trapnest]

Oh how I wish I could mod you up, but I used my points yesterday. Also honestly I don't think dell's quality of components is as high as apple's.

Market Economics 101

[mangu]

We know why children labor -- because the rich aren't willing to pay enough for a man to feed his family under his own pay

No, it's because the middle class would rather pay $30 for a DVD player instead of $300.

Using cheap labor allows you to make cheaper products which sell more. It's as simple as that.

Without this regulation against the free market, the market would drive its labor force to death and into animal-like stupidity.

Henry Ford did not agree. He insisted on paying enough so his workers could afford to buy the cars they built.

Unfortunately, this simple market economics does not work when there are foreign governments that have no interest in letting their own people prosper too much. By keeping their currency artificially low and import tariffs high, they allow their export products to have lower prices at the expense of costlier imports.

In the long run, this policy is totally insane for the country. I wonder where China would be today if their people could buy the products they export. Only one thing I'm sure of, it would not be the Communist party in power.

Re:With the mac pro costing about $1000-$1100 more

[JonJ]

I wish there was a -1 Idiot mod.

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[trapnest]

It's a bit unfair to say that -all- Chinese manufacturers are like that.

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[trapnest]

Good job bro. I have never seen more people take a troll post seriously. A+ would lol again.

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[node 3]

except you know, they dont charge any more than anyone else. There IS NO APPLE TAX anymore. Stop comparing POS computers to a standard Apple configuration and actually you know configure a Dell to match a Apple. You WILL be surprised.

And you *still* won't get the Dell to match the Mac in terms of screen quality, battery life, thinness, sturdiness, etc.

But I guess those things are simply the "aesthetics" and "form over function" that people keep trying to pretend are unimportant or something...

Hmm, 15?

[mrwolf007]

15 year old "kids" working is child labour?
I also worked in the school holidays at that age.
Anyone even considered that they may already have finished school?
Depending on the school-system (entering at age 5 and having 8-9 years of school) they may well be lucky to get a job straight after school.

Re:Hmm, 15?

[iamhassi]

Why is this marked flamebait? I'm sorry, but when I think "child labor" I imagine 6 yr olds, not 15 yr olds. I got my first real job (fast food is real) at 16 and I could have worked at 15 if they would have let me. Article doesn't say if they're putting in 40 hr weeks, and they only found 11 examples out of how many? I think marking this as child labor is a little extreme.

Re:Hmm, 15?

[Khashishi]

not sure why this is considered flamebait.... sure seems like a valid point to me. What age can you start bagging groceries, or flipping burgers?

Re:Hmm, 15?

[mrwolf007]

Well,
here in germany you can start working after having finished school. For the lower education levels this can be as low as 14.
Ideally that would be an apprenticeship, but in these times a lot of people arent picky.

Ok, i didnt RTFA, but this sounds more like propaganda or maybe even a way for apple to get out of contracts on moral grounds.

Re:Hmm, 15?

[Rubinstien]

Have to agree here, though there are limits on the hours you can work. I started getting my first regular paycheck at age 12, working for a farmer castrating sheep, mending fences, and herding cattle and such. I started driving around that time too, since in Indiana you can drive without a license for farm work (at least you could then, I have not checked recently). I am 40 now, I've only been without a job for two weeks since I was 12. And thanks to Reagan, I started out working *below* minimum wage, since the laws were changed at that time so that employers did not have to honor minimum wage laws for under-age workers.

Re:Hmm, 15?

[MrResistor]

A good friend of mine is Chinese. She was out supporting herself at age 14, digging ditches on a road crew. China has levels of poverty that can't really be comprehended by most westerners. Her family couldn't afford to feed her, much less pay for her schooling, so what should she have done? Sat at home and starved until she reached whatever age Steve Jobs deems acceptable for her to work? A lot of Chinese kids are in that same boat.

Me, I started working summers in construction at age 12. Later I went into electronics, and worked my way up the ladder as a technician. I took a 30% pay cut when I did that, but I knew in the long run it was a better choice. Whatever job those kids are now getting fired from, it's probably a lot better than the alternatives available to them. So, is Apple really doing The Right Thing here, or is this nothing but a bunch of ignorant white folks sitting on moral high horses?

