Apple-Approved Fair Labor Inspections Begin At Foxconn

redletterdave writes "Apple announced on Monday that the Fair Labor Association has begun inspecting Foxconn's Chinese factories, upon Apple's request. Apple said that Auret van Heerden, the president of the FLA, is leading a group of labor rights experts in the first round of inspections at the sprawling plant in Shenzhen, China, more informally known as 'Foxconn City.' The FLA's independent assessment — completely supplementary to Apple's own auditing practices — will involve interviewing thousands of Foxconn employees about the working and living conditions, including working hours, compensation, managerial issues, and health and safety conditions. Foxconn has 'pledged full cooperation with the FLA,' and will reportedly allow unrestricted access to all of their operations. The investigative team will report their findings in early March on the FLA's website. Apple's other suppliers, including Quanta and Pegatron, will be inspected later this spring. By the time summer rolls around, the FLA hopes to have covered 90 percent of facilities where Apple products are built and assembled."

Comments

corporate responsibility

[noh8rz2]

this is another area in which apple is leading all electronics companies in corporate responsibilities. All electronics are made in asian factories, but apple is the only company with balls to open the doors to visitors. Let's see the same for whatever droid / tab factories.

Re:corporate responsibility

[spyder-implee]

If apple is a leader in worker exploitation (and I'm not saying they are), they should also lead in cleaning it up. At any rate, which ever way the fanboys or haters spin this, I'm just stoked & hopeful that it will raise the quality of working conditions for the employees at Foxconn.

Re:corporate responsibility

[noh8rz2]

citations? how are apple factories any worse than any other factories? or keep your falsehoods to yourself.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

While some kudos is certainly due, it did take a lot of criticism, several suicides, protests by staff and a lot of media attention to get there.

Re:corporate responsibility

[EdIII]

You're not *that* naive are you?

Maybe you have not been to a Chinese factory (I have), bu if you have you would know that this is just lip service. Apple is not opening the company doors either. All they did was hire a 3rd party to investigate. Foxconn agreed. That's it.

Do you really think with all the media attention that Foxconn would say no? Of course not. They can't.

However, they are Chinese. Trust me. The word is going around right now that they better look like some cheerful happy mother fuckers in front of the western investigators or there will be some real consequences. Not the standard ones, but some serious ones.

Way too much on the line. Way too much. How many officials must be involved in greasing up that company's operations who knows.

Corporate responsibilities? *snicker*

You are just *too* cute. I wish I could go back in time where all this experience I have did not result in the cynicism I have developed.

There are no responsible corporations. Just corporations doing the minimum to not get caught, and corporations that have not been caught yet.

Every single device out there, regardless of which fanboi club it caters to, is made by manufacturing that is related to an awful lot of human misery. Unless you can say with 100% certainty that it is made in a developed Western country like the US, or some place in the EU, you can rest assured there was poor pay and poor working conditions. That's just life.

It's not limited to devices either. Just about every product made in China is in factories with poor working conditions compared to the US and the EU. It would have to be. Otherwise it would be too expensive and it would just be made in some hell hole in another country.

Sorry to ruin the illusion for you, but it's all pain and misery, all the way down.

Re:corporate responsibility

[noh8rz2]

unhappy workers? iPhone factory girl proves you wrong. That's a 1000watt smile that can't lie. http://www.2dayblog.com/images/2008/august/iphone_factory_girl_1.jpg

Re:corporate responsibility

[jamstar7]

Potempkin village, anyone?

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

More suicides? Then again having 20 percent fewer corpses is nothing to brag about either.

Re:corporate responsibility

[DigiShaman]

Sucks for sure. But many prefer this line of work to that of working out in the fields. It simply pays a hell of a lot more, that's all. Some even carry over their education and experience to higher paying positions. Slowly but surely, they're climbing the ladder of progress. The population is huge though. Assuming governmental reforms will allow for more employment mobility within the country, it will take quite some time before the cheap labor pool has become sequestered. Some say it's already happened and that the next pool of cheap labor will be tapped in India and Africa.

Capitalism lifts people out of poverty, but not before people are exploited first. That's the trade-off. If you're striving for fairness like we all are, dealing with rampant exploitation needs to take place on two fronts. First, Western nations need to hold the parent companies residing there to be held accountable for what's basically human slave labor. Second, nations that allow this to happen within their own border also need to be involved in ensuring OSHA like standards are in place.

Re:corporate responsibility

[phantomfive]

Yeah, I have also thought that foxconn workers, if you look at their faces, look really happy in the pictures. That one definitely shows it, though.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Kenja]

Look how happy he is! http://img.pics.livedoor.com/012/d/f/df0880c7502e2d1cb801-LL.jpg

Re:corporate responsibility

[Sneeka2]

First day on the job maybe? Give her a week... :)

Seriously though, the GP is a little too pessimistic I'd say. From a western viewpoint, working conditions in China must be horrendous. The locals there may not think much of it, or at least not as much as westerners do. People get used to surprisingly pretty much any condition, and can become more or less happy in their surroundings. At least they do clean work, they get their meals, they're not cold and they get paid, which is more than you can say about most of rural China. It's all extremely relative. I'm not saying they have the most awesomest job in the world, and I'm sure their working conditions can be improved, but it's all relative.

Re:corporate responsibility

[mrxak]

I don't know why people keep talking about suicides at Foxconn factories, since the population of China has a higher suicide rate than the population of Foxconn workers in China.

Foxconn employment correlates to less suicides, not more. You know what that means? I know you refuse to believe it because for some reason you've decided to have an irrational hatred for everything Apple, but Foxconn saves lives.

Suicide is not something to be happy about, but let's be honest, it's just one more cause of death in the world. Some people kill themselves, and always will. There are far more preventable causes of death in the world, like say, starvation. How many Foxconn workers starve to death? How many of them would starve to death if they didn't have a job? Again, employment in a factory is better than unemployment.

People freak out over suicide numbers at Foxconn facilities because they don't realize just how large these places are. These are massive, massive factories, and there are going to be a lot of deaths from a lot of different causes in any population of that size anywhere no matter what. What is important to look at is not absolute quantities, but percentages, and compare those to statistics for China as a whole.

People target Apple because Apple is a big popular company doing a lot of business right now, but just about every major tech company you can name has their stuff made at Foxconn, or a similar company in China. This isn't some Apple problem, and yes, the reality is Apple is doing more than most of those other companies to identify and fix problems. Perhaps you should save your moral outrage for those big tech companies that are silent on these issues, or even better, the factories that have higher death rates than China's population as a whole (if there even are any).

Re:corporate responsibility

[mrxak]

These workers know their jobs suck, and they would gladly trade places with any western factory worker with their massive pay, massive pension, tons of benefits, and far higher standard of living.

Of course, that same western factory worker's pay, benefits, and conditions is why it's so expensive to make anything here. Western standard of living and OSHA is why all the jobs are going overseas, because nobody here is willing to take a pay cut to keep their job.

But the Chinese workers in these factories know something that some people here seem to forget, and that's a job is better than no job. These Chinese workers are working long hours in tough conditions because they are making pretty good money compared to their other options. They're working hard and making enough money to give their children a better life, so that their children, and their children's children, can rise up, get a good education, get better jobs, and live the Chinese Dream. When Foxconn expands their factories, they have more people lining up to get a job than people here line up to buy the latest iPad. It's not because they've been tricked, it's because poverty in China sucks a lot worse than factory conditions. They simply have no better options.

We in the west should be glad Chinese workers are making pennies a day to produce our products, because as unemployment falls in China, Chinese living standards and working conditions will improve, just as the industrial revolution in western countries created the middle class, and created a living standard that's the envy of everyone in China. Someday, China will be losing jobs to other countries, because their pay, benefits, and conditions have improved to our standards, and they need to make all of their goods cheaply someplace else. It will not be because of magic, it will be because western tech companies created millions of jobs for Foxconn workers to do.

Re:corporate responsibility

[noh8rz2]

WARNING: Link is POLITICAL GOATSE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Re:corporate responsibility

[theweatherelectric]

Ambrose Bierce said it best: "Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility."

Re:corporate responsibility

[phantomfive]

Maybe you have not been to a Chinese factory (I have), bu if you have you would know that this is just lip service.

You know, instead of trying to prove how much 'better' and 'righter' you are because of this, why don't you tell us what you saw there? A first hand witness account would be really interesting, and informative, whereas what you have now is trying to bash people with your 'superiority.' Wonderful. Do something better for a change.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Sneeka2]

Very much indeed. +5 Insightful if I could.

Continuing along this line of thought, a lot of our current infrastructure is really highly dependent on not-yet-quite-so-developed countries such as China and their political and social system. After "we" have "exploited" all those countries to make cheep stuff for us, where are we going to build anything? Computers may become an unaffordable luxury good. Our societies will have to change in response to those countries developing a middle class.

Re:corporate responsibility

[EdIII]

You are such a holier than though butthead you know? Every post you are so abusive and abrasive and contribute nothing to the proceedings except nastiness.

Maybe I don't want to talk about what I saw? You think of that? Maybe I don't have anything to do with that business at this point precisely because of what I saw. Foxconn workers have it good compared to what I saw. I would be surprised if the people I saw were still healthy and alive today.

What would a first hand account tell you anymore than what you already know? Every one knows conditions are hell in most factories in China.

Do what better?

I try to purchase products that have as little to do with China as possible, which is all you can do. Anytime I propose some real changes in trade and foreign policy I get accused of being an isolationist, a protectionist, "just not getting it" because I don't understand Capitalism and economics.

I'm already doing what I can.

Take your acerbic bullshit elsewhere please.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely offtopic but it seems as if You are not familiar with certain mister Deming. You know, the guy who is behind the Japanese quality. And the most startling thing? The guy was from the USA.
Anyway, here are his key principles:
* Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive, stay in business and to provide jobs.
  * Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
* Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for massive inspection by building quality into the product in the first place.
* End the practice of awarding business on the basis of a price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move towards a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
* Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
* Institute training on the job.
* Institute leadership (see Point 12 and Ch. 8 of "Out of the Crisis"). The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.
* Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company. (See Ch. 3 of "Out of the Crisis")
* Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, in order to foresee problems of production and usage that may be encountered with the product or service.
* Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
* a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute with leadership.
        b. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers and numerical goals. Instead substitute with leadership.
* a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.
        b. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia," abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objective (See Ch. 3 of "Out of the Crisis").
* Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
* Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

Seven deadly diseases as he put them:
* Lack of constancy of purpose
* Emphasis on short-term profits
* Evaluation by performance, merit rating, or annual review of performance
* Mobility of management
* Running a company on visible figures alone
* Excessive medical costs (This is an USA-only thing)
* Excessive costs of warranty, fueled by lawyers who work for contingency fees (As is this)

"A Lesser Category of Obstacles" includes:
* Neglecting long-range planning
* Relying on technology to solve problems
* Seeking examples to follow rather than developing solutions
* Excuses, such as "our problems are different"
* Obsolescence in school that management skill can be taught in classes[27]
* Reliance on quality control departments rather than management, supervisors, managers of purchasing, and production workers
* Placing blame on workforces who are only responsible for 15% of mistakes where the system designed by management is responsible for 85% of the unintended consequences
* Relying on quality inspection rather than improving product quality

Read up on the guy and make your own conclusions.

Re:corporate responsibility

[metacell]

I don't know why people keep talking about suicides at Foxconn factories, since the population of China has a higher suicide rate than the population of Foxconn workers in China.

True, but misleading, since the numbers for Foxconn only includes suicides in the workplace, while the national average includes all suicides.

In China, it only counts as a work-related death if it occurs in the workplace. I.e, for your family to get compensation, you need to take your life at work.

Even if people take their life at work for financial reasons, though, it still shows how desperate they are.

Re:corporate responsibility

[mrxak]

There will always be specialization occurring somewhere. Perhaps a country will heavily subsidize computer manufacturing, or have sufficient cheap energy to give them an advantage. Perhaps somebody will develop a robot that requires minimal maintenance, can work 24/7 without complaining, and produce computer parts cheaper than any human labor force.

My theory is and always will be, if a robot can do your job better and cheaper, you're in the wrong line of work. Much of these factory jobs we lament losing in the west, as they move to the east, we didn't want anyway. Far better to be the ones designing the next iPad than building it, if building it can be done with cheap unskilled labor. Eventually even robot factories will be too expensive and obsolete, as we have 3D printers that can make anything we want right in our homes without expensive shipping costs or labor.

Building things, in a pre-designed rote way, may give you some satisfaction but it's hardly a job. Inventing things is what humans are good for, and the more inventors we have in society, and the less builders we need, the better off we'll all be.

Re:corporate responsibility

[mrxak]

Again, this is a misunderstanding of Foxconn. These are company towns. Foxconn employees kill themselves at the workplace, because they're living in Foxconn dormitories. If you work, eat, sleep, and hang out on company property, and decide to kill yourself, you're going to do it on company property.

Re:corporate responsibility

[pegasustonans]

Capitalism lifts people out of poverty, but not before people are exploited first. That's the trade-off.

Are you going to be the one to go over and explain to the suicidal workers about how this is all necessary?

When does the exploitation stop? When people just happen to feel like it someday?

Re:corporate responsibility

[phantomfive]

You are such a holier than though butthead you know? Every post you are so abusive and abrasive and contribute nothing to the proceedings except nastiness.

But maybe I'm right.

What would a first hand account tell you anymore than what you already know? Every one knows conditions are hell in most factories in China.

I would be really interested in hearing your first-hand account, assuming you've actually been to China. Your extreme defensiveness leads me to believe you might be making stuff up. Do you speak Chinese? Here's a guy who actually did tell his account of factories in China. His story is a lot more convincing than yours, and it matches my own experience living in a developing country, where people wanted factories to be built near them because it would be an improvement in their lives.

Maybe you think my questions are abrasive because they pierce the dream-world you created where corporations are pure evil, Apple is evil, and anywhere that doesn't pay there workers American wages is abusive. That's not the real world, you know, and it is quite possible that some executives at Apple are actually concerned about their workers. I know I've worked at companies with executives who had concern for their employees. Not everyone is evil, even if they disagree with you.

Also, if you care about Chinese people, forcing companies to pay them American wages isn't going to actually help them.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Sneeka2]

If that ever proves to be true, great. I'll be skeptical until I see it. Yes, Star Trek replicators are always the dream of mankind, but at this point in time there are more hands building stuff than ever before in human history. Let's see if we can ever obsolete the manual labor part entirely. So far we've only been successful in shifting it around, not in eliminating it. You'll always need somebody that builds the thing that builds the thing.

Re:corporate responsibility

[mrxak]

I'm not suggesting suicidal workers are a good thing, but way to completely distort what I said. I'm saying quite the opposite, that less suicidal workers is better than more suicidal workers. I am not so naive as to think that suicide rates will ever be zero, at Foxconn, in China, or anywhere else humans work or live.

I'm simply saying that workers sometimes commit suicide, no matter where they are or who they work for. I'm also saying that Foxconn has a lower suicide rate than the rest of China, which means the opposite of what you and people like you try to imply, that Foxconn drives their workers to kill themselves with awful conditions. Foxconn does not cause suicide, Foxconn causes a reduction in suicide. This is a mathematical fact, and to argue otherwise shows a willful ignorance and irrational bias.

You're simply an anti-Apple troll.

Re:corporate responsibility

[EdIII]

You're not right. You're just a fucking asshole. In every post.

Assuming I have been to China? You're being an asshole again right there for calling me a liar instead of addressing the points I made. Easier to just discredit me than to make logical civil arguments.

I'm not being defensive. Merely offended by your constant attitude in your posts to me that are not deserving based on anything I have said.

