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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.""
Next, boycott anyone who can't guarantee their workers receive a decent standard of living...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Your flame bait rant aside....Just read the comments from Apple executives. They're enough to make you smash Apple products you own.
The NYT article brings to light conditions and tragedies that many people did not know about. It's hard to ignore these images.
It is also hypocritical for America to refuse to buy products manufactured in china but not America, considering America has kept slave labor around for years, we just call it prison labor. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289
1. All the manufacturers don't take advantage of this. And most of them aren't as bad as Apple.
Name one tech hardware company that doesn't. Hint – in the exact same factory you'll find lines making XBoxes for MS, phones for Nokia, computers for Dell.
3. Improving conditions in manufacturing plants in China probably wouldn't lead to a significant increase in price. As someone else mentioned in the comments, paying Chinese workers American pay rates for their labour would increase the cost of an iPad by $70. Compared to the price of the device, one may call this significant or not.
That sure as hell is significant if I can have a Dell tablet for $500, or an apple one for $570 ;)
Boycotting China wouldn't help.
The root problem is China is a communist state with a restrictive market that prevents people from "shopping around" and getting the best prices possible for their labor.
The west has boycotted North Korea for several years and because of that human rights violations are nearly non-existent, North Korea now has a thriving economy and freely elected leaders... Oh wait... Because of North Korea's isolation they've descended even deeper into leader worship, further behind in technology and have even worse human rights abuses.
Due to western trade with China in the past few years China has become more free. Trade and free markets create more free people. Yes, China still has a long way to go but they have made substantial progress.
Trade with China is a good thing, both for the Chinese citizens (keep in mind that without factory labor they would be working most likely in worse conditions in agriculture) and for western citizens.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Your flame bait rant aside....Just read the comments from Apple executives. They're enough to make you smash Apple products you own.
Agreed. It's one thing to make your products in factories operating under those conditions, but the apple exutive seemed to be so proud of the fact that they have near-slaves building their products when he described the condition under which they work. I can't even imagine what he was thinking when he described all that the way he did. A normal person holds back when talking about something they know other people probably wouldn't approve of, especially when it's a major corporation with a public image to uphold. He seemed oblivious to the fact that people might not approve. I couldn't decide if he was clueless or a sociopath.
I am not even sure what the point of your comment was outside of a thinly veiled stab at a political movement that you obviously disagree with.
Quite the contrary. I strongly support the idea of fighting corporatocracy. But if the movement is ever going to achieve anything it's going to have to be much more CONSISTENT and MAINSTREAM. Consistent means that selected corps like Apple and Democratic politicians don't get free passes. Mainstream means that the movement has to be more than just the standard hippie and drum-circle crowd (and no hippies guarding the gates with a "We don't want to let in any poseurs who don't even own a hemp shirt" attitude).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I won't whitewash this "American slave labor", but I wonder if the prison laborers are subjected to very long work days (6 days, 60 hours), toxic chemicals, and other safety risks that would not fly elsewhere in America? Are the prisoners doing this work typically 12 and 13yr old girls?
If you're in prison, you didn't just wake up there one day. You got there for a reason. As a felon, you lose rights (voting, guns, etc). They are paid a very meager wage according to your article, but I'm just saying that even on balance, the Chinese workers probably STILL have it worse.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
From what I hear from people that know better: If you ever experienced American working conditions, you would never find Foxconn working conditions acceptable or even humane. However, if you have never left China, Foxconn may be the best chance at avoiding starvation. Other factories are far worse. In fact, the only reason we hear from Foxconn issues is because of its link to Apple. If we actually cared, we would be hearing about Aigo’s Shenzhen factory, or Samsung's OEM factory in Tianjin, that pays way less to their employees than Foxconn.
A recent episode of House actually did a good gaze on the topic, where the new philanthropist doctor is against a company move to Asia while the Asian doctor insist that is the best chance most people have of a better life relative to their current situation.
We have a choice (as a country not really as consumers) to stay out of China. That choice, though, will just result in forcing a worse life on those employees. But hey, better have them suicide or starve in a farm where only the family has to worry about the corpse!