RTFA

[PNutts]

... or read the book "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair.

This goes much further than hiring a 15 year old. Here's a couple of excerpts:

"The minimum age for employment or work shall be 15 years of age, the minimum age for employment in that
country, or the age for completing compulsory education in that country, whichever is higher." - It is the local standards enforced.

"Except in emergency or unusual situations, a workweek shall be restricted to 60 hours,
including overtime, and workers shall take at least one day off every seven-days. All overtime
shall be voluntary."

It goes on an on to specify things like safety guards on equipment, safety clothing, drinking water, toilets, etc. Things I've had even at my worst job.

Here's a generic description: "A sweatshop is a workplace where workers are subjected to extreme exploitation, including the lack of a living wages or benefits, poor and dangerous working conditions, and harsh and unnecessary discipline, such as verbal and physical abuse. Sweatshop workers are paid less than their daily expenses, thus they are never able to save any money to invest in their futures. They are trapped in a never-ending cycle (Embar, pars. 2-5)." and "Children between the ages of 10 to 16 are working up to 14 hours a day in factories in Shenzhen. It was also recorded that girls work in awful conditions for 13 to 14 hours a day from 7 a.m.- 10 p.m. with two one-hour breaks. "

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[node 3]

You do realize that they did nothing to these suppliers?

Wrong.

Do you also realize that Dick Durbin is all over them about this right now, hence the audit?

Them, and 29 other high profile companies.

It has been almost 4 years since they started this 'code of conduct' BS.

Wait, I thought you said they just started this right now in response to Durbin?

Yet the violations continue..... think about that for a minute.

Of course they do. It's China. But they don't continue with Apple's consent. It's like saying, "there are laws against murder, yet murders still continue... think about that for a minute."

They audit, it gets Durbin off of them.. he is happy.

Again, they've been at this for four years. It's very clever of them to have allocated precious resources to their time machine to go back to 2006 and start this process, all to appease one Senator.

Business goes on as usual.... what has Apple actually DONE here but make some baseless threats, the same ones they made back in 2006.

You're absolutely correct. A Code of Conduct is an unassailable mechanism that instantly forces all who are subject to it into compliance. It's truly magical that way.

Here's the thing. This Code of Conduct applies to other companies. Sure they may agree to it, but that doesn't mean they are going to follow it. That's why Apple audits them, and takes action as necessary. But don't forget, this are independent third parties, who operate in a different nation with a different culture than Apple's, and are not going to change their standard practices just on someone else's say so. It's going to have to harm them financially (or legally, but in China, we can pretty much ignore that aspect regarding the current topic). Apple can only do so much, and what they *can* do, they are doing *something*, which is far more than can be said for their competitors.

It's ironic that Apple is being taken to task for doing the right thing and looking into the human rights practices of their suppliers, instead of turning a blind eye like everyone else. It's like blaming a doctor for finding cancer, because he actually performs the tests, and giving the doctors who don't a pass...

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[Swift2001]

I'll bet the same people so eager to condemn Apple for actually trying to live up to its responsibilities on a voluntary basis would also decry a government regulation that attempted to regulate this on a less-than voluntary way. And anybody want to bet that the low-cost manufacturers would be the worse offenders? The race to the bottom, indeed. The truth is, Apple does all right in any neutral ranking. Could be better, but they've made a lot of progress. http://www.rankabrand.com/

Re:Apple admits using subtle and precise child lab

[TheSync]

Apple revealed the sweatshop conditions inside the factories it uses. The child workers were found in a facility with high vaulted ceilings, elegantly crafted marble work benches and a classical quartet playing in the background in a corner of the floor.

Yes, and after the kids were thrown out of the factory, they went back to spending all day in a rice paddy with water up to their waist in both in winter and in summer, working sun-up to sunset.

Unfair to young people

[joeyblades]

15 years old is not too young to work, as long as the work is voluntary.