You're just a truly offensive person with nothing positive to say about anything. You remind of some old bitter grumpy senior citizen that can't say anything without being angry and yelling at the top of his lungs.

Putting tariffs really high will force the manufacturing to come back the US and then the Chinese people can figure out what to do on their own terms. Perhaps implement OSHA type regulations to give workers better conditions.

As for China, you asshole, I saw people that were caked head to toe in grime, dirt, and residue from manufacturing processes. Their eyes completely red because they lacked protection. You ever hear of black lung disease?

So yeah, fuck you, I have seen some shit in a several dozen different places in China. Not just the factories, but the towns surrounding the factories. Places that most Western visitors never go, but I did.

You happy you got it out of me? Did it make a difference at all in what I said in my original post? That's why I left it out.

Geez. Fuck you.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Taco Cowboy]

apple is the only company with balls to open the doors to visitors

Apple is not opening its doors to visitors

Foxconn is not Apple. Neither is Quanta nor Pegatron

If Apple is genuine, let Apple opens its own doors first

Re:corporate responsibility

[advocate_one]

I'm simply saying that workers sometimes commit suicide, no matter where they are or who they work for. I'm also saying that Foxconn has a lower suicide rate than the rest of China, which means the opposite of what you and people like you try to imply, that Foxconn drives their workers to kill themselves with awful conditions. Foxconn does not cause suicide, Foxconn causes a reduction in suicide. This is a mathematical fact, and to argue otherwise shows a willful ignorance and irrational bias. You're simply an anti-Apple troll.

explain the anti-suicide nets then? Is that how they cause a reduction in suicide? Because the workers cannot commit suicide at work, so they do it when away so the figures for Foxconn look better?

un-fscking believable...

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Every single device out there, regardless of which fanboi club it caters to, is made by manufacturing that is related to an awful lot of human misery.

Jobs with much better pay than the workers are used to?

Unless you can say with 100% certainty that it is made in a developed Western country like the US

Yes, manufacturing jobs in the US provide such wonderful pay. Maybe if you're in Detroit.

Just about every product made in China is in factories with poor working conditions compared to the US and the EU. It would have to be. Otherwise it would be too expensive and it would just be made in some hell hole in another country.

Working conditions have little to do with the actual reasons why it's far cheaper to produce products in China. As for 'some hell hole in another country' - plenty of those exist.

I'm amused at your delusions of the illustrious life the lower classes in the US and other Western nations purportedly lead.

Re:corporate responsibility

[phantomfive]

Did it make a difference at all in what I said in my original post?

Yes, yes, it did make a difference. Not a lot of difference because you didn't say very much, but was definitely an improvement.

Also it's rather hilarious that you say I am abrasive, and yet you keep calling me horrendous names. It makes me laugh, keep it up.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Sneeka2]

So what would you like be done? Give all those workers a huge benefits package, insurance, pension, 36 hour weeks, paid-for kindergarten places for their kids, christmas bonuses? Realize that virtually nobody enjoys these kinds of benefits in China at this point! The majority of Chinese go to work their ass off every day in the fields growing food in order to not starve to death. Do you expect Apple to come in and revolutionize the whole country over night? Make the Foxconn workers kings with huge salaries?

Maybe, just maybe, providing an enormous number of jobs with a stable, not bad salary for Chinese standards, even though it's a tough job by western standards, is the best they can do at this point.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Put bluntly, your comment is without foundation. If Apple wanted to lead, it could just ensure that its suppliers comply with the Chinese law.
Apple says that it ensures that its supplier's workers do not work more than 60 hours per week. There is nowhere in China where a worker can be allowed (not required) to work 60 hours per week. Fixing that, without reducing worker's pay, would be leadership. Anything else is just empty talk.

Re:corporate responsibility

[rtb61]

So the question is then, would they have a better standard of living if they revolted an executed the current pack of leaders and executives.

The reality is conditions are so bad because labour is cheaper and more disposable than automation.

Peoples long term health, their ability to use their hand is bring ground away in some of the worst imaginable repetitious task 10 to 12 hours a days a week.

Conditions never improve, corporations just shift elsewhere and shut down the existing factories (after smugly selling those 'contracting' to gullible local investors, to only see the contract end and the factory turn into an abandoned building. Rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat.

The only difference with China is they are demanding a major piece of the action early on and make no mistake they will protect their own market from overseas competition while demanding those debts generated vulture capitalism corporations.

Everyone knows this is just another Apple delaying action, just like their patent suits. Push of the gullible users for long enough, feed them some yarn and they forget all about. Has everyone already forgotten that this is not the first time this issued cropped up and this is most certainly not the first Apple public relations investigation.

Name the exploited labour market countries that have risen to first world status, zero. Forget Japan, that little lie, considering their industrial technology was as advanced as the western world, even more advanced in many instances.

Now name all those countries who labour market collapsed into economic collapse and violence with union leaders executed at the behest of western corporations and the United States amongst other Countries heavily implicated in the worst crimes against humanity to keep the labour exploitation going (training of death squads, funding, supply of weapons and ammunition, drug running to hide everything).

Not once have conditions improved without violence, without government orchestrated murder, without corporations hiring gangs to attack the families of workers. Not once in human history, not even in the United States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union (just look at the picture and see the difference between corporate lies and over a hundred years of reality).

Re:corporate responsibility

[EdIII]

Go fuck yourself. You're the one who has been abusive in your response to me every time, in every Slashdot article. I'm just tired of it and I have ran out of civility and patience for a complete asshole such as yourself.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Taco Cowboy]

So the question is then, would they have a better standard of living if they revolted an executed the current pack of leaders and executives.

If the Americans revolted and execute the current pack of leaders on Capital Hill, would they have a better standard of living ?

Re:corporate responsibility

[AK Marc]

They pay the most in the best conditions and the suicide rate in Apple's factories are lower than the US. There were more than 20,000 suicides in the US when there were only a few hundred in the Foxconn, so can we blame the US government?

Your iPad, iPhone, whatever, it's made with little more than slave labor, just slaves that are paid enough to make it seem like they're not.

They are free to leave at any time. They choose not to because moving back home would mean 17 hours a day hard labor in the fields. Foxconn is a paid vacation compared to "home" they could go to at any time.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Taco Cowboy]

Go fuck yourself. You're the one who has been abusive in your response to me every time, in every Slashdot article. I'm just tired of it and I have ran out of civility and patience for a complete asshole such as yourself.

I can see that you're all stressed up.

Why are you still posting in Slashdot if it gives you so much pain and stress, may I ask?

Re:corporate responsibility

[EdIII]

Actually, I really like Slashdot.

I find it stimulating and it gives me a chance to really consider what other people have said, what I think about something, and then write something that expresses those thoughts logically and rationally. At least I try to do so most of the time. Part of the time I am just an irreverent smart ass. I can only infer from the moderation that other people here find my posts worthwhile and productive. I enjoy writing them and apparently other people have enjoyed reading them. Not to mention there are some very smart and insightful people here. Coming across a really well written post is something I enjoy.

There are many times in which my cynicism shows through, but I am not completely without hope.

That guy I am responding to has just been a complete jerk every single time. Not really trying to make a point or a counter argument, but just outright character assassinations and vitriol. Just got really tired of it.

I appreciate civil discourse and the value of good debate. Which is why I don't like people that have a consistent pattern of just being plain jerks in everything they do.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Winckle]

Are you not familiar with the concept of wage slavery? That is what capitalism means deep down. When workers do not own the means of production they are forced to sell their labour to a capitalist who does. If they do not, then they starve.

Re:corporate responsibility

[LordLimecat]

but apple is the only company with balls to open the doors to visitors. Let's see the same for whatever droid / tab factories.

Normally you dont laud a company for having to deal with the kind of issues Foxconn / Apple are. Its great that theyre working on fixing them, but dont turn this issue into something that they did right to begin with.

I havent heard stories of motorola employees jumping out of the factory due to unlivable conditions, so I think android gets a little more credit here (which is a stupid comparison anyways, since there are many android manufacturers, and the comparison isnt iOS vs Android but Apple vs the other manufacturers).

Re:corporate responsibility

[Winckle]

If only there was some sort of alternative, like reducing profit margins, reducing pay at the top, some sort of redistribution of wealth. What if the workers owned the means of production instead of being exploited for their labour?

Re:corporate responsibility

[devleopard]

You're also naive if you believe that a Samsung or Motorola device is assembled under different conditions.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Sneeka2]

Again, if you suddenly redistribute the wealth to the factory workers, they'd be peerless kings in their own country. I imagine certain people at the top would have to say something about a factory line worker earning American salaries, especially in China. It's not Apple that's setting the salaries, remember that they're subcontracting to a Chinese/Taiwanese company, controlled by Chinese laws in China.

And people owning the means for producing things... that largely hasn't happened within the last 200 years by mostly leaving China to its own devices, why do you expect it will suddenly happen now through Apple?

Yes, it all sounds so very nice and it would sure be great if everybody was happy and all that, but in reality that simply doesn't happen over night. Fair Labor inspections, how ever phony they are, are a realistic first step in that direction though. Redistribution of wealth is a fantasy, especially in a country that explicitly does *not* adhere to the principles of capitalistic freedom.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Forty Two Tenfold]

moving back home would mean 17 hours a day hard labor in the fields. Foxconn is a paid vacation compared to "home" they could go to at any time.

Indeed. Do you know what you have in common with a used diaper or do I have to spell it?

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

You are comparing the suicide rate of the whole of Chine to the suicide rate of the Foxconn factories within China. How about comparing the Foxconn suicide rate to the US or westernized nations? We all know it seriously sucks to be in China.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Hal_Porter]

What if the workers owned the means of production instead of being exploited for their labour?

Dude you should totally go to China and tell them your new and original idea. I'm sure they'll love it and love you too! They'll think "How lucky we are some European guy with lots of knowledge and experience of alternative political systems and their downsides has come over to tell us how to run our shit". No doubt they'll make you Great Helmsman and you'll be writing the Five Year Plans and reporting how rice production is up eleventy billion percent and obesity levels have fallen to zero.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Sneeka2]

Mod parent up!

Stopping to treat other people and countries as idiots and the Great West as Teh Saviorz is probably the most necessary thing in this discussion.

Re:corporate responsibility

[MikeMo]

Because one should always do whatever one can to reduce suicides? Ya know, sometimes things are really what they appear to be.

Re:corporate responsibility

[u38cg]

would they have a better standard of living if they revolted an executed the current pack of leaders and executives.

They tried that. Twenty million died, which is pretty typical for violent socialist revolution. I don't think risking it happening again is that brilliant an idea.

Name the exploited labour market countries that have risen to first world status, zero.

The UK. The US. France. Germany.

Re:corporate responsibility

[mrxak]

Well, that would be a fairly silly comparison to do, since the options these workers have is not between "be unemployed", "work at Foxconn", or "come to America". Unless you're saying Apple should be shipping Chinese workers over in shipping crates instead of Chinese-manufactured iPads?

I mean, seriously, can you think about what you're trying to say here and try it again? I'm really not getting your point. These workers don't have the option of moving to a westernized country (or they probably would have already).

If it helps, our own industrial revolution in the west is responsible for our higher standard of living, and no, it wasn't always easy or pretty, but look at where we are now. That'll be China someday, and probably quicker than it took us. Industrializing China by building factories over there to build our iPads is going to help those Chinese workers rise to western standards. Not giving them any jobs just means they'll stay in poverty forever. If that lower quality of life contributes to a higher suicide rate, then certainly Foxconn isn't just good for the immediate needs of the workers (lowering their suicide rate compared to their unemployed fellow nationals), but good in the long-run too.

Re:corporate responsibility

[jamstar7]

Your suicide stat is ridiculous. There are 300 million people in the US. I doubt Foxcomm employs more than 2 or 3 million. Any number they pubish is bound to be shaded. Remember, they're living under an information-restricted totolitarian regime there. They're going to paint the best possible picture they can of the 'worker's paradise', just like the Russians did back in the Bad Old Days.

Re:corporate responsibility

[mrxak]

Well, considering the people I'm arguing against are saying that Foxconn employment causes Chinese workers to commit suicide, it's a pretty important correlation to point out.

And no, I'm not sure it's discernible between employment and employment at Foxconn. I never claimed otherwise. Bear in mind though, the chose many of these workers has if not between employment and employment at Foxconn, but unemployment and employment at Foxconn. Foxconn is where the jobs are, so that's where the unskilled labor force goes to work.

I don't have any statistics between Foxconn employment suicide rates and other employment suicide rates. If somebody has those statistics then please share them, just make sure it's unskilled labor we're talking about, comparable to Foxconn, and not comparing doctors to factory line workers. If these Foxconn workers had other options for employment, they would probably take those jobs, if Foxconn employment is so terrible, right?

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Asshole. People committed suicide in these factories. You cunt.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you're being so subtly sarcastic that it's lost on me, but... I believe China has tried something like that already. Didn't go well.

Re:corporate responsibility

[dissy]

So instead of only 20 people per million, you admit out right that you would rather see 100 or 200 people out of a million dead, and then say that is a GOOD thing?

You *actually desire* 80-180 MORE PEOPLE had killed themselves, is the exact statement you are making... and you have the nerve to call someone else heartless??

When you wish death on more people for no reason, your claim to morality goes out the window. Fuck you, and your sick perverted wish for more people to kill themselves. I hope you die.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow

That smile isn't forced at all.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

explain the anti-suicide nets then?

New York installs those nets because the buildings are so tall and so many people can accidentally or purposely fall.

Unless you are seriously suggesting that 200 people per million in suicides in New York is better than 20 people per million at Foxcon..

Oh wait, you actually were. Well in that case, they install the nets at Foxcon because despite America having 10x the suicide rate, as better as Foxcon conditions are than America, they feel that even 20 per one million people is too many.

You are pretty sick and fucked up to wish for 80 more people per million per year to die, by striving for more suicides like in America, and are even a worse person to suggest that even 20 people per million is acceptable.

PS It's not a matter of twisting words, it's a matter of these are the facts you are arguing for, despite you not realizing it.

Wishing for Foxcon to have more suicides by comparing to China, or even MORE suicides by comparing to America, is sick. Why do you wish for more deaths?

Re:corporate responsibility

[metacell]

That's a fair point.

Re:corporate responsibility

[wierd_w]

I make below median income for my area, and way below standard pay for my vocation (quality engineer.) However, my employer treats me to some smexxy digs at work, which rival or surpass the high paid positions at the big boys.

I value the stability of my lower paying job, and coupled with the smexxy digs, I'm not terribly interested in alternative employment at the moment.

That said, a person bucking rivets at boeing gets paid on average 33% more than I do, drives 2 cars, and lives in a house valued over 100k. (In terms of local economy, that's a 4 bed, 2 bath, large kitchen, large livingroom single family home. Doctors and lawyers live in 250k homes)

I am single. I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in a domestic partner of any sex. I am 30. If I was going to have a biological imperative, it would have happened by now, seeing as I am male, and testosterone only decreases after 30. I am therefor content to live in a 25k home. The lower monthly payment let's me derive more pleasure from my paycheck.

Most people in my wage bracket (30-35k) are considered impoverished, or borderline impoverished. The people I work with make comparable pay, but consider me to be wealthy. This is not the case, per se.

The big differences between myself and the machinists on the floor (discounting work conditions) is that 1) most of them have either a wife and kids, or pay alimony/child support. And 2) support a large number of expensive and deleterious habits, such as smoking and drinking.

If I engaged in/were subject to those 2 things, I would certainly not be as happily well off as I currently am.