Let's face it: the press does not care. The press just wants to print articles that get clicks to show ads, and they know Apple related news gets traffic, especially bad news.
Sorry for the rant but this Foxconn hypocrisy really gets to me.
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
That is more what I was thinking, instead of adding to the price. If those #Occupy people practiced what they preached, Apple stores would be under siege instead of being mobbed by weeping customers at the loss of Dear Leader.
Home of The Suki Series
By far I agree with you there, I'd rather be a prisoner here, then a "free" man working at foxcon, at least in prison if I kill myself they can't sue my family, though I do also have to say that our legal system isn't all as fair as it should be, the article was also commenting on the fact that when our crime rate goes down, we lower the bar for what it takes to get sent to prison, and the ratio of non-violent criminals in jail is far higher than any other country, and I would say our legal system strays further and further from the Innocent until proven guilty thing every day.
scalability of production is exactly about wages. they just don't want to admit that. why the supply lines are in china? because all the fucking parts are made around there - and why they're made there? well doh, cheaper wages, cheaper real estate and shorter lines to the factory where they're assembled into a product. it's not like the final assembly is that much of the actual work that goes in to a typical apple product.
because you'd need to pay a shitload of cash for people to work as if they were on a gig on an oil drilling platform whilst really just folding boxes for the xmas season..
and the answer for how to get the jobs back to america would be to work smarter, not harder. the same way somehow germans manage to make cars consistently year after year and bring in a buck.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Tariffs would do this too and are a large part of our US history. Tariffs are sanctioned by the WTO if your trade imbalance is >10%.
So why don't we do it?
love is just extroverted narcissism
You know what will fix this and bring jobs back to the USA? Accountability.
Those jobs are only coming back to the U.S.A. if you are prepared to pay $3000 for an iPad or an iPhone, because a U.S.A. based factory has too high a salary for its workers, and too high an expense of disposing toxic according to a protocol. Go where people will work for food, dump waste to a river near by, and suddenly production costs are reduced by a twenty-fold.
Economics is not about ethics, it is about numbers adding up or not.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
What good does it do to punish the #1 company? It makes the #2 company think "shit, we're next".
Look, I hear what you're saying. But this isn't a moral decision, it's a tactical decision. The fair solution would be to boycott all the big electronics companies. Or better yet, get Congress to pass laws that would eliminate this shit in the first place. But neither of those things is gonna happen. So you think we should do nothing?
Why this obsession about worker dormitories? They're considered quite normal in developing countries because they're a solution to the chicken-and-egg problem of housing vs. jobs. How do you attract people to jobs at a new factory if there's inadequate housing nearby? How do you encourage builders to create housing nearby if there are no jobs?
It also provides a means for a company to insulate their workers from rapid housing price inflation as the area surrounding the factory becomes more developed. You have to realize that unlike developed countries, most people taking a job at the factory do not have a financial nest egg or credit history with which to buy or rent housing. The dormitories are basically guaranteed fixed-price housing for such workers. When the government does it, it's called low-income housing; but when a company does it it's bad?
And there's also differences in population density between Asia and Western Europe, and especially the U.S. and Canada. Each family at a new factory having their own tract home with a garage, white picket fence, and 2.2 kids is simply unrealistic in most Asian countries. At best, on average everyone is going to own a block unit in a high rise apartment.
Is it because Western countries don't have them? The concept seems to recur frequently in developing economies. It goes through several give-and-take cycles as management vs. labor struggle with each other, until eventually the working class develops enough of a financial base and negotiating power not to need them anymore. While the pendulum is on management's side right now, swinging it back is something which has to happen internally. If foreign countries apply pressure and get it changed, it's never going to feel genuine. Chinese management is going to feel that it happened because outsiders forced them to make it happen, not because it came about naturally as a consequence of poor labor conditions. So they'll always be striving to change it back behind the scenes, instead of accepting that that's the way it's gotta be.
Developing an economy is not like jumping quantum states. You can't take a third world economy and instantaneously convert it into a developed first world economy. There's a long, meandering path you have to take as the economy gradually builds up, and worker dorms are just a milestone along that journey. It's a step up from shanty towns.