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Some Critics Suggest Apple Boycott Over Chinese Working Conditions
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that Apple's image is taking a dive after revelations in the NY Times about working conditions in the factories of some of its network of Chinese suppliers and the dreaded word 'boycott' has started to appear in media coverage of Apple's activities. 'Should consumers boycott Apple?' asked a column in the Los Angeles Times as it recounted details of the bad PR fallout amid detailed allegations that workers at Foxconn suffered in conditions that resembled a modern version of bonded labor, working obscenely long shifts in unhealthy conditions with few of the labor rights that workers in the west would take for granted." Read on, below.
Pickens continues: "But Apple has come out fighting, which is no surprise given the remarkable success that the company has seen in recent years with its reputation for 'cool' among hip urban professionals and a generally positive corporate image. In a lengthy email sent to Apple staff, chief executive Tim Cook met the allegations head-on. 'We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain. Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern,' Cook said. He went on to slam critics of the company. 'Any suggestion that we don't care is patently false and offensive to us ... accusations like these are contrary to our values.' So will we see some kind of movement to boycott Apple products, akin to the campaign several years ago to pressure Nike to improve working conditions in its factories asks Sam Gustin in Time Magazine? "You can either manufacture in comfortable, worker-friendly factories, or you can reinvent the product every year, and make it better and faster and cheaper, which requires factories that seem harsh by American standards," an anonymous current Apple executive told the Times. "And right now, customers care more about a new iPhone than working conditions in China.""
Actually, it wasn't very nice of the NY Times to not put the stats they used to suggest a boycott of Apple into any sort of context. So I'll do that for them ...
18 suicides per million workers at Foxconn? OK, that's very sad, but the Chinese national average is 220 per million. More than 12X higher.
7 fatal workplace injuries per million workers at Foxconn? Agains, tragic. But the US(!) national average is 35. 5X more.
Average salary for production workers at Foxconn only $6,000? To us privileged Westerners, that seems like a pittance. The average for China as a whole? $4,500 or 25% less than Foxconn workers.
I'm not suggesting that Foxconn is a dream job, without harsh conditions etc etc. But to not provide context for your statistics is disingeous at best, and deliberately dishonest at worst. And what, exactly, would a boycott actually do?
DaveyJJ
Did you read the NYT article?
You didn't? I'm shocked.
If you had, you would have realised that the other tech companies often pay these manufacturers more money to be spent on improving work conditions, whereas Apple chooses to squeeze them for every dirty brown penny, which inevitably leads to cuts in worker pay and conditions.
If you'd read the article you would also know that whilst Apple has a very pretty code of conduct for their suppliers, it is common for them to simply ignore infractions of that code of conduct, with fewer than 15 suppliers terminated for non-compliance since 2007, even though there are scores of the most serious breaches of that code of conduct recorded every year.
Apple does a lot of talking about worker safety, but they don't do a whole lot of walking.
Walled Gardens. This keeps getting touted as a negative. Are you fucking kidding? I LOVE Apple's walled garden!
I'm a Flash developer fed up with Chinese sites tearing our games off our site and hosting them for free.
Where else can I go to make a game by myself, sell it, and not have a cracked version appear on pirate bay shortly after?
If not to buy Apple, what’s the substitute – Samsung? Don’t you know that Samsung’s products are from its OEM factory in Tianjin? Samsung workers’ income and benefits are even worse than those at Foxconn. If not to buy iPad – (do you think) I will buy Android Pad? Have you ever been to the OEM factories for Lenovo and ASUS? Quanta, Compaq factories of other companies are all worse than those for Apple. Not to buy iPod – (do you think) I will buy Aigo, Meizu? Do you know that Aigo’s Shenzhen factory will not pay their workers until the 19th of the second month? If you were to quit, fine, I’m sorry, your salary will be withdrawn. Foxconn never dares to do such things. First, their profit margin is higher than peers as they manufacture for Apple. Second, at least those foreign devils will regularly audit factories. Domestic brands will never care if workers live or die. I am not speaking for Foxconn. I am just speaking as an insider of this industry, and telling you some disturbing truth. — Anonymous.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/chinese-readers-on-the-ieconomy/
The Economist ran an article about China's balance of trade last week which included a breakdown of the value (price) of an iPad. Just over 50% was costs, the rest was profit, of which 30% to Apple (the rest to others in the supply chain). Chinese labour costs were minimal at 2%. They could perhaps reduce their profits to redistribute wealth from their execs/shareholders to the workers.
http://www.economist.com/node/21543174