I recognize that I am an anomalous minority, (a man with no libido, and who hasn't had a libido ever, and as such has no child support or significant other to support) And as such do not judge others by myself. I use myself as a bounding element on the statistic only. (I live modestly well, but not opulently.) The vast median of people working in small machine shops in my area are boarderline impoverished, and many get government support of one kind or another. However, even in this impoverished condition they are much better off than most of their chinese counterparts.

The people working for the big boys live very nicely, and routinely send their children to college. In terms of chinese analogs, these people would be among the wealthy, and certainly wouldn't be working at foxconn as an assembly worker. Perhaps as a midgrade pencil pusher.

Depending on how you bound "manufacturing worker", and how the loal economy is structured (I couldn't afford food and a dumpster to sleep in, let alone personal luxuries if I lived in california with my paygrade, for example.), it can mean vastly different things.

Some manufacturing workers do indeed live reasonably glamorous lives. Opulently so, compared to you median chinese laborer.

Please be more specific in your assessments.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

You appear to be a fan boi.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess, you can tell from the pixels and from having seen a lot of Chinese smiles in your day?

Re:corporate responsibility

[gnasher719]

True, but misleading, since the numbers for Foxconn only includes suicides in the workplace, while the national average includes all suicides.

True, but misleading again. Many, many Foxconn employees live at their workplace. You wouldn't expect a suicidal Foxconn employee to make a long journey to their birth place to commit suicide, would you? And you wouldn't expect someone to try suicide with an overdose of sleeping tablets (most common mode of failed suicide attempts in the USA), when they are in a dormitory, observed by others?

I have no intent of doing anything stupid like that, but if I did, a suicide wouldn't happen at my workplace, because it's not a good place for it. But if I was a Foxconn employee, living in a dormitory at the factory, a factory roof would seem a good choice. (Which is why the put up nets; it doesn't reduce the number of suicide attempts, but the number of successful attempts).

Re:corporate responsibility

[flyneye]

Yeah, that's sure the perspective they want you to see anyway.
Let's be real for a moment.
Some shmoes with clipboards go through the motions of interviewing scared workers who will preserve their income and sustain their existence by answering any good answer the Communist party approves. Meanwhile the surrogate communists on the board of crApples directors know the score and are willing to once again shovel bullshit down the throats of consumers if only to harvest more money. Yeah some balls! Wake up dorkbot! It's all just a show and the world keeps running the usual way, but now without the politically correct zombies chanting on Chinas doorstep.
That is a more reasonable, realistic assessment. You may now return to your Soma...

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, the world is flattening. People from impoverished conditions are willing to work themselves to death to make slightly-better-than-impoverished wages.

That doesn't mean we should pat a company on the back for providing just-above-average compensation - but in exchange for brutal conditions.

Besides, the FLA is a sham. Companies join it when they're having a PR problem with worker conditions. The FLA hasn't lived up to its own charter in many different ways. The organization is supposed to be about transparency into the working conditions of the factories of its member companies. Unfortunately it's these same companies who fund the FLA, so right off the bat you can see they have a conflict of interest. If the FLA is constantly releasing bad reports about a company, what's the point of paying the FLA for the bad press?

The FLA is supposed to be releasing regular transparency reports. There is one report more recent than 2 years ago, which details numerous working condition violations in dozens of factories for several member companies. Those companies are never named, nor is there any indication what remediation is being made. In that report, it's observed that there are workers who always feel they are required to work more than 72 hours in a week, and for more than 24 days in a row (both 72 hpw and 24 dir are the upper measured threshold).

The previous report is from 2006. Yes, it's now been 6 years with one released report. How is that transparency? The FLA is supposed to be releasing factory location reports on their website "by 2008" according to their charter. That doesn't exist - that's only 4 years late at this point.

Companies who are members are not required to disclose all factory locations for audit, so they can maintain sham factories for inspection purposes while keeping the majority of their operations out of observation.

The whole organization seems like it started off with good intentions, but at this point, it's just a sham. It's a way for companies with a PR problem to whitewash the problem. "Look, we're hiring an independent auditor" - but one which hasn't released a single damaging report, and only one at all in the last 6 years.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Forty Two Tenfold]

So the question is then, would they have a better standard of living if they revolted an executed the current pack of leaders and executives.

If the Americans revolted and execute the current pack of leaders on Capital Hill, would they have a better standard of living ?

Rome was not burnt in a day.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Stormthirst]

Until we have robots that can build robots.

And what do we do with the manual labourers then?

Re:corporate responsibility

[AmiMoJo]

Of course, that same western factory worker's pay, benefits, and conditions is why it's so expensive to make anything here. Western standard of living and OSHA is why all the jobs are going overseas, because nobody here is willing to take a pay cut to keep their job.

It isn't that simple. Labour isn't usually the largest cost, or even a hugely significant one in some factories. Even where it is an issue the extra cost involved in producing a high value item like a powerful smartphone or tablet isn't going to force prices up or make a massive dent in profits. You also have to consider the extra shipping costs, one of the major reasons that large and heavy things like cars tend to be made on the continent they are sold on. Corporations are basically just greedy.

Germany actually manufacturers and exports more than China does. Germany is not a cheap low-wage country. Their products are sometimes a bit more expensive than Chinese ones, but also tend to be better quality. We lost out by engaging in a race to the bottom, lowest possible price combined with lowest possible quality. Well, that and pure greed.

Having said that there is one area that China seems to excel at which is low volume manufacturing. I can get 50 of my products made by hand for a reasonable price there, but western companies don't even seem to be interested. That is changing slowly, mainly due to automation, but low volume seems to be about the one area where wages really do make a big difference. Hardly applies to consumer electronics though. I'd also like to say that not all Chinese stuff is crap either, they make some damn fine products too. They are not idiots, they see that quality at a reasonable price sells and are getting into that market.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Uberbah]

Demanding a detailed description of what you saw was a red herring. Whether or not someone has been to China, it's basic common sense that you shouldn't trust an inspection when the company being inspected is in on the inspection. It would be like the FDA telling Tyson in advance that it was going to inspect a chicken farm, or the Department of Labor telling Wal-Mart in advance that it would be talking to some of its workers in one of its stores.

I wouldn't trust those results either, for the same reasons.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Sneeka2]

I, for one, welcome our robotic overlords.

There's not much else I can do, since they'll take over the world and obsolete humans entirely anyway.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Uberbah]

Capitalism is redistribution of wealth - to the top. An economic system where the CEO of Wal-Mart makes many times the average employee is not a problem. A system where the CEO of Wal-Mart makes more in one month than the average employee does in his or her entire lifetime is obscene.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Ambrose Bierce said it best: "Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility."

agree

Re:corporate responsibility

[nameer]

Does China have a free and liquid labor market? I know next to nothing about China's labor economics and politics, but I would strongly suspect that the labor market is quite illiquid (if that word has any meaning in this context). That is, do factories get to compete for workers with compensation and working condition market based incentives? Or does the Party inhibit the competition among factories so that it really is a Foxconn or nothing type proposition?

Re:corporate responsibility

[morgauxo]

I wouldn't give them TOO much credit. They are just reacting to a bunch of negative publicity as would just about any corp. On the other hand, Apple hater as I am I wouldn't dump on them about this too much either. It seems like just about everyone is using Foxconn but for some reason Apple was the only one taken to task about it. The pressure should have been on all Foxconn's customers back when the story broke about the nets being installed if not sooner.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Uberbah]

Of course, that same western factory worker's pay, benefits, and conditions is why it's so expensive to make anything here. Western standard of living and OSHA is why all the jobs are going overseas, because nobody here is willing to take a pay cut to keep their job.

Germany puts the lie to that corporatist bullshit:

How Germany Builds Twice as Many Cars as the U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice as Much

In 2010, Germany produced more than 5.5 million automobiles; the U.S produced 2.7 million. At the same time, the average auto worker in Germany made $67.14 per hour in salary in benefits; the average one in the U.S. made $33.77 per hour. Yet Germanyâ(TM)s big three car companiesâ"BMW, Daimler (Mercedes-Benz), and Volkswagenâ"are very profitable.

And that's not from some dirty fucking hippie rag like Mother Jones, that's from Forbes.

The problem isn't that American workers aren't competitive, the problem is executive greed.

But we all knew that already. Cheap shipping, cheap third world labor and international communications were all available in the 50's, 60's, and 70's. But we didn't see the gutting of America's manufacturing base until unions were busted, marginal tax rates (91% under Eisenhower) were slashed to less than 30%, and corporatist "free trade" laws were passed that puts Americans in competition with third world labor without giving Americans third world price tags on goods, housing or services.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to patronize while trying to prove a point. I have been to many electronics factories in China, including Foxconn, where we manufacture stuff (not Apple). They're not as bad as people seem to make them out to be. Sure they're pretty awful by our standards, but go visit the Chinese countryside, or visit machinery factories in China. There is no wonder why people line up for days to get these Foxconn jobs...

Get over yourself.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

It is important people understand, that the Foxconn factories are some of the best in China in terms of standards of living and safety. There are places in the world, China included where people boil motherboards in mercury to extract the gold and at night sleep in cages.

Re:corporate responsibility

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

I don't know why people keep talking about suicides at Foxconn factories, since the population of China has a higher suicide rate than the population of Foxconn workers in China.

True, but misleading, since the numbers for Foxconn only includes suicides in the workplace

False and misleading. Why do you guys keep bringing up the dormitories there as "proof" for slave workers, but ignore them when their existence prove that these people live there? Heck, where did they span the nets to catch the suicides? Yes, where people lived (and some died), not where they worked.

Re:corporate responsibility

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Puzzle me this: if the suicide of 18 people between January and November, 2010 at the Shenzen Foxconn plant prove terrible working conditions - what does the dearth of suicides before and after that time frame prove?

Re:corporate responsibility

[ArsonSmith]

Everyone likes to tout the 90% tax on salaries over $1million back in the 50s. Of course almost nobody then or even now have/has salaries in that range as they were payed with under valued stock options of which when cashed in were only charged 14% at the time or 10% now.

Re:corporate responsibility

[flirno]

They know it sucks. Talk to someone from there.

Re:corporate responsibility

[phantomfive]

Part of the time I am just an irreverent....ass.

Yes, yes you are.

That guy I am responding to has just been a complete jerk every single time.

I don't remember ever talking to you. If I did insult you, it's most likely because you tried to base your opinion on something other than facts, and hold obstinately to it. In which case, you would deserve to be derided for the moron you are. I don't insult people for merely holding a different opinion than me.

Today, however is a bit different. I'm insulting you because I am hoping you will return the favor. Which will make me laugh.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

If apple is a leader in worker exploitation (and I'm not saying they are), they should also lead in cleaning it up.

At any rate, which ever way the fanboys or haters spin this, I'm just stoked & hopeful that it will raise the quality of working conditions for the employees at Foxconn.

I have to agree with you. I actually don't like Apple much. My only Apple product is a circa 2003 Cinema Display that I picked up used (because, frankly, they're great monitors). However, while it's a bit unfair that they get singled out for labor practices (in which they are hardly alone) they do come off as rather pretentious in the way they present their products to the world. If they claim to stand for a better world then, yes, it's on them to lead this charge. As much as I don't like them in general, I'm glad they're doing it. I just hope it's for real and not smoke and mirrors.

Re:corporate responsibility

[gnasher719]

explain the anti-suicide nets then? Is that how they cause a reduction in suicide? Because the workers cannot commit suicide at work, so they do it when away so the figures for Foxconn look better?

If you look at statistics in the USA, it turns out that the suicide rate among men is much higher than among women. A closer look shows that the rate of suicide _attempts_ is much higher among women. Women just use methods that work less well, like taking lots of sleeping tablets, while men quite often use violent mens like using a gun, which has a very high "success" rate.

It seems that people at Foxconn have found a method that "works well" - jumping off a high roof. Suicide nets can stop this from working. This may not reduce the number of suicidal people, and the number of suicide _attempts_, but it will force people to use methods that work less well, therefore fewer _successful_ suicide attempts.

And of course there is the fact that suicide may very well be a spontaneous decision that won't be repeated. That person on the roof staring at a net may very well decide that they were very close to making a horrible mistake and seek help. Without a net, the same person might have figured out about half the way down that they made a mistake; too late.

Re:corporate responsibility

[EdIII]

You're still the asshole. You have basically admitted to being a troll that gets their kicks off insulting people for no good reason.

So, fuck you again.

You can call me a moron all you want, but in the end you are incapable of civil discourse. Yes, you insult people for any reason apparently.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Having said that there is one area that China seems to excel at which is low volume manufacturing. I can get 50 of my products made by hand for a reasonable price there, but western companies don't even seem to be interested. That is changing slowly, mainly due to automation, but low volume seems to be about the one area where wages really do make a big difference. Hardly applies to consumer electronics though. I'd also like to say that not all Chinese stuff is crap either, they make some damn fine products too. They are not idiots, they see that quality at a reasonable price sells and are getting into that market.

Actually, they're not great at low volume manufacturing either. You don't really think they are only making 50 of your design, do you? They're just not cutting you in on the sale price of the other 450-49,500 they make.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

We also have more hands to build stuff with than ever before. As long as labor is cheaper than robotics, the labor wins, once everyone's labor is ~Western price level, the balance shifts in favor of robotics. Some things will always require manual labor to a degree, but much of what was brute unskilled labor - shoveling coal, unloading ships, etc. has fallen by the wayside.

I do love that while discussing labor practices, my captcha was Unionize.

Re:corporate responsibility

[scot4875]

because nobody here is willing to take a pay cut to keep their job.

This line is bullshit for so many reasons.

First, workers generally aren't even given an *option* to take a pay cut. A factory is built in China, all manufacturing shifts to the new factory, then one in the US is shut down and all the workers are laid off. At no point does management ever ask, "well, we think we may have to move manufacturing to China ... unless everybody in this plant is willing to take a pay cut to $1.25 per hour." There's really no reason to even ask, because there's no way that the US worker could ever compete, even if they were willing to take the cut.

And the reason they couldn't compete? Because it's absolutely impossible to live on those kinds of wages in the US. (strawman alert) I suppose you think it would be a great thing if US workers could just suck it up and do 12-16 hour shifts and live in factory dormitories and never see the light of day, but most of the rest of us think that would be a terrible thing for what little is left of the middle class.

--Jeremy

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... you're one twisted fuck with the worst reading comprehension.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why people keep talking about suicides at Foxconn factories, since the population of China has a higher suicide rate than the population of Foxconn workers in China.

Foxconn employment correlates to less suicides, not more. You know what that means? I know you refuse to believe it because for some reason you've decided to have an irrational hatred for everything Apple, but Foxconn saves lives.

Suicide is not something to be happy about, but let's be honest, it's just one more cause of death in the world. Some people kill themselves, and always will. There are far more preventable causes of death in the world, like say, starvation. How many Foxconn workers starve to death? How many of them would starve to death if they didn't have a job? Again, employment in a factory is better than unemployment.

People freak out over suicide numbers at Foxconn facilities because they don't realize just how large these places are. These are massive, massive factories, and there are going to be a lot of deaths from a lot of different causes in any population of that size anywhere no matter what. What is important to look at is not absolute quantities, but percentages, and compare those to statistics for China as a whole.

People target Apple because Apple is a big popular company doing a lot of business right now, but just about every major tech company you can name has their stuff made at Foxconn, or a similar company in China. This isn't some Apple problem, and yes, the reality is Apple is doing more than most of those other companies to identify and fix problems. Perhaps you should save your moral outrage for those big tech companies that are silent on these issues, or even better, the factories that have higher death rates than China's population as a whole (if there even are any).

The only reason Apple is even considering trying to rectify the issues is due to bad publicity. Had these articles not come out they wouldn't think twice. This hurts their bottom line.