I got my first real job working at a gas station when I was 14 , but before that I was mowing lawns, shoveling snow, putting up hay, digging ditches, and probably a dozen other truly backbreaking activities. I did all of this because I wanted things that I couldn't afford if I didn't work. Things like a guitar and amplifier. Then later a car and gasoline. It would have sucked if I couldn't have worked when I was a kid.

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[minorproblem]

Outside the US this is a different matter. I can get something pretty much equivalent to the 17" macbook Pro from dell (the dell will have a better screen RGBLED) for about half the price of the macbook, as Apple plays funny games with the exchange rate..

http://store.apple.com/au/configure/MC226X/A?mco=MTM3NzYzNjY
http://configure.ap.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=s541210au&c=au&l=en&s=dhs&cs=audhs1

Yes, let's look at Korea

[Weedhopper]

What about Korea?

South Korea has historically retarded the entry of younger peoples into the workforce via an emphasis on compulsory education.

If anything, South Korea is would be one of the better examples for why widespread child labor is not a necessary stage for rapid industrial development. In 1955, South Korea had a per capita GDP lower than that of most African nations. 55 years later, it is among the largest economies in the world and one that is knowledge based, at that.

All without a significant child labor as a path out of poverty phase.

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[tempest69]

I saw that and was totally going to call BS, as upgrading from a standard configuration was abusive to the bank account. Seems that they have changed it where upgrades are a reasonable proposition, though they have reduced the number of intermediate upgrades, so no 1.5tb drive option on the 27" imac..
I really like some aspects of the MACs and really dislike other parts, Ive seen too many iMac's die to consider them superior quality. And the power plug for the laptop is kinda fragile for my liking.Though with a mac a linux box and a windows box all in arms reach for 3 years, I did find myself working more at the mac. I managed to get all three to lock up on a regular basis.
Storm

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[node 3]

Yeah, anything that has to do with fluctuating prices, Apple tends to just pick a set price and stay with it for a while before updating it. Foreign stores, RAM and HD add-ons, and models that haven't been updated for a while, are all affected by this.

On the topic of RGBLED, Apple's LED gets 90% gamut coverage (vs. the 45%-75% gamut of other technologies). I assume the Dell RGBLED is closer to, if not actually at, 100%. I just wanted to point out that Apple's LED backlighting is better than what a lot of people might be thinking when comparing with other white LEDs.

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[syousef]

Has any Apple supplier actually had their contract terminated? Or is Apple just charging them a little more for doing business? Unless Apple is dong that and putting this money back towards the people that have been affected, this just amounts to Apple profiteering from the infractions that it purports to be fighting.

Re:Apple admits using subtle and precise child lab

[David Gerard]

But the rice! Each grain! Exquisite!

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[Khashishi]

yeah, just all the ones that western businesses will outsource to

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[node 3]

Apple is in complete control of this situation. They control who gets the contracts to build the goods.

No, they aren't. There are two specific ways in which they aren't.

1. They cannot, I repeat, CAN NOT, control third parties. They can make demands and threats, but they can not control them.

2. They can only choose from available third parties. If they cancel a contract with everyone who violates some rule, and everyone violates some rule, they can not build their product. Alternatively, if they find someone who does not break this rule, but costs significantly more than someone who does, they can make their product, but cannot sell it.

It's all about the profits, and how to maximize them most efficiently. Nothing more, nothing less.

No, it's not. If it was just about profits, they wouldn't have a code of conduct at all.

Every business in existence is run by humans. Humans are not purely rational beings. The idea that we are, and thus always seek to maximize profits also implies that profits are always rational. Now that's *two* flaws with your assertion about profits.

So, these people make choices. *Some* choices are about maximizing profits. *Some* choices are about making the product they wish to see exist. *Some* choices are based on the morals and politics of the people involved. *Some* choices are based on nothing other than whim. *Some* choices are based on the idea of staying out of jail, or being able to sleep at night, or not having your family hate you, etc.

In other words, the notion that all choices are based on profits is absurd.

Why don't they just....

[uvajed_ekil]

...manufacture their junk in their home country and largest market if they want to enforce US standards? Oh wait, they don't want to meet us pay standards, just appear that they give a crap.

