Labor Activist: Apple May Be Terrible, But All Others Are Worse

CheerfulMacFanboy writes "Labor Activist Li Qiang wants you to know that the iPhone 4 in his pocket is not an endorsement of Apple's policies, just an acknowledgment that the company is doing a better job of monitoring factory conditions than its peers. The founder of leading advocacy group China Labor Watch (CLW) told us that, though the Cupertino company does more-thorough inspections than competitors, it is responsible for poor working conditions at its suppliers' factories and needs to invest some of its record-breaking profits in improving them. 'Although I know that the iPhone 4 is made at sweat shop factories in China, I still think that this is the only choice, because Apple is actually one of the best. Actually before I made a decision, I compared Apple with other cell phone companies, such as Nokia,' he said through a translator. 'And the conditions in those factories are worse than the ones of Apple.'"

Comments

Interesting headline change

[bonch]

Interesting how the original headline reads "Apple Best at Auditing Factories, Still Not Doing Enough" while Slashdot's reads "Apple May Be Terrible, But All Others Are Worse". From best to terrible in the flash of a Slashdot submission.

I don't get why Apple is always the one intimately associated with Foxconn when, as the largest electronics manufacturer in the world, Foxconn builds products for Dell, HP, Sony, Motorola, Nintendo, Microsoft, and so on. That Apple is the most proactive about labor policies isn't a surprise given the company's left-wing political leanings. You can always say someone should be doing more, but one can't help but wonder at what point it becomes the responsibility of the native government to make its citizen's lives better rather than the companies in another country sending the build orders. If Apple and other companies did what Li Qiang suggests, they'd essentially be babysitting the entire world's industrial labor, and that's just an impossible slippery slope. However, the storyline of a glossy, profitable American company using "slave labor" is just too juicy a narrative for the mainstream media to pass up.

Re:Interesting headline change

[DogDude]

"Trying to police the whole world" is vastly different from making sure that you have an ethical supply chain. Hell, Americans have, in the last two decades, stopped complaining that these people, in the past, would've been direct Apple employees. Now, not only are they not employees, but they're treated like dogs. (Actually, I treat my dog better). There is no excuse for Apple and other companies to allow this kind of stuff to happen. It's not a secret, and there's plenty that they could do about it, if they wanted to.

Re:Interesting headline change

[poetmatt]

The whole point is this:

Saying "others are worse, focus on them" when apple serves as the standard for quality over there (if they're saying they do the best), means that if apple is doing this badly, they should be setting the example for doing better. Everyone, including the "worst" should be raising bar. Just because others may be worse is not in any way, an excuse for apple.

How fucking hard is this to understand?

Re:Interesting headline change

[Caerdwyn]

I think I read it cost about $100 to manufacture one of these phones,

No, it costs a lot more than that to make an iPhone. But what does the EE Times know, right? And that's just the cost of the physical components. Good thing for your argument that R&D, shipping, marketing, software, and all that stuff that isn't something you physically hold in your hand are free, right?

Re:Interesting headline change

[Sancho]

China takes the opposite approach--criminalizing workers forming or joining a union.

But as DogDude says, absent regulation, companies and people don't tend to act ethically. Hell, nearly every regulation on the books is the result of a real problem. Look at labor in the industrial revolution. That's how companies act when there is no regulation.

Re:Interesting headline change

[rjstanford]

Its also worth noting that when new Foxconn positions become available for Apple manufacturing, thousands of people appear and queue for the job opportunity. The suicide rates and overall health risks among Apple/Foxconn employees are notably better than those of local non-Apple/Foxconn employees. Apple can and should still do more, but if you treat real efforts to improve with nothing but scorn, companies will just stop making efforts to improve.

Wow, that's what passes for best these days

[elrous0]

We've become so used to the idea that ALL consumer electronics are made in sweatshops that we're down to comparing whose sweatshop is the *least* nightmarish? That's more than a little sad, no?

Wouldn't it be nice to have just one consumer electronics manufacturer that made all their stuff in the first-world and paid their workers decent wages? It might be nice to have at least one TV, DVD player and cellphone option that I didn't have to feel guilty about. I'm getting a little sick of thinking of how many third-world people had to be exploited just so I could get a 52" LCD for $1,500 instead of $1,700. I mean saving the $200 is nice, admittedly, but not at the expense of dumping mercury into some Chinese town's river water, or working some 12-year-old for 16 hour days.

Couldn't countries at least require that imported goods be manufactured at their own minimum wage?

Re:Because Apple users are high-fashion snots?

[thestudio_bob]

Apple users tend to think of themselves as the types who would never wear animal furs. Apple users are ever-so-enlightened, humanitarian, environmentally aware, and ever-so-tasteful.

I'm not sure if you've noticed or not, but there's a hell-of-a-lot of people using Apple products nowadays. My hunting, fishing, drinking, non-recycling and high school educated family members may take offense to your statement.