Like others said this inspection won't change a thing. Those workers know that if they speak up they will either be fired or executed. This is communist china FFS, not happy USA where you can complain loudly to your co-worker with no repercussions. This investigation will be a $$$$ pit and everything will appear to be great.

Re:corporate responsibility

[jo_ham]

Yeah, you don't hear about that because of the bias of the various reporting going on - where do you think the bulk of those Android phones are made? It starts with an F and ends in "oxconn".

You think Apple is their only client?

The only one that can generate ad impressions I guess.

Re:corporate responsibility

[AK Marc]

Then the vast majority of the US are slaves, and complaints about China are irrelevant.

Re:corporate responsibility

[AK Marc]

Given the choice of possible death or certain loss of job, he chose death. He'd rather die than lose his job, what's that say about his options?

Re:corporate responsibility

[AK Marc]

When people lie to make Foxconn look worse than it really is, why should I not use lies, damn lies, or statistics back at them?

Face it, if they have to lie so much to make Foxconn/Apple look bad, then it can't really be that bad, otherwise they wouldn't have to lie.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone is beaten down until they're in a state of learned helplessness, so beaten down that they can't even so much as consider suicide, is this the best possible option?

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's "-1 Unbelieveably moronic" when you need it!?

Re:corporate responsibility

[AK Marc]

They'd use it, but downmodding an AC isn't worth it.

Re:corporate responsibility

[aiken_d]

You know that Foxconn makes products for Motorola, right? And that there is a proportional likelihood that any given Foxconn suicide was working on a Motrolla product?

Other Android "manufacturers" that use Foxconn for prodcut assembly and are therefore every bit as culpable as Apple, but never mentioned because it's against the narrative: Acer Inc., Amazon.com, Asus, Barnes & Noble, Samsung, Sony Ericsson.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Then we'd have communism and we'd all be dead, you fool.

Re:corporate responsibility

[lwsimon]

Biomass, which we can use to produce energy and build more robots.

Duh.

Re:corporate responsibility

[shutdown -p now]

So tell me, why should the West help China create middle class, at the expense of destroying its own middle class?

Because that's exactly what the model of "manufacture there, sells here" does.

Re:corporate responsibility

[shutdown -p now]

The UK. The US. France. Germany.

There's a big difference between those countries, and China.

The countries that you've listed exploited their own poor to provide cheap goods to their rich. Eventually, the poor started getting discontent and organizing, and the rich had to make concessions - legalizing trade unions, 8-hour work days, minimal wage, welfare net...

China, however, exploits the poor to provide cheap goods to foreign rich - that would be us. And we (and by that I mean the majority of western consumers) don't really care about their conditions, so long as cheap stuff keeps flowing. At worst, we come up with excuses as to why their conditions are "not so bad for China", despite the fact that the fruits of their labor are not priced for and used in China - they're made for the West, and should be judged same as any other good or service consumed here.

At the same time, we're also ruining our own economies. We earn money according to our own high rates, but we spend them on cheap goods which are manufactured in foreign factories with crappy labor standards. This is not a sustainable model - if everyone here buys cheap no matter what, then everyone will buy from foreign businesses rather than each other, and then local manufacturing goes out of business. And then so do services, and everything else that can be outsourced. The only logical end result of this game is that we'll be swimming in "cheap" Chinese products with nothing manufactured locally, but then they won't be cheap anymore because we will all be sitting without jobs.

Alternatively, we can get the jobs back, but we'll need to drop the cost of labor down to Chinese levels to compete - which means dropping the life quality correspondingly. Of course, it will also rise in China somewhat in the meantime, so we'll meet up in the middle. Except it's not the real middle - there are far more Chinese than there are Americans (or even westerners in general), so when you even it out on a global market, Chinese will be living slightly better, but we will be living noticeably worse.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe when we run out of people or planet to exploit?

Re:corporate responsibility

[shutdown -p now]

US is a democracy, which provides some ways for wage slaves to circumvent the free market, and demand their fair wage - that's what all the labor laws about 8-hour workdays, minimal wage etc are. Ditto for social security. Even then, many people had to fight and die for all these things a century ago, when most workers in US were wage slaves in all meanings of the term.

China, on the other hand, is not a democracy.

Re:corporate responsibility

[AK Marc]

So we did it 100 years ago, but if China does it now, then they are bad people. Maybe they are as good of people as we are, but in a slightly different point in the path to industrialization. I see people complain about China all the time, but I've not seen a reasonable suggestion of a fix, nor a reason why our development as a nation was acceptable and theirs isn't.

Re:corporate responsibility

[shutdown -p now]

Did I say anything about Chinese being "bad people"? My point is simply that their country is not democratic, and so their path is not the same as our path was 100 years ago.

Anyway, even if it were, what I don't understand is why West should subsidize the building of the Chinese middle class at the expense of its own middle class. Because that's what shipping manufacturing jobs over there does.

Re:corporate responsibility

[AK Marc]

My point is simply that their country is not democratic, and so their path is not the same as our path was 100 years ago.

But their path is the same, so your logic must be wrong.

Anyway, even if it were, what I don't understand is why West should subsidize the building of the Chinese middle class at the expense of its own middle class. Because that's what shipping manufacturing jobs over there does.

What does that have to do with anything I've ever said?

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Apple was right on top of things here... It only took a few suicides, an expose and confrontation with Jobs saying he'd "look into it"... Oh, and that was three and a half years ago. And then Jobs/Apple didn't do anything about...

Until now, where the media has gotten sick of reporting on the European debt crisis because they don't understand it, and doesn't want to report our current political race because exposing the sham that our two-party system is just is not worth the time.

So now the media figures it's best to recycling a 3.5 year old issue about Apple and labor exploitation... And you and the other iphone/ipod wielding sheeple are so hungy to get down on your knees a kiss Apple's apple-bottom, giving them credit for acknowleging that they just didn't give a crap about human rights for all these years.

Way to go.

Re:corporate responsibility

[shutdown -p now]

But their path is the same, so your logic must be wrong.

So far, you haven't given any proofs that their path is the same. Them being in a state that is similar in some ways to where we were a century ago doesn't mean that they'll go the same way we did from there. Also, as noted, their state is markedly different in several important ways, most notably authoritarianism.

What does that have to do with anything I've ever said?

It was not a response to any of your points, just a general comment on why I don't like the present scheme.

Re:corporate responsibility

[AK Marc]

I'm not going to give any proofs. You might as ask for proof regarding the Renaissance. It happened. If you don't know that, you are too ignorant to argue with. If you did know that and still disagree, then you are too stupid to argue with. Either way, I'm not going to teach you 19th century American history just to make an obvious point about workers rights (ever wonder why nearly every major power got rid of their slavery within about 20 years of 1900?).

Re:corporate responsibility

[shutdown -p now]

Look, I'm not arguing that we didn't have similar conditions in our own history. I know full well that factory workers were wage slaves as well in 19th century, and in some places even early 20th. But your claims from there that it therefore must be necessary for China to repeat the rest of our history from that point on are unsubstantiated. Western countries, by that time, already had strong notions of human rights. Most of them were democratic, too.

(ever wonder why nearly every major power got rid of their slavery within about 20 years of 1900?

Mostly because they were scared shitless of worker discontent forming into bona fide revolutionary movements who started demanding political power, and not just economic concessions. Especially after such a revolutionary movement actually took power in Russia in 1917, and almost did the same in Germany in 1918.

Re:corporate responsibility

[phantomfive]

a troll that gets their kicks off insulting people for no good reason.

No, I never insult people for no reason. You deserve them. Lots of them. More than I have given you. Many more.

Re:corporate responsibility

[EdIII]

I have looked through your posts to other people. Insulting people is all you are capable of. If you had any capability for rational and civil discourse that would be one thing, but it seems to be beyond your grasp.

You are a simple troll with no value.

Fuck You.

You can post nasty comments to me in as many articles as you want, and I will not feed you anymore. The kitchen is closed bitch.

Good bye.

Re:corporate responsibility

[AK Marc]

What does "democratic" have to do with it? And how does a one party democracy differ from a two-party system where the two parties collude?

Re:corporate responsibility

[shutdown -p now]

What does "democratic" have to do with it?

In a democratic society, all those workers vote, so violent struggle (which may or may not be successful, and historically failed more often than not; it's just that we tend to focus more on successes, such as Russia/USSR, rather than failures such as Germany) is not their only recourse. They can organize into political parties - that's precisely where the various "labor parties", of which pretty much every single Western European country has, have come from - and get enough seats in the parliament that they can make themselves heard, and push through laws in their interest. Or they can take over an existing party, or some of its internal factions, with a similar effect. This goes side by side with other forms of protesting and drawing attention, such that at least some parts of other, established, parties, are also swayed to vote together with labor on issues of importance.

And how does a one party democracy differ from a two-party system where the two parties collude?

This was not the case back when labor reforms were promulgated in US.

Re:corporate responsibility

[metacell]

Good point.

Re:corporate responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Massive USA factory worker wages and massive pension? Hyperbole. Average cost to build products here would add 20%. Stop repeating "cost of US labor b.s." or tell me where these MASSIVE factory jobs are in America.

Someone should make a film of this

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw you Hanz Brikz!!

Excellent news

[quax]

This is probably the next best option as long as these workers are not allowed to unionize and negotiate their labor terms.

Re:Excellent news

[bloodhawk]

call me a pessimist but I don't see how this changes the current situation at all. Apple has been performing inspections of them and finding breaches every single year, They then issue a warning to the company who then promise to do better in future and they both continue on their merry way raking in profit. As long as Companies like Apple (and yes I know it is not just apple) continue to give human rights nothing more than lip service and publicity stunts nothing will change.

Re:Excellent news

[nhtshot]

My wife just showed up with lunch and I asked her specifically about this. (she's native born Chinese) Basically, she said that people work there because they can make more money than they can anywhere else.

In theory they could unionize, but what would it get them? Most likely a chance to get fired and replaced with 200,000 other farm kids that are quite happy to take the wages Foxconn is willing to offer.

Unions only work when there is a limited supply of workers. That isn't a problem right now in China. Eventually (10-20 years I estimate) it might be, and then unionizing makes sense. Until then, there's no point.

Can you imagine all those workers going on strike? I would wager they would all be replaced within a week, everything would go back to normal and the western world would never even notice.

Re:Excellent news

[quax]

Independent unions are currently suppressed in China

Constructing an iPad will require some learning curve no matter how much the process is broken down. Walk-outs will be costly and disruptive, especially in the gadget industry where products have a short shelf live.

The situation in China is similar to where the Western world was 100 years ago. Labor struggles will be fierce. The unions won't always win but the record in the Western world shows that overall concessions can be achieved. That is if independent organization is not violently suppressed. Not that it wasn't violent in the US as well. If you want to read up on this fascinating bit of under reported US history I can recommend you a book.

Re:Excellent news

[quax]

Your pessimism is warranted. Here's what I am hoping for:

This may allow for some breathing space for some actual labor organization to happen. While they are under scrutiny violent suppression of such effort will be more difficult.

Re:Excellent news

[Uberbah]

Unions only work when there is a limited supply of workers.

Eh? If there's a limited supply of workers, companies wont be as free to abuse their workforce, thus eliminating the main reason to have a union in the first place. So if labor is plentiful, there's no point in forming a union. If labor is tight, there's no point in forming a union.

Unless that's the actual point....

Amazing what one day of crowds can do

[icebike]

First time in forever the crowds outside the Apple store weren't dueling down their shirts over new hardware and Apple runs right out and finds company to shill for it. Amazing.

FLA is essentially the fox watching the hen house if you ask me. The organization is not particularly well though of, being considered by some merely an attention diversion. Even Wiki didn't have much good to say about it. And Non Profit Watch is more than a little skeptical.

The take away is that Apple is very sensitive to bad public image press, especially if it makes it into the New York Times, and bodies are hitting the ground.

But in the background they keep suing android vendors for using hyperlinks on web pages. Because that won't get any one standing outside their windows with placards, and they can lean on the press not to cover it, because its boring technical stuff.

Re:Amazing what one day of crowds can do

[jo_ham]

I think it's time for your medicine.

Back to Work!

[Anonymous Coward]

inspector gone! Or no rice for you tonight

It's not as bad as Nazi Approved Gay Inspections

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's close.

A facade really

[Anonymous Coward]

The metrics of these audits will probably be carefully tailored. Make no mistake, this is not a true audit, it's a carefully choreographed public relations stunt in response to protests to save face.

Re:A facade really

[Anonymous Coward]

of course, since people are putting all the blame on Apple and China instead of Sony, Samsung, Acer, Taiwanese CEO Terry Gou, the Taiwanese company of Foxconn(aka Hon Hai), Dell, and many others, .... it's logical Apple respond in kind with a public relations facade to appease the tabloid-journalism-addicted lemmings.

Re:A facade really

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed.

Then I take to the stage and propose that if Apple stands by its word, pay their employees California minimum wage....

Re:A facade really

[rmstar]

What, +5 insightful? Who the hell is getting the mod points these days?

The metrics of these audits will probably be carefully tailored. Make no mistake, this is not a true audit, it's a carefully choreographed public relations stunt in response to protests to save face.

This is an entirely baseless claim, originating in a black and white (well, mostly black) view of the world that is plain stupid in its absoluteness. This is not insightful, but a defeatist, pathologically negative attitude.

The audit will probably not be the best possible one could do, but it is quite unlikely that it will not have some real positive effect.

Re:A facade really

[Anonymous Coward]

of course it's not a true audit. it's not a product crunch week. ..and the fucking audit is announced globally on news networks before it begins. what kind of fucking audit is that?

Re:A facade really

[Anonymous Coward]

Baseless? I think you're either naive or willfully blind to the usual mechanations of the corporate world. I, on the other hand, am not.

Re:A facade really

[elrous0]

Yes, we are all happy here. We make good money. We love our boss. Everything is fine.

That's great. BTW, where did you get that black eye?

I...I...fell off my bike. Yes, we are all happy here. We make good money. We love our boss. Everything is fine.

These auditing services never work.

[Anonymous Coward]

The workers feel it is a setup and if they respond negatively they will lose their job. Workers who do respond negatively usually do so to benefit their own agenda. The only part about it that 'works' is the consumer purchasing products with a 'clear conscience.'

Re:These auditing services never work.

[shilly]

Gosh, it's a good job you pointed out the risk of employees not being able to speak freely. I'll bet that's the very first time in human history that anyone has ever come up with that remarkable insight. Now all those auditing organisations will shut down, because it's also obvious that nothing whatsoever can be done to mitigate this risk and that when it is realised, it completely invalidates every other source of information that the audit relies on. Or just possibly, in the real world, audit organisations might already be taking steps to support employees to speak out freely, such as conducting interviews in private (even going so far as to sweep rooms for bugs) and using unattributed quotes. And triangulating information across multiple sources.

Why have people forgotten Voltaire? Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.

Re:These auditing services never work.

[Anonymous Coward]

I speak only from experience, not from quoting anyone. This is what happens in the real world despite whatever precautions.

Re:These auditing services never work.

[shilly]

I'd hope your experience would have shown you that:
a) there is a downside to every action and also to every lack of action, and that therefore
b) downside must be weighed against upside and now allowed to dominate thinking if you want to conduct the right analysis
That's the experience Voltaire was drawing on to make his famous quotation.

I think I'm getting tired of all news Apple

[bogaboga]

Just last month, it was news about its best ever quarter.

Then just today, news of its stock hitting north of $500.

Again today, some site reporting that Apple's iPad3 will hit us in March.

When Apple finally fades, these pundits will be the ones saying something to the effect: -

..."They could not sustain that 'explosive' growth", or

..."We knew Android was a force to be reckoned with" or

..."With the demise of Steve Jobs Apple then lacked a visionary"...and so much other nonsense...