The Irony is that Apple violates its own laws by..

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

by... employing people in countries that do violate these standards. Apple, the solution is simple.. Employ more Americans.

Pro and Anti Apple, Google, MS, LINUX, etc

[Danathar]

Fact of the matter is it does not matter WHAT Apple prints or says or whatever. Many will simply ignore whatever they see as true or not depending on if it supports or contradicts their idea of what reality actually is.

The Trolls on all sides eat this stuff up.

Re:Code of conduct?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Dell and HP, like Apple, have long standing codes of required conduct for suppliers, but to my knowledge neither has ever published he results of an audit of those suppliers nor publicly taken any action to provide those providers with incentive to not abuse human rights. How then are either company any better? In fact, Dell and HP both share a large number of chinese suppliers with Apple (according to the Telegraph article) and have announced nothing about requiring them to change their practices.

Hexane contamination - is Apple to blame?

[UBfusion]

According to a recent Globalpost article (http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/china-and-its-neighbors/100225/silicon-sweatshops-apple), at least 62 workers are sick from toxic chemical exposure while handling hexane, which is used to clean the TFT screens used in Apple (and Nokia) products.

If Apple makes efforts to circumvent the Westerners' ethical problem of child labor, shouldn't they make hundredfold efforts to ensure that proper safety precautions are used in these factories?

Re:Code of conduct?

[Jerry Rivers]

Really? Lets have a look at their reports.

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[batkiwi]

You chose the dell with a 15.6" screen vs an apple with a 17" screen. Going to a 16" dell would add $300 (still 1" short) to the dell, or going to a 15" macbook would save you $300. So lets say add 300 to the dell (now up to $2000).

On top of that, and this is part of your point, apple macbook pros haven't been updated in over 9 months. Their pricing was set 9 months ago. When they (hopefully soon) release their new macbook pro 17's it will likely meet or beat dell's pricing on the same equipment (for that month). 6 months later, we're back to that problem...

I do agree that here in the AU we get screwed pretty hardcore by apple's "set and forget" pricing (great for us if $ is high, horrible if $ is low, for the single day a product is released).

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[Doggabone]

And the power plug for the laptop is kinda fragile for my liking.

Are you referring to that magnetic connection? It depends on the person, I think. I'm not much for it, but I've got a friend who RAVES about it, it's probably her favourite feature. She's tripping over the cord almost every time she gets up off the couch, and assumes - probably rightly - that it's saved her laptop some serious damage by now. Not owning one myself, I don't have an opinion of my own but I think it's a pretty clever design and it does fit into that "just works" ideal that Apple keeps presenting.

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[Meski]

Configure the Dell Alienware 17x and you'd come out in front. I still think I like my model better (Dell 1730xps) although it's a year or so old now.

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[black_lbi]

Man, the fan-boys are out guns blazing.

You are in fact paying more for the privilege of running Apple's OSX. With all the recent problems (imacs with yellow, flickering screens; mac pros struggling to play audio and overheating) I fail to see the high quality standards which everybody here applauds.
Just give me any Mac configuration (laptop or desktop) and I'll match it with better performance and lower price. The only problem is you won't be able to run OSX on it (not legally anyway; nor hassle free).

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[Taibhsear]

I've never understood this. It's a laptop. Unless she's sitting on the couch for 4+ hours at a time why is the laptop even plugged in? The only time my laptop is plugged in is when it is sitting on my desk, turned off and recharging. I've seen several of my friends doing this as well and it's always boggled my mind. The cord should never be in a place capable of being tripped on. (LAN party the only exception and even then it's pushing it...)

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[wealthychef]

Just give me any Mac configuration (laptop or desktop) and I'll match it with better performance and lower price.

Go ahead, pick one yourself and prove it.
Personally, I've always been happy to pay a "Mac tax" for the same reason I pay an "Acura tax" instead of buying a Honda.

Re:Apple reaches a new low

[wealthychef]

I find it ironic that in a command and control kind of political system, where the government is supposed to take care of its citizens and protect them against the ravages of capitalist unfairness, you have rampant worker abuse.