Slashdot Mirror
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.""
while you may be willing to pay $70 more does that mean everyone else will?
I would, but it's is moronic to think that paying a US worker $20-$30 an hour as opposed to paying a Chinese person $17 a day would only increase the price of the iPad $70.
More importantly, there is currently NO organization in the United States that could manufacture 10,000 devices a day, like they do at Foxconn. The backlash against supply shortages would be more damning than a $70 price increase.
a thinly veiled stab at a political movement that you obviously disagree with
No, I'd say it was an astute observation about cluelessess and/or hypocrisy in a movement that generally gets an uncritical and warm/fuzzy embrace by lots of people in the media and the celebritocracy. The silliness on display in such groups (to say nothing of the they way their restlessness and the awareness that their protest theater is making no point and no headway is leading to more and more juvenile/violent type acts) is definitely worth noting, especially in an environment like Slashdot, where Railing Against The Man is a popular and utterly unfocused, half-baked past-time.
Now that Apple's manufacturing practices are becoming better known, there is a growing back lash.
Except it's really China's manufacturing practices. Foxconn makes parts and subsystems (as well as finished goods) for thousands of companies. Calls to boycotting Apple, in that context, are absurd, and in some ways suggest and even less informed (by way of thinking you know something now, but only knowing part of the story) position.
Want to boycott something? Boycott everything made in China. Good luck with that.
Should everyone give a free pass to Apple just because you produced an anecdote that occupy protesters use too many apple devices?
The point is that all of those Down With Teh Corporate Amerikan Fascist Corporatist Plutocratic Corportations And Their Corporate Corporation Stooge Corporate Corporation Employees And Corporate Investors idiots is that most of them would be dead if it weren't for antibiotics made by businesses. Most of them wouldn't own the underwear they're wearing without businesses to make it for them. Their tents and drums they bang on are made by businesses. Almost everything they wear, use to communicate, eat, drink, sit on, etc., depends on a huge marketplace of services and manufacturers that happens to also include a large amount of Chinese involvement on the labor side. Harping on Apple is ludicrously disingenuous (or adolescently short-sighted, ignorant, and irrational).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Good!
Now go and convince the shareholders of that, since Apple as a publicly traded company ONLY has a responsibility to them. Convince them that Apple should forgo profits by paying more to a third-party supplier. Convince them that, as Obama said, they need to "spread the wealth around". That there is a limit to how much money an American company should be allowed to earn before they have to start helping others.
Oh, and also convince the Chinese authorities that they should let an American company decide what is a "decent wage" in China, especially given that FoxConn workers already earn a "decent wage" compared to other Chinese workers.