I say this because Apple has had a number of failed products in the past.

I am just tired of all news Apple. Am I alone?

Re:I think I'm getting tired of all news Apple

[rsborg]

I am just tired of all news Apple. Am I alone?

No you're not. You're not even in the minority. There have always been Apple doom-n-gloomers since, well, the beginning of the interwebs. Many respectable trolls^Wtech journalists (Henry Blodgett, John C. Dvorak, have been negative on Apple for decades. What's news now, is that Apple, long the doomed company, is now ascendant, and has not only beat Microsoft at the finances game, they've got more market capitalization than ExxonMobil.

Apple is here to stay for the long term... for good or ill.

Let's agree for once: this is not a bad thing.

[siddesu]

I hope that other companies take notice and start doing the same, and that the number of people abused in the name of capitalism decreases worldwide. The gadgets may become a tad more expensive, but hey, it may out to be worth it in the long run for everyone.

What's this social media nonsense?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't like this new thing.

Worker demands

[Anonymous Coward]

Workers are demanding a second hour of sleep a night. Apple representatives feel that a compromise would be possible that won't severely affect profit margins. Apple's offer of a picture of the company logo instead of an actual apple for dinner was flatly refused by the workers.

shipping jobs overseas...

[schlachter]

It's not enough that we ship our jobs overseas....but now we need to make sure that they're good jobs for those who get the jobs. I'm all for protecting workers...but the irony is thick.

Re:shipping jobs overseas...

[pegasustonans]

It's not enough that we ship our jobs overseas....but now we need to make sure that they're good jobs for those who get the jobs. I'm all for protecting workers...but the irony is thick.

It's only ironic if you care about things like nationalism.

I could care less about nationalism, but I do care about healthy working conditions and respect at the workplace.

Re:shipping jobs overseas...

[sgt scrub]

If the standard of living improves in China they will become consumers. You can sell things to consumers.

Re:shipping jobs overseas...

[shutdown -p now]

It's not enough that we ship our jobs overseas....but now we need to make sure that they're good jobs for those who get the jobs.

It's actually better that way for you, since if they're good jobs, that means the companies will have to pay more for them. Meaning that it costs more to manufacture those products, even in China. Meaning that they can't undercut local manufacturing as much as they could before.

Ideally, you'd want them to be jobs so good that they'd cost as much as local manufacturing does, at which point it wouldn't make economic sense to outsource anymore. The only catch is that this state can be achieved by two means: either you make jobs in China as good as in US today, or else you make the jobs in US as bad as they are in China. The way things are going with the present arrangement, option #2 is what you'll end up with.

Re:shipping jobs overseas...

[shutdown -p now]

You can sell things to consumers.

Only if you manufacture them.

What will happen instead is that Chinese factories manufacturing goods in China for US will switch to manufacturing goods in China for Chinese middle class. Americans need not bother, unless American labor and environmental protection costs will somehow become cheaper than Chinese ones - and for that you need to match your quality of life with theirs. For starters, repeal laws regulating minimal wage, overtime and child labor, and look the other way on any environmental issues caused by manufacturing.

Re:shipping jobs overseas...

[sgt scrub]

If China developed a middle class, even if it is highly tariffed, a desire to have things from abroad would develop. Things like what Chinese Americans write home about.

Re:shipping jobs overseas...

[shutdown -p now]

Things like what Chinese Americans write home about.

Can you give some specific examples?

Most (material) things that Chinese Americans write home about are actually manufactured in China. It's just that they're not sold there, because you can ask for a much bigger price in US, and people will pay it because their wages are high enough to afford that kind of thing.

Re:shipping jobs overseas...

[sgt scrub]

I doubt it is much different than, "My nice car. Went to the street races. My nice girl friend likes my nice car and street races."

Re:Hrm..

[bell.colin]

I consider myself an Apple hater and even i know this is not solely an Apple problem it is a mostly a Foxconn problem. (Apple is just one of very many of their clients)

Excellent news

[msobkow]

It's about time the North American companies that outsource to cheap offshore providers started inspecting those facilities and ensuring that abusive slave-labour environments aren't being created to save money and increase profits.

If North America wants respect in the world, our companies need to export the GOOD things about our Canadian and American legal systems, not use offshoring to ESCAPE our regulations.

Kudos to Apple for grabbing the bull by the horns. (Or is it a dragon by the beard this year?)

Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[nhtshot]

I've resisted posting on these threads because I don't want to start a war. However, I think it's finally time that I spoke up.

Firstly, I live in China, speak Mandarin and Cantonese and build electronics among other things over here.

I think this isn't a bad thing in concept, but everyone needs to get a little perspective on the issue. The educated workers, engineers and the like, are pretty well taken care of. They make middle class (for the region) wages, get weekends off and generally put in a comparable number of productive hours to US engineers.

The factory workers, which are the ones that everyone seems to worry about also have it pretty good. They get company provided housing (no, the housing isn't up to western standards, but it's significantly better then where they grew up, I PROMISE). They also get company provided food (No, it isn't Ruth's Chris, but it isn't bad.. I frequently eat in the factory when I don't want to take the time to go out).

Everyone is trying to apply western working standards to the workers over here. While I think it's great in principle, consideration has to be taken for cultural and lifestyle differences. Most of the people that are working in those factories came from a life of subsistence farming. They are also migrant workers. Their families live back in Henan, Hunan, Dongbei, etc... Most of them grew up in a single concrete room. They're quite lucky if their parents house had a flushable toilet.

Making a thousand or two thousand RMB per month, having a decent bed to sleep in and 3 meals a day is a significant upgrade.

With all of that said, I'm also a firm believer in giving them the opportunity for more. Everybody should have the chance to enjoy western working standards. But, it needs to be done in a patient manner. Expecting Apple to leverage Foxconn to give $10/hr and carpeted apartments to 200,000 workers is way out of proportion. Not only would it be prohibitively expensive, but it would screw up Foxconn's competitiveness.

Remember, Iphones aren't the only thing made in Foxconn city. Hundreds of other electronics manufacturers make things there. If Foxconn doesn't stay competitive in Shenzhen, somebody will open a factory in Vietnam where they don't even have to feed their staff and pretty soon all of those people in SZ that everyone was so worried about will be out of work and back to subsistence farming.

Let me repeat... I'm not opposed to this. A little external influence to help them move up the economic ladder is certainly not a bad thing. Neither are all the good intentions. What is a bad thing is expecting too much to happen too fast. China has advanced at it's own pace QUITE effectively in a single generation. We all need to bear that in mind.

They have a long ways to go, but they've come a HELL OF A LONG WAYS from hole-in-the-ground toilets that don't flush.

I'd say, we should all give Apple and Foxconn some credit for the 200,000 migrant children of farmers that now can feed their families back home and raise their children in better conditions then what they grew up in. Isn't that the "American Dream"? Giving more to your children then you had?

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[korean.ian]

Excellent post. It's amazing what short memories people have. The Japanese and South Koreans both had periods very similar to what China is experiencing now, with workers living in crowded conditions and working for (comparative) peanuts. The US and UK also had terrible working conditions during their industrializing periods, probably worse than what the workers at Shenzhen experience.
This is a positive step, and welcomed by anybody with a bit of pragmatism.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Kenja]

So things are so good that they had to put up nets to stop people jumping off the buildings for joy?

You can argue social differences all you want, but as soon as people would rather kill themselves there is an issue that you shouldn't ignore.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Herkum01]

Just because "they are better off than before" does not mean we should settle for less than "where it should be".

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly, I live in China, speak Mandarin and Cantonese and build electronics among other things over here.

Everyone say hi to the CCP foreign correspondence branch!

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[jmottram08]

Read. more. The whole point is that rushing the process can cause a systemic failure that would leave them worse than before.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[nhtshot]

I wouldn't ever want to demean someones death, but, the suicides at Foxconn were statistically insignificant. Compared to the suicide rate among the general population here, they aren't out of line and are actually an improvement.

Think of a city you know in the US with 200,000 people. I'll wager you every week you can find an obituary in the newspaper for a suicide.

That's a much higher rate then the few at Foxconn city. Perhaps all US cities should have nets as well?

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[nhtshot]

Absolutely. All I'm advocating is some patience in the process. I hope one day they can all enjoy the benefits that American factory workers receive.

Oh, wait... the only benefit is 6 months of unemployment checks and a foreclosure notice.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Kenja]

The Xinhua News Agency says otherwise. And for some reason they dont have to put up nets around said US city to stop people from jumping like they did at Foxconn.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[manual_tranny]

I sure appreciate your comments, they provide a much-needed counterpoint to the original article. My post on this subject was similar to yours in one place ---> "Remember, Iphones aren't the only thing made in Foxconn city. Hundreds of other electronics manufacturers make things there. If Foxconn doesn't stay competitive in Shenzhen, somebody will open a factory in Vietnam where they don't even have to feed their staff and pretty soon all of those people in SZ that everyone was so worried about will be out of work and back to subsistence farming."--- I don't understand why Apple products are the only thing on trial here. The people who buy Foxconn products (and similar) are every bit as responsible for the worker's conditions as the people who set up the factory. The only difference is that as consumers we are not responsible for the success or failure of Foxconn as a business. Everyone making the business decisions for Foxconn must compare their costs with regional competition. At a certain point, we have to admit that WE (the US especially) are responsible for creating an economic model that makes factories like Foxconn INEVITABLE. For me, the jury is still out about whether it is better to try and "fix" one factory at a time or if it would be better to take a more Holistic/Systemic approach. We are balancing the "needs" of the poverty stricken Chinese with the "needs" of the lower class US. The most realistic solution is to solve the wealth disparity here in the USA. Our poverty stricken RELY on the labor of the poverty stricken Chinese to scrape by on Walmart clothing and furniture in their basement apartments. At what point will we acknowledge that the disparity of wealth here in the USA is encouraging a wealth disparity throughout the entire 3rd world?

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Darinbob]

There's another viewpoint to make though. While the workers aren't as bad off as they could be, and even the bad conditions are an improvement over working in rice fields, this does not mean that consumers should just whistle a happy tune and let things be. There needs to be a pushback to increase working conditions. As soon as the west decides things are good enough then they'll never improve. The reason jobs are moving out of the west and into places like China and India is because the costs are lower and the regulations are next to non-existent. If this is just accepted this will hurt working conditions in the west also and they certainly won't improve in the east.

We spend a hundred years in the west trying to improve labor conditions and make corporations accountable and then they toss this all out the window and bypass the western workers. Of course these executives are not living in China or India either which is the part that stinks; if they like the overseas workers better then they should live there as well. Otherwise it's just too much of them covering their eyes. There should not be an audit now and then, there should be the CEO of Apple and Dell walking into the factory floors every single week, unannounced.

Yes, give Foxconn some credit but that does not mean let them rest. They have a long ways to go. So keep pushing to make working conditions even better.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Kenja]

You could adjust that American "benefit" by treating China like they do us. Its what, 5% import tax on stuff from China while they charge closer to 30% for stuff from America? Of course US companies move their factories there, they want to sell in China and the US and the only way to do that is to build in China.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Anonymous Coward]

Resources are finite. If they pay workers more then costs go up and fewer products get made. So fewer workers get hired. The ones who get hired may be a bit happier but the ones who don't will be a lot more miserable than otherwise.

So the net misery in China would go up.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[nhtshot]

Of course they did.. they were embarrassed by western news reporting it first and had to. Plus, Foxconn isn't a mainland company and they ALWAYS like a chance to bash on the Taiwanese.

They would NEVER tell you about the real suicide rate in mainland china. Or any other thing negative about Chinese society.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Rakishi]

So things are so good that they had to put up nets to stop people jumping off the buildings for joy?

The Empire State Building also has nets, does that mean all of NYC is a giant sweat shop filled with despair and misery?

For every million people in the US, there are 106 suicides per year.

For every million people in the China, there are 222 suicides per year.

For every million people at Foxcom, there are under 20 suicides per year.

So, in fact, the very low suicide rate at Foxconn is an indication of joy compared not just to China but to the USA as well.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[nhtshot]

"They have a long ways to go. So keep pushing to make working conditions even better."

Absolutely.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[jagapen]

"Golden Gate to get suicide net," Los Angeles Times, Oct. 11, 2008

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/11/local/me-goldengate11

Just sayin'.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[nhtshot]

"At what point will we acknowledge that the disparity of wealth here in the USA is encouraging a wealth disparity throughout the entire 3rd world?"

I'd never really looked at it that way. VERY interesting.. You've given me food for thought for a while.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Kenja]

You can skew the number all you want. Facts are facts, and the fact is that the conditions at Foxconn are bad. So bad that this year 150 workers threatened mass suicide in protest. They where all fired and forcibly removed. To me, that does not sound like a content work force.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Kenja]

Yes. Because it was a problem. No one said "ah well, this is normal and there's nothing to look into". Workers threatening mass suicide in protest over working conditions is a problem. Anyone who claims otherwise must have a really bad job. Like mop boy at the porn theater bad.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Rakishi]

You can skew the number all you want.

I simply stated straight up facts.

Facts are facts, and the fact is that the conditions at Foxconn are bad.

Yet the very suicide rate, which you brought up, disagrees.

That you can't accept facts and instead cling to your beliefs irrespective of the facts is not my fault.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Kenja]

You used large pool rates compared to a specific location. That's not "straight up facts", that's skewed data. And how do you respond to the mass suicide protest this year? I guess because they where fired and forced off the property they dont count. But it still doesn't sound like a happy work force to me.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone is trying to apply western working standards to the workers over here. While I think it's great in principle, consideration has to be taken for cultural and lifestyle differences.

Corporate exploitation isn't a cultural or lifestyle difference. It's a global reality.

They have a long ways to go, but they've come a HELL OF A LONG WAYS from hole-in-the-ground toilets that don't flush.

Yes, they've gone from rural farms to crowded industrial spaces where many are prone to suicidal depression. Is this the progress you're talking about?

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Anonymous Coward]

They are also protected from nagging coworkers trying to talk to them, on shift or off. Not to mention fair legal representation of blacklisting from all factories from the labor authorities. What's not to love.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Rakishi]

You used large pool rates compared to a specific location.

The demographic corresponding to Foxconn workers has, at best, an average suicide rate so baring further data my comparison is generally valid. Foxconn hires more people than live in many cities, at that scale you're gonna get a lot of unhappy people in absolute not matter what the working conditions are.

Granted, I never said Foxconn is a paradise but merely that it's not a hell hole either. Probably a better work environment than the Mexican crop pickers get in the US (and not as health destroying long term).

Mostly I find the focus on suicide rates hilarious because that's one thing that Foxconn can't really be called out for. You'd probably get more suicides if you actually implemented all those Western reforms people want, freedom has a lovely was of causing gluttony, drama and despair. Maybe I just find the western-centric manifest destiny "we're perfect and better in every regard" view of the world so two centuries ago.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[khallow]

You can skew the number all you want. Facts are facts, and the fact is that the conditions at Foxconn are bad.

Numbers trumps your so-called facts. But that's because they weren't really facts. If you want to claim that there is an elevated suicide rate at Foxconn, then you need to show the suicides. You can't do that based on a miniscule number of reported suicides.

So bad that this year 150 workers threatened mass suicide in protest. They where all fired and forcibly removed. To me, that does not sound like a content work force.

And if all of those workers committed suicide this year while no other employees did, Foxconn would still have a lower suicide rate than mainland China. The numbers just aren't working in your favor.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[arose]

It means that people are likely to jump of the Empire State Building, yes.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[silviumc]

Are you a Westerner? Are you Chinese paid by the Communist party or Foxconn to make China/Foxconn look good on the internet? (if you're actually genuine, sorry for saying this, but it's a real possibility) I believe all Foxconn workers that will talk to the Western investigators will be required to say that everything is great. Else, worse things than just being fired will happen to them. Do you think this will happen? I live in an ex-Communist country, so I have experienced party propaganda first hand.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Anonymous Coward]

Foxconn is a Taiwanese company. TW is not communist...

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Taco Cowboy]

I've resisted posting on these threads because I don't want to start a war.

Too late ! They will attack you once they know you are from China.

Slashdot is never friendly with China

Almost every thread that is related to China, you will see all kinds of stereotyping, all kinds of racial slurs, all variations of "I know better than the Chinese" themes poured in

If you dare to say anything positive about China, oh boy, just wait for it, they will sure come with rope and torch, and things with sharp ends

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Anonymous Coward]

So things are so good that they had to put up nets to stop people jumping off the buildings for joy?
You can argue social differences all you want, but as soon as people would rather kill themselves there is an issue that you shouldn't ignore.

I don't think your suggestion of shutting down ALL the manufacturing plants in the USA is realistic.
Just because the USA has a 20x times higher suicide rate than China, and 10x the suicide rate of Foxcon, is no reason to go all off the handle and claim the USA's cultural differences should be ignored, or that our problem is as bad as you make it out to be.

Our nets are because the buildings are tall, and a tiny fraction of people are too clumsy or too unintelligent to realize how dangerous it is.

Most of us in the USA still prefer our working conditions compared to any other country, despite our higher suicide rate that you "can't ignore"

So please stop trying to turn the USA into a 3rd world country. We are striving to improve, and especially to the much improved Chinese standards with their 20x lower suicide rates. But that's no reason to go about insulting the entire country!

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[gnasher719]

You can skew the number all you want. Facts are facts, and the fact is that the conditions at Foxconn are bad. So bad that this year 150 workers threatened mass suicide in protest. They where all fired and forcibly removed. To me, that does not sound like a content work force.

These workers where threatening mass suicide "at the Apple factory" as was widely reported, because they were in danger of losing their jobs when Microsoft reduced the XBox production. That wasn't a work force unhappy with their jobs. It was a work force unhappy with the prospect of having no job.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[msobkow]

You make some excellent points, but I can't accept some of your statements.

The slaves of the old Southern United States were housed, clothed, and fed by their masters, too.

But they were still slaves.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[sgt scrub]

Making a thousand or two thousand RMB per month, having a decent bed to sleep in and 3 meals a day is a significant upgrade.

No actually it is not significant.

If Foxconn doesn't stay competitive in Shenzhen, somebody will open a factory in Vietnam where they don't even have to feed their staff and pretty soon all of those people in SZ that everyone was so worried about will be out of work and back to subsistence farming.

First, if they actually DID make a significant wage the economy would effect those still living on subsistence farming. Their income would allow small businesses to start. Then you would truely have a middle class. Second, increasing wages to merely 20% of the U.S. counter part would not effect the bottom line on any of the products produced in SZ. The cost of building a plant and moving production to another country would cost billions.

They get company provided housing (no, the housing isn't up to western standards, but it's significantly better then where they grew up, I PROMISE). They also get company provided food.

I don't know if you realize it; but, your describing a case where a company is killing economic opportunity. If they paid their workers and allowed them to buy/rent property other people woudl be able to make a living off some of the money made through all of this international trade. This is called economy building. This is what would bring opportunity to thousands of additional people. Keeping everything internal to one corporation allows that corporation to force its employees to become indentured. Quite simply indentured servitude.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Uberbah]

The Empire State Building also has nets, does that mean all of NYC is a giant sweat shop filled with despair and misery?

If I wanted to make an irrelevant comparison, sure. How many sweatshops are inside the Empire State Building? Do depressed people who don't work actually work at Foxconn nevertheless travel to their factories for suicide attempts?

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Uberbah]

Shorter Rakishi:

"Kenja was right and I was making a skewed comparison. Now let me distract from that with a combination of hand waving and a word salad......"

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[DerekLyons]

The funny thing is - I read Southern slaveowners saying the same thing before the [US] Civil War. And English landowners and landlords during the centuries that England occupied Ireland. And from factory owners in the US around the turn of the 20th century when unions began agitating and labor laws started to be passed.

It's the same old excuses, again and again about how the "[insert underclass here] never had it so good, they should appreciate what we do for them". It's a carefully constructed rationale for why it's OK to treat them that way - after all "them there darkies love it, and they'd be lost without us!".

It was bullcrap then, and it's bullcrap now.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Uberbah]

No factory workers - wage slave or otherwise - work at the Golden Gate.

Just sayin'.

Doubt many depressed people in China make a point of seeking out a Foxconn building for a suicide attempt.

Just sayin'.

Which means these Golden Gate Bridge, Empire State Building comparisons are completely irrelevant at best and deliberate misdirection at worst.

Just sayin'.

Now, if you have a story on suicide rates amongst Wal-Mart workers or something, then by all means share it so we could have an actual analogy here..........

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to compare workplaces to workplaces, not workplaces to countries, or countries to buildings.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[vijayiyer]

You can skew the number all you want. Facts are facts, and the fact is that the conditions at Foxconn are bad. So bad that this year 150 workers threatened mass suicide in protest. They where all fired and forcibly removed. To me, that does not sound like a content work force.

Nowadays, people don't seem to even understand the definition of a fact...

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[drinkypoo]

I'd say, we should all give Apple and Foxconn some credit for the 200,000 migrant children of farmers that now can feed their families back home and raise their children in better conditions then what they grew up in. Isn't that the "American Dream"? Giving more to your children then you had?

The problem with that notion is that if someone paid our children what the Foxconn workers are getting paid, they'd have a lawsuit on their hands.

If Foxconn doesn't stay competitive in Shenzhen, somebody will open a factory in Vietnam where they don't even have to feed their staff

...and if we buy those products then we are responsible for not feeding their staff, too. And when we buy products from China we're responsible for people being paid poorly. When we purchase goods from another nation because they are cheaper because that nation has labor laws which we would consider tantamount to slavery, we promote slavery and decrease the value of our own workers.

I'm not against international trade but it must at minimum include tariffs to reduce or eliminate the benefit of slave labor or it will lead to a perpetual condition in which neither nation can afford to change direction, if it hasn't already.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[twmcneil]

Thank you for taking the time to share your perspective on the situation. Far too many people with little or no knowledge offering up what they purport to be facts. Nice to see someone with some real knowledge add to the conversation.

I do have a question though. I've noted that some people, including yourself, point out that these are "migrant" workers. I know what a migrant worker in the U.S. is but I'm not certain I know what a migrant worker in China is. Would if be fair to say that even in China, a migrant worker is not expected to be afforded the luxuries usually afforded to non-migrant workers? Is a migrant worker in China looked down upon by the general populace as is usually the case here in the States?

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[painandgreed]

But, it needs to be done in a patient manner.

Ah, there's the problem. Americans are hardly known for their patience. If anything, I think we pride ourselves on a 'pro-active, get it done now' attitude. This seems to be one of the driving motivations and source of problems and solutions from since we were still colonies.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[gnasher719]

Yes. Because it was a problem. No one said "ah well, this is normal and there's nothing to look into". Workers threatening mass suicide in protest over working conditions is a problem. Anyone who claims otherwise must have a really bad job. Like mop boy at the porn theater bad.

Except it didn't happen. What happened was workers threatening mass suicide in protest of losing their jobs.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[Anonymous Coward]

Wealthy people in every country have always said the same thing about the worse off. "Not too fast, not too fast. They are so much better off then they were."

If you don't demand standards for them that you demand for yourself then you are supporting the pain and misery inflicted upon them. Economically, history has shown that growth in income and increased standard of living has always benefited everyone and the worries of the rich are unfounded.

Apple, a successful, high profile company (whose brand is as important as anything else they do) is a great opportunity for those wanting to make significant and positive change. Just like Nike. Other tech companies are lower value targets.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[quacking duck]

Talk about skewing facts.

I presume you're talking about the workers on the Microsoft Xbox factories who threatened mass suicide, over their plant being shut down, jobs not transferred, and promises of severance were withdrawn.

In other words, they were going to be "fired" anyway. Of course they weren't content, but this particular action was not in direct response to poor working conditions.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[shutdown -p now]

Everyone is trying to apply western working standards to the workers over here. While I think it's great in principle, consideration has to be taken for cultural and lifestyle differences.

I think that is the crux of the matter.

Those items may be manufactured in China, but they are sold in US. Americans earn considerable money, and enjoy considerable protection as workers - why, then, when they are spending those money, they shouldn't demand similar quality of life and worker protection for those goods they consume? It's the only sustainable model... if you are perfectly willing to use the products of someone else's labor knowing that he's treated much worse than you are, just because they are cheaper - well guess what, the products of your labor will also be ignored by other people thinking the same way!

The only consistent approach is to demand that everything that you use is held to the same standard as your own labor and its fruits. This doesn't mean exact monetary equivalent - if food is cheaper in China, for example, their equivalent minimal wage should be less than American one, as well. But it should be equivalent in purchasing power.

And it doesn't have anything to do with the pace of development in China or their laws. It may well be true that, taken as a country, they really don't have economy sufficiently strong to switch to Western standards overnight. That's not the point. The part of their manufacturing sector that supplies Western economies with consumer items, however, are effectively run on Western money. It would be only logical for the countries which supply that money to also demand working conditions for those workers in that sector to be on par with Western standard.

And if that means iPhone gets $50 more expensive, so what?

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[shutdown -p now]

It a certain point, we have to admit that WE (the US especially) are responsible for creating an economic model that makes factories like Foxconn INEVITABLE. For me, the jury is still out about whether it is better to try and "fix" one factory at a time or if it would be better to take a more Holistic/Systemic approach. We are balancing the "needs" of the poverty stricken Chinese with the "needs" of the lower class US. The most realistic solution is to solve the wealth disparity here in the USA. Our poverty stricken RELY on the labor of the poverty stricken Chinese to scrape by on Walmart clothing and furniture in their basement apartments. At what point will we acknowledge that the disparity of wealth here in the USA is encouraging a wealth disparity throughout the entire 3rd world?

Ah, but it goes further than that. Bring manufacturing back to U.S., and those lower classes would suddenly have a lot more jobs to pick from - and could argue for better pay more efficiently (especially through trade unions). Take manufacturing out, and you have the problem that you've described, only it grows worse as time passes - with every job shipped overseas, you get one more local worker that's out of job - that's one more guy you now need to subsidize with cheap foreign goods because he can't afford anything else on his welfare (and can barely afford that).

Worse yet, his welfare is effectively paid by other people who still have jobs... what happens when outsourcing continues, and eventually you don't have enough people working for sufficiently high wages and paying taxes off them to keep benefits at their current - already meager! - level, and need to cut it down? At some point you'll cross the line where most Americans will not be able to afford paying more for stuff manufactured in China than Chinese middle class is willing to pay. Once there, why would Chinese want to manufacture stuff for US if they can manufacture it for themselves for the same profit?

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[manual_tranny]

Good post! Pardon me for a political shill: if we are unable to elect Ron Paul this year, I believe these sorts of international problems will be getting much worse. That "line" that you speak of... I think we crossed it many years ago.

Re:Thoughts from someone who lives in China

[shutdown -p now]

No, the line hasn't been crossed yet, not directly - since we still see iPhones being sold primarily to Western markets, meaning we as a society can still afford them. But, yes, there is an indirect catch, in that dismantling our manufacturing capacities - actual physical factories etc - will make it harder to reverse the trend, so we should start worrying before we cross that line.

This does not apply just to US, either, by the way - Europe is in a similar conundrum, though their "get out of jail" card to date has been increased immigration to add to the local working pool to provide social welfare for workers that are presently retiring - but that brings its own slew of problems, like, how do you properly integrate and assimilate that many people (turns out that, well, you don't - hence immigration-related cultural tensions today).

As for Ron Paul, here's the interesting thing. Politically, I'm considerably left leaning - a social democrat by European measure, a "pinko commie" on American scale. However, after looking closely at Ron Paul, I don't really see a problem with his political program - quite the opposite. In terms of foreign relations, he is by far the sanest candidate on the list. Domestically, his personal political views are directly opposite of mine, but his political program amounts to deregulating stuff on federal level (which people remember) and handing them over to the states (which people forget). And I don't see any reason why things I consider important, like social security, public healthcare, public education, strong labor protection laws etc cannot be implemented on state level. In fact, moving them to state level would be beneficial for more left-leaning states, since now they will no longer have to settle on something meager enough to be acceptable by all fifty states. If, meanwhile, Texas wants to institute strict universal at-will employment, criminalize porn, and legalize private possession of Gatling guns and automatic grenade launchers with no restrictions whatsoever, and teach creationism in schools, I don't see why not - so long as freedom of movement within the Union is retained, and that's a basic constitutional guarantee.

Nothing will change whatosever

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing will change... any organisation can interview hundreds or thousands of workers about how cruel the labor is at Foxconn but at the end of the day corporate greed will take over and all kinds of electronics will continue being made and nothing will change one iota.

If they do it right, I might buy an Apple product

[manual_tranny]

I won't ever really believe that we will see "unrestricted access to all of their operations" as the article states. However, if Apple really gets honest and shows us the deplorable conditions in that factory... and then shows us how it has fixed those conditions... I will give them another chance. What is strange is: I never see any mention about the manufacturing conditions for competing PC and/or phone components. Is it really honest to have so much news about Apple without a mention of the parts used by the other big PC and phone companies? It is probably my fault for neglecting to educate myself... but I think our tendency to focus on one thing at a time really hinders our ability to see the broad picture. If Apple can't make their product for a very low cost, then they simply can't compete. We need to solve the problem of Chinese labor camps regardless of whether they serve high-profile companies like Apple or whether they serve serially-renamed conglomerates that sell $10 jeans in a country where a cheap lunch is $5. Something isn't adding up here.

And it's worse than doing nothing?

[SuperKendall]

We know Apple has taken some real steps, like bonuses for the FoxConn workers, that lead to the conclusion this is not wholly a sham. So why assume the whole thing is fake, and even if so shouldn't you be attacking companies with equal gusto that can't even be bothered to pretend to inspect anything?

You can disbelieve all you like, but when you are covering for companies doing nothing you come off as more than a bit hypocritical.

Re:And it's worse than doing nothing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple holds the purse strings, they have all the power to dictate whatever terms they like with FoxConn. Apple has done nothing but put more lipstick on a pig. If they truly wanted this fixed they could have it solved tomorrow with the massive financial leverage they have over the company. But they are completely unwilling to risk their own profit in order to preserve the lives of others, some would say that is financially responsible for a company and I would not argue with that. But to suggest apple are trying to do anything but save face and expect anyone to believe it is an insult to even a halfwits intelligence.

Re:And it's worse than doing nothing?

[Uberbah]

And your indignation will be impressive when it it's aimed at every other giant tech company that uses Foxconn as opposed to just Apple.

Re:And it's worse than doing nothing?

[DaFallus]

The fact of the matter is that Apple doesn't give a shit about the FoxConn workers. Apple can't give a shit because Apple isn't a person or some group of persons with a singular conscience. What you have is a group of directors asking each other what is the bare minimum they need to do to clean up some of this, possibly unjustified, bad PR.

The fact that Apple is so popular is a double-edged sword. The reason they have been taking all of the flak for the condition of workers at FoxConn, despite the fact that everyone contracts with FoxConn, is because they are the king of the hill. The reason other companies aren't taking any steps to deal with the conditions at FoxConn is because they are content with letting Apple take all the heat. Hell, it probably even improves the bottom line for Apple's competitors.

Apple is between a rock and a hard place and, to their credit, whoever was behind this push for improvements at FoxConn was smart enough to realize that they could spin the negative PR into the positive by demanding a few changes. This is a smart business move, no more no less.

I agree

[SuperKendall]

I personally think the level of speculation that goes around about new Apple products is absurd. As you say, just recently there has been a confluence of items that have conspired to send Apple news into overtime.

However, I personally just ignore the items I feel are excess. I don't care about possible future products so I don't read the guesswork. I already knew Apple stock was heading up regardless so I don't pay attention to that news.

Basically, it seems you have the power to filter the level of Apple news you get to some tolerable level. So do that and be happier.

Tea and biscuit for the inspector too.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwitch on one of these chairs of the workers inside of the Chinese Apple factory.

It's ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN!!!

Then, he appointed with his finger, this viral enemy apparatus must be self-destructed automatically!.

And one of the workers will reclaim the damages of his forgotten phone that he dropped there accidentally after of his labour.

JCPM

And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[SuperKendall]

You've got to be kidding. Have you had your eyes and ears closed for the last five years?

Only someone who had both wide open would realize you whole post is pretty much entirely slander and lies.

In fact the opposite is true, only Apple has shown they care whatsoever. And whatever you are typing on was made under far worse circumstances.

If you had any ethics at all in regards to foreign factory workers you would buy Apple products when possible in support of the efforts they have made to improve labor conditions.

But you don't really care about the Chinese, do you? - No, you just Hate Apple and want to see them die at any costs, even if it means unemployment for a few hundred thousands chinese workers. Having them starve to death is to your mind an honorable way to support your crusade.

Re:And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple shill much? This is a publicity stunt, nothing more.

Re:And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[mrxak]

I agree that these sorts of things are just PR stunts more than anything, and probably wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for the media coverage.

But let's consider the nature of that media coverage, to begin with. It seems that only Apple gets mentioned in Foxconn stories. In some cases, like this story, it makes sense, but most of the negative coverage of Foxconn only ever mentions iPads and iPhones.

These are Foxconn's major clients:
Acer Inc., Amazon.com, Apple, ASRock, Asus, Barnes & Noble, Cisco, Dell, EVGA Corporation, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, MSI, Motorola, Netgear, Nintendo, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, Vizio

And yet, only one of those companies appear in every single Foxconn story. Hmm. If people defending Apple here are just Apple shills, what level of bias can we attribute to the negative stories then, in light of the fact Foxconn makes everybody's tech but the stories only paint Apple in bad light?

Again, Apple's just doing what Apple needs to do, for PR. I don't think they're all a bunch of heartless bastards, though, any more than any other company. But the spotlight on Apple's relationship with Foxconn is a bit strange, since every competitor they have that I can think of is on Foxconn's client list.

Re:And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Understandably your opinion is somewhat colored by viewing these stories through Slashdot, but check this out: Apple's a VERY well-loved company in the eyes of the public in general, and they have massive resources and top talent assigned to protecting their image. Microsoft, on the other hand, has been the company people love to hate for a very long time. Sony's pretty unpopular as well, and even HP.

Foxconn is a big company, and a big place. They don't do the same work for all their different clients, so I very much doubt conditions are equal across product teams. If Apple picked up this bad press when MS and Sony escaped it, my money's on there being a reason. I very much doubt, however, that this inspection will reveal that reason.

Re:And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[shilly]

Well, the OP's money was on there being a reason why Apple picked up bad press when MS and Sony escaped it. Just a different (and more plausible) reason than yours: problems at Apple production sites sell more news than problems at other sites.

I'd be interested to know your credentials in having reached your conclusion that supply chain audits won't be helpful. Are you an expert in corporate responsibility? Do you audit companies for a living? Or do you just mistake kneejerk cynicism for independent thought?

Re:And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple are targeted, not just because there is an anti-Apple sub-culture, but because Apple is Foxconns LARGEST customer. Just like Nike was targeted more than say Rebook some years ago. Or how McDonalds over other equally screwed up fast food chains.

I think there is plenty of blame to go around, but I don't think it is all bad that Apple cop it more than anyone else. Maybe if they were less evangelical in their advertising and PR, people wouldn't feel the need to point out that they are full of shit so often. I know I wouldn't.

Re:And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[AmiMoJo]

It is because Apple has Foxxcon manufacturer and assemble its entire product, where as many of the others do some proportion of the work themselves. Panasonic and Samsung mostly manufacture in their home countries, for example. Sony and EVGA mostly have Foxxcon do it.

That might sound like an arbitrary distinction, and I agree that they are still responsible to some extent, but the unfortunate fact is that no manufacturer can be responsible for its entire supply chain these days. Even the US military can't manage it. In some ways Apple's inspections are only the tip of the iceberg because the majority of the components (resistors, caps, transistors, the solder used, the PCB material and so forth) are not made by Foxxcon, and but come from hundreds of other factories in China and other countries.

Re:And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[MrHanky]

You're a liar. Not that Apple isn't doing anything, but blanket statements such as "whatever you are typing on was made under far worse circumstances" is just the kind of bullshit we've all come to expect from you: pure, unadulterated spin. Most likely untrue, but plausible enough to make other Apple fanboys mod you up.

Re:And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[Uberbah]

It is because Apple has Foxxcon manufacturer and assemble

It's because it's Apple. Somewhat defensible if you're coming from the standpoint of Apple being a high-profit, high-profile company, so they're in a great position to do something about it. But some ignore the fact that workers are just as abused building Xboxes and Androids as they are iPhones, and just like to bitch at Apple.

Re:And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[zieroh]

I think you're being naive. If whatever you're typing on was made in the last 10 years, the chances that it was made under the same (or worse) conditions than those at FoxConn are pretty good.

Re:And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[MrHanky]

Where's the evidence? Oh, there's none.

Re:And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[SuperKendall]

Do you honestly think the person I was replying to owns any Apple equipment? The whole case rests on that fact.

Go find ONE computer made in the last ten years that was not, at least in part, assembled in China. That is the only way it is possible you could be right. But we all know you are backpedaling furiously because everyone, including you, knows there is no chance you are correct. It's the classic Apple Hater trap, you respond without thinking and then you are screwed but unwilling to man up and admit there's no way you are right.

Re:And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung recently moved all their camera manufacturing to China to save costs. Maybe final assembly of China-made telephone components is done in South Korea, though...

Re:And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[Divebus]

This isn't my battle but it's interesting. Where is MrHanky's evidence that you're wrong? What is he typing on? Get make & model and it can be correlated with factory and facts. I doubt he'll supply it because he really doesn't want to chance learning how wrong he is.

Otherwise, I suggest you have a better stance in this pissing contest. Anything made by Apple has been falling under heavy scrutiny for a long time, mostly because Apple keeps more places busier than anyone else, and it sells news. All of the manufacturing is done by third parties without any obligation to follow U.S. labor laws. That goes for whatever he's typing on as well. I'd venture to guess that factories with increased scrutiny are in better shape (labor wise) than factories which escape that scrutiny, like the factory which made MrHanky's equipment.

Re:And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[Divebus]

You're right. No evidence. Supply make & model of your equipment and we'll see.

Re:And what else have to to say Mr Dell?

[cerberusti]

Apple is by far the most reasonable and effective target for this.

Other companies may have the same practices, or even far worse, but it does not change that fact...

Why? If you are out to buy a $300 bargain PC it is very unlikely that brand factors in at all. These companies (such as dell, etc) compete on low margins and prices. Apple competes mainly on brand recognition, and does not really compete on price (you can argue that you get something more... but it is basically the same general product at a huge markup.)

As apple mainly works off of their image, they need to care what people think of what they do. This could be a general industry scandal, but it would be very ineffective vs anybody except apple (again, do you really care if the logo on your product says dell over acer?)

If you are looking to change practices in the industry, apple is really the only target for two reasons:

1) Their profit margins allow them great flexibility in terms of what they do (they can afford it.)

2) A bad image could absolutely destroy apple, while it is at worst a minor inconvenience to anyone else (taking no action would very likely reduce their profits more than correcting it.)

Not really sure why it is surprising that they are the target. Competing on public image makes you more susceptible to this kind of thing, they can either better their practices (in which case others may as well, which is a large positive) or they can lose the image, and compete on price like everyone else.

Competing on price instead of image would cause them to lose a huge amount of money, which means they must do something about the image instead (which is exactly what those pushing these stories want them to do.)

re: Collateral damage

[chaz373]

While Apple bashing is always fun, let us remember that Apple is not the only FoxConn client. So while you may revel in this negative publicity of APPLE, would you be as thrilled to hear that your Xbox 360, your PS3, your Wii, and your Kindle are also built at those same FoxConn factories? Whatever dirt is uncovered will not only tarnish the fruit company but also plenty of other tech titans from HP to Microsoft. So does your umbrage only extend to Apple Inc? My guess is that you will not be metering your indignation equally.

Re:Hrm..

[tlhIngan]

I consider myself an Apple hater and even i know this is not solely an Apple problem it is a mostly a Foxconn problem. (Apple is just one of very many of their clients)

Considering Hon Hai Precision Electronics (parent company of Foxconn) is the world's largest electronics company in the world, practically *everything* you touch has probably been the hands of Foxconn somewhere down the line. If it wasn't built by a Foxconn factory, it probably had a subassembly done there.

Yeah, Apple's one of the big customers, so we can blame Apple for all of their woes and that Apple should fix it up for everyone. Or do we? I mean, if Apple makes it so working conditions are great, would that happen to also give Apple leverage to march into say, the part of Foxconn building Samsung phones, declare it as "unsafe for work - not up to Apple standards" and shut down production? Or HTC? LG? Motorola/Google?

Or if Apple fixes up just the "Apple factories" part of Foxconn, where does the onus fall on fixing everything else? And what about the poor workers who aren't building Apple products - should they suffer because Samsung/Dell/Sony/HTC/LG/Microsoft/Motorola/etc didn't care enough to do audits? Or should Apple have the sole power to audit all of Foxconn?

And a bigger question is - why aren't any of the big guys doing the same, at least publicly? I mean, why is Apple "going it alone"? Can't it be Apple/Dell/Microsoft/etc working together publicly to do this? You'd think they'd all want a piece of the glory. Or is it to slink away hiding and hoping that spotlight only stays focused on Apple and ignores everyone else?

China right now is at the brink of industrialization. I'd say they're at where the US was 100-150 years ago, prior to unionization, people still wanted slaves, etc. Right now, they're still in the labour intensive part of development. The best way to bring them up to Western standards is, ironically, to keep building stuff there so the people can work and get richer and eventually demand much better factory conditions. When millions line up outside a new Foxconn factory wanting a job, forcing them to be unemployed because Foxconn is evil and no one should build stuff there doesn't really encourage upward development.

Enough is Enough!

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, Hon Hai (Foxconn) is a Taiwanese company. It just have tons of factories in China. To consumers: Foxconn plays an important role that that computer you are using right now cost you $1000 and not $10000. Your PS3 is now $300 instead of $3000 (if manufactured in Japan).

From employee's perspective: It is a dream job for many. When Foxconn give raise from 900 RMB/mo to 2,000 RMB/mo, many factories in China are still with 300-400RMB monthly. You don't want to know how much is the bonus/end of year draw. It's like winning the lottery! Unless you work for Apple, Microsoft, Google (or several other large-cap corp), most likely the company you work in is smaller than Foxconn. As nhtshot mentioned, it brings substantial improvement to these worker's lifestyle. Question to ask here is how your own job is changing your life style? Did you change from lack of food/shelter to decent middle class?

To Foxconn's partner/customers: It is a dream partner for many. When talk about manufacturing, there's a reason Foxconn is the size of it today. If you want your outsourced product to manufacture well, you'll want to stick to tier-ones. Not only price is reasonable for customers. It is very efficient! The thing about efficiency is that it comes while whole lot of baggage process in place. This alone makes me think this inspection won't find anything the hippies are looking for.

I guess it is good to bring up outsourcing labor. But the fact is, these work won't be coming back to American not just because of cost, but efficiency as well.

Re:Enough is Enough!

[Anonymous Coward]

You present 1000% increase. Actual estimates 30-40%. FUCK OFF, labor is only a huge factor if you make hi-tech gadgets by fucking hand. That won't be done in the US, EU or Japan.

Re: Collateral damage

[ArsenneLupin]

douchebags buying free trade coffe

Douchebags indeed. Did you know that the "extra" you pay for this free-trade coffee does not (directly) benefit the coffee farmers, but instead stays in the country of sale as a "licensing fee" for the local "fair trade association", which at best spends it on advertisements of the idea of fair-trade coffee, and at worst splits it amongst its board and senior staff via fake purchases of service?

In danger of invoking Godwin

[Opportunist]

But was this a show akin to the Red Cross inspections at the Nazi POW camps? Just asking...

They're auditing their competitors...

[JabrTheHut]

Think about it. This is pure evil. As the fanboys keep telling us, the Foxconn factories make everything from iPods to PS3s. So in doing this, Apple is being especially evil as they're auditing their competitors' manufacturing too!

I don't want Apple taking away my freedom to purchase electronic gadgets made in poor working conditions while tut-tutting (I'm British, we tut) about the poor working conditions in Apple factories and using it as another stick to beat Apple with. It's not up to Apple to control the poor working conditions of other manufacturers.

"trademark violations" lead to FLA inspections

[Anonymous Coward]

Local Chinese gov't guys are barging into Apple stores and confiscating iPads as being a trademark registration from a Chinese company in 2001. Apple retaliates. Waiting for trademark violation charges to be "resolved" ASAP.

Another interesting thread

[yuhong]

http://www.zdnet.com/debate/do-happier-chinese-workers-spell-the-end-of-affordable-tech-gadgets/6343317

Chinese Factory

[Taco Cowboy]

Maybe you have not been to a Chinese factory (I have)

Same here

But you have, maybe unintentionally, missed a very important point --->

Not all factories are the same, whether they are in China, or outside of China

Some factories in China are total shit, I know. But there are factories in China which are actually nicer to work in than some factories that I've been, from United States of America !!

But then, I guess it's not kosher (aka Politically Correct) to talk about nice Chinese factories in Slashdot

Re:Chinese Factory

[wierd_w]

Oh, I know all about the less scrupulous factory environments that are in the US. (I work in aerospace, and outside of the big boys' shops, things get dirty indeed.)

My employer does a fairly good job about insisting things be kept as clean and neat as possible, and that hazardous substances be treated properly, but I have seen and heard of.things even locally that would make heads turn here on slashdot. For instance, one of the companies my mom worked at in the 70s was being cheap and issued latex gloves instead of nitrile for working in MEK. My mom got to experience the joys of aaccute keytone poisoning, but her employer did nothing about it, and refused to acknowledge culpability... until after the statute of limitations ran out, then they came clean about knowing exactly what the signs and sympthoms of overexposure were. (Mom was a dead ringer.)

Another horror story I have heard is from a plastics and composite materials fab plant that works with graphite fiber prepreg and fiberboard. They had workers using power sanders on graphite composite inside an enclosed assemblage WITHOUT forced air full body bunny-suits, as OSHA requires. They were given simple dust masks instead, and from the accounts I have heard repeated by multiple unrelated sources, people routinely left that line covered in black powder from head to toe daily. Carbon fiber composite is a nanomaterial. People were inhaling dangerous particulates as if it were an ordinary and benign dust (if there even is such a thing).

My brother has accute chromium poisoning from spraying hexavalent chromium primer with improper safety equipment issued by his employer.

(Names of companies redacted to protect the guilty, as I don't relish the thought of a libel suit.)

The posters mentioning that maintaining osha practices and keeping workers healthy and safe as the reasons for western made products being so expensive is absolutely dead on. The weaker/smaller companies around my area often cheese on "strict" adherence to health and safety regs to compete against bigger shops. If those regs were not tied to outrageous fines, I can garantee that those shops would not comply at all, and that the big shops would not be far behind.

Osha and niosh keep what manufacturing jobs we do still have from entering a phyrric race to the bottom to compete with chinese labor. Even lacklustre enforcement of health and safety is vastly superior to *NO* enforcement of health and safety.

Foxconn probably does offer better safety and living conditions than other, less well known factory cities, but only because it has a high profile customer that it desperately wants to keep, and has been put on the spot for the comparatively poor conditions (look, a factory is a factory, and even a super clean one is not a good place to live in) by western standards. It has powerful "court of public opinion" pressures to offer better (if not immaculate by chinese standards) health, safety, and living conditions. If it didn't, it would lose the business of those very important customers.

Personally, I am opposed to the very idea of "company towns". I would rather that foxconn simply employ the thousands of people, and let them buy homes or rent apartments in the host city with a proper city government, even if it was a corrupt communist one, than run the whole show itself. The lack of official oversight and employee freedom/power to "bargain" with their employer, instead of bowing and being thankful for what is given, is a considerable red flag in my mind, and I don't mean that politically. I suspect that it is this lack of power to bargain that is the big cause of foxconn's suicides.

In western cultures, a huge plethora of supporting industries will gather around a major one. Take for instance, the situation in wichita ks, where I work.

We have amost all the big names in town. A learjet, a boeing/spirit, 2 cessna plants, a hawker beech, and a bombardier. In addition to those, we have an uncountable number of small machine and composite fab com

Chinese' contribution to American infrastructure

[Taco Cowboy]

Continuing along this line of thought, a lot of our current infrastructure is really highly dependent on not-yet-quite-so-developed countries such as China and their political and social system.

You are more right than you can ever imagine !!

It was the Chinese who built America's first transcontinental railroad

Hopefully that wouldn't happen to you

[Taco Cowboy]

Look how happy he is!

Start praying, my friend.

Pray that the same thing will never happen to you, or to anyone you care about.

If you think that you have to use the suicide of a Chinese man to make you point, you are more desperate than that deceased guy

Re:Hopefully that wouldn't happen to you

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think that you have to use the suicide of a Chinese man to make you point, you are more desperate than that deceased guy

The situation is desperate when the vast majority of people willingly ignore or even defend the inhumane working conditions in these factories.

If people can't be wrested from their complacent nodding shells with empathy or reason, perhaps they need something a little more shocking to wake the fuck up?

Re:Hopefully that wouldn't happen to you

[Taco Cowboy]

If you think that you have to use the suicide of a Chinese man to make you point, you are more desperate than that deceased guy

If people can't be wrested from their complacent nodding shells with empathy or reason, perhaps they need something a little more shocking to wake the fuck up?

Empathy?

Using the pic of a suicide and then say something like "how happy he is" is " empathy "?

Just how low are you guys willing to go to make a point?

Re:Hopefully that wouldn't happen to you

[pegasustonans]

Just how low are you guys willing to go to make a point?

Until it makes a difference.

You may say someone is vulgar or 'low' for showing you a picture you don't like.

Maybe you should look at the world we share, and how we share the world, instead?

People don't like looking at pictures of the victims they're responsible for. It's one of the main reasons why victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are so seldom displayed in high school textbooks and museums in the United States.

It's often called unpatriotic to look at victims. I say, we are cowardly to ignore the victims we create.

Re:Hopefully that wouldn't happen to you

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe stop praying and start acting?

If you think that all that can prevent one from suicide is a non-corporeal imaginary omnipotent omniscient being, i'd say you're the desperate one.

Re: Collateral damage

[pegasustonans]

While Apple bashing is always fun, let us remember that Apple is not the only FoxConn client. So while you may revel in this negative publicity of APPLE, would you be as thrilled to hear that your Xbox 360, your PS3, your Wii, and your Kindle are also built at those same FoxConn factories?

Who gives a fuck?

The point is that the working conditions are shit, and they deserve better as human beings.

I don't revel in positive or negative publicity for Apple

I'm pissed off at this blatant exploitation of the lower class in China so clueless soccer families can have more shiny toys.

As for Apple, I don't think about them much at all. They're part of the problem, other than that, I could care less.

Thank you for the summary

[Taco Cowboy]

Many thanks !

Re: Collateral damage

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, I won't. Why? Because Apple takes a VERY disproportionate markup on their products while simultaneously being one of this nation's least charitable businesses.

Exploitation alert !!

[Taco Cowboy]

My wife just showed up with lunch .... (she's native born Chinese)

You're exploiting your wife from China !!!

Re:Exploitation alert !!

[Anonymous Coward]

why is this modded Funny? Exploitation of mail-order brides from third world countries by lonely white men is no joke.

Treating China like the American did ?

[Taco Cowboy]

You could adjust that American "benefit" by treating China like they do us.

Come again?

You think Uncle Sam is treating China fairly?

Uncle Sam blocks China from every participating in the ISS.

Uncle Sam blocks all so-called sensitive merchandise from ever been sold to China --- including computers

Uncle Sam does everything to disrupt China's stability

Uncle Sam supports Muslim terrorist groups and helped them infiltrate Xinjiang, and the Dalai Lama terrorist groups and helped them infiltrate Tibet

If you want China to do the same to the United States what the USA had done, and is doing to China, United States will soon be kaput

Shhhh.....

[Taco Cowboy]

Foxconn is a Taiwanese company. TW is not communist...

Please stop telling the truth to the Americans.

They do not appreciate any truth.

As long as they can continue bash China, they will be happy.

As long as they can bash Foxconn and think that the Taiwanese are Commies, they will be happy.

Let them continue to be happy. The Americans will not have a lot of time left to be happy. Their country is heading straight for bankruptcy.

Nice idea, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me a little of Red Cross inspections of Prisoner of War camps ... everybody being interviewed knows what the consequences of blabbing the truth would be, for themselves and their friends and relatives.

Re: Collateral damage

[Anonymous Coward]

May I humbly suggest that you make an appointment to see your shrink ASAP.
Your paranoia might well be taking over your life.

Not all Apple owners are as you describe. My Biker buddies would not take that description kindly.

Likewise, not all of us bikers ride Harley's. I ride either a 1955 Vincent Black Prince, a 1968 750cc Commando or a 2011 Tiger 800.
How do I (as an apple owner) rate as a hemp wearing douchebag?

{Written on a 2009 13in MB}

Why China ?

[Taco Cowboy]

There have been too many of debates in Slashdot and in many other places regarding the sweatshop and shitty working conditions in China.

Most of the debates concentrate on China, and it's communist (some would even use words like "tyrannical to describe the) regime that controls China.

But why China?

Why China becomes the world's factory?

Why so many factories are in China?

Is it because China is / was poor?

If so, Africa was / is also poor.

India too.

Why don't we see similar factories sprung up in the African continent / Indian sub-continent ?

Why?

If we say that China has 1.3 billion people and they can supply so many laborers, well ... India has over 1.2 billion people, and the African continent has 1.1 billion

Again, why not Africa? Why not India? Why China?

Anyone wants to venture an answer?

Re:Why China ?

[jamstar7]

China is relatively stableat this point in time. Africa has been suffering brushfire wars and tribal rebellions for over a century now. It hasn't stopped, as tribe after tribe goes after their neighbors for injuries done generations ago. Ther's not a spot on the African continent that's been war-free for 25 years, not even South Africa.

Re:Why China ?

[flyneye]

Sorry, but Slashdot users are in no way responsible for any missing or public education you might have in Social Studies, Government, History or gym class.

Re:Why China ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Africa" isn't a country and it is also home to some of the most corrupt regimes and unstable governments in the world.

Re:Why China ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike India and China, the African continent is made up of a heck of a lot of countries, many which are poor and/or run by dictators. Many suffer from massive amounts of corruption and political instability. How would you feel if you built a factory for making widget X for ten billion dollars and then the country suffers a coup and they take your factory away?

India, on the other hand, does have manufacturing being offshored to it. Not quite as much as China and I don't think much of it is high tech but it is there.

I think China just had the luck of having the right infrastructure and workforce at the right time to cinch the deal on taking all the manufacturing jobs.

Re:Why China ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on the industry - a lot of textiles (in the US anyway) is from Mexico/Central America or southeast Asia. A lot of tech is also from Taiwan and Japan, so I suspect part of it is that China is a natural cheap manufacturing center for stuff designed in its neighbors, or at least that's how it started. India has the obstacles of many regional languages and massive over regulation.

Re:Why China ?

[glitch0]

Egypt has been war free for 25 years. Nice try though.

Re:Why China ?

[jamstar7]

Read the news lately? Thye've been having riots recently trying to set up Yet Another 'Islamic' Republic there just like they had in Iran. There's been a traveller's advisory out on them for a couple years. And right next door is Libya, in the middle of a revolution, to the south is Chad, more revolution. Think anybody's gonna respect Egypt's borders? I sure don't.

Re:Why China ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're definitely correct, Egypt is quite unstable, especially right now. I was just saying that there hasn't been a war there in the last 25 years. It seems like a lot of people, myself included, forget that Egypt is part of Africa.

Re: Collateral damage

[shilly]

Would you like to post some actual evidence of your outlandish claims? I could well imagine that what you described has happened -- there is fraud and malpractice in every human endeavour. But the notion that *no* fair trade coffee premiums are actually spent on what they're supposed to be spent on -- paying famers extra -- sounds like a right-wing echo chamber wankfest rather than having the ring of truth to it.

It's not the pics

[Taco Cowboy]

It's not the pic of the suicide that irked me

it's the comment "Look how happy he is"

If that guy wants to make a point, just makes it.

Stop using a pic of a suicide man and then say something like "Look how happy he is"

That is low blow, really low blow.

Re:It's not the pics

[oji-sama]

It's not the pic of the suicide that irked me

it's the comment "Look how happy he is"

If that guy wants to make a point, just makes it.

I'm (mostly) with him with this one, as the GP at that point 'proves' that the workers aren't unhappy with a single picture of a smiling girl. Considering the suicides, it is kind of a low blow in itself. And yes, I'm sure having a job there is better than not having one. Still, I feel that western device makers should have western conditions for their workers.

Re:It's not the pics

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that the suicide rate at the Foxconn factories is approximately 1/3 the overall suicide rate in China, and 1/2 that of the US, I'd say that using one of those suicides to 'prove your point' is missing the point by quite a bit.

Yep, by US standards the conditions at the Foxconn factories are pretty lousy, but compared to the alternatives *over there*, the factory work is a gravy train. By working at one of those factories, your starting wage is about 150% that of the median wage in China and you're working about 20% *fewer* hours per week than you would otherwise. Heck, statistically speaking, you're making about 1/20th of the money the company's CEO makes. Compare *that* statistic to the US where your typical worker makes less than 1/500th what the CEO of their company makes.

Re:It's not the pics

[oji-sama]

Yep, by US standards the conditions at the Foxconn factories are pretty lousy, but compared to the alternatives *over there*, the factory work is a gravy train.

I don't like the relativistic 'gravy train' argument. You could argument anything when stated like that. "Compared to dying of hunger ..."

Re:It's not the pics

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, if you're too sensitive to have this kind of discussion on the internet and to be shown uncomfortable things and have to deal with sarcasm, you're free to go find a message board where people post pictures of cats with amusing captions.

This world we live in ...

[Taco Cowboy]

Many still can't understand this world we live in has changed

There are corporations in this world which has more revenue in one year than the GDP of some countries

There are corporations in this world which wield more power than many countries

And we, no matter where we live, are nothing but numbers to those power that be

OSHA and NIOSH still count today, because those powerful corporations don't want to rock the boat yet

But just wait...

In couple of years we all will see this starting to happen

With Europe imploding and America collapsing, there will be no more power to challenge those corporations

By then, OSHA or NIOSH or whatever-that-is will be ignored, not by the little companies but by the large ones as well

Re:This world we live in ...

[wierd_w]

I agree. When walmart has more gdp than half of europe, there is more than just a problem. There is a big fucking problem.

I agree on the health and safety side too. With the way things are going, it is only a matter of time.

How about India?

[Taco Cowboy]

China is relatively stableat this point in time. Africa has been suffering brushfire wars and tribal rebellions for over a century now. It hasn't stopped, as tribe after tribe goes after their neighbors for injuries done generations ago. Ther's not a spot on the African continent that's been war-free for 25 years, not even South Africa.

How about India?

For past 50 years or so, India has been more stable than China !

As late as the mid 1970's, China was still suffering massive social unrest

India, on the other hand, stability has been the norm since 1960's

Why then we don't see factories sprung up in India?

Again, why China?

Re:How about India?

[jonbryce]

Regulations and corrupt officials in India make it a lot more difficult to start a business there. That doesn't mean China is perfect in that respect, but it is a lot better than India.

Having said that, there are a lot of factories in India. They are pretty strong in the pharmaceuticals sector.

Re:How about India?

[Anonymous Coward]

As others have already mentioned, India is one of the most corrupt places to live and do business in the world. Further still they suffer from huge infrastructure problems, as they are trying to act like a first world service center with a third world population and third world infrastructure. Their roads, bridges and rail couldn't support mass industry on the scale of China.

China had the same infrastructure problems at one point but because of their closely controlled and centralized planned economy they were able to focus on a massive scale towards investments in the types of infrastructure improvements necessary for super factories like Foxconn City. India likewise struggles to do anything unified. India represents a vast diversity of cultures and tens if not hundreds of different languages and dialects as well as fiercely regional politics. You think the US states are diverse and don't get along? US state conflicts and divides pale in comparison.

They made a focused effort to invest in education a long time ago to export services because the only real natural advantage India has going for it is that they have more English speakers than the United States, Canada and Australia COMBINED. This is why it all started with call centers.

Re:How about India?

[tomboalogo]

India? Stable?
A google search for 'india bombing news' gives "About 3,680,000 results (0.40 seconds)".

You apparently have a different concept of stability than I do.

Re:How about India?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Canada bombing news" gives "About 22,200,000 results (0.26 seconds)".

I'm nearly 40, lived in Canada all my life, only heard about bombing on TV and newspapers half a dozen time.

Re:How about India?

[poity]

There was an segment on NPR a few months back that touched on exactly this question of "why hasn't India experienced the same growth as China". One of the main points brought up was that it is much more difficult in India for the government to seize land for economic development. This was one of the reasons why Indian cities remain badly organized for industry to this day. So part of the answer could lie in the differences between the two countries' priorities on rights vs economy -- China is more willing than India to trade some rights of their citizens for faster economic development. The guest speaker also commented that there has always been calls in India to use the China model of an iron-fisted focus on economic growth, but were always shot down in government debate with the argument that it would mean India abandoning it's founding democratic principles.

Re:How about India?

[Uberbah]

How many results are you going to find for 'world trade center bombing news'?

You apparently have a different idea of what a good point is than the rest of us do.

Re:How about India?

[gorzek]

India is huge in the services sector, as well, particularly call centers of various types. They also have a booming software industry, benefiting from a lot of outsourcing from the US and Europe.

Re:How about India?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

How about India?

For past 50 years or so, India has been more stable than China !

As late as the mid 1970's, China was still suffering massive social unrest

India, on the other hand, stability has been the norm since 1960's

Why then we don't see factories sprung up in India?

Again, why China?

How many Chinese heads of state have been assassinated? Which country is basically in a constant state of war with its neighbor, with fighting regularly breaking out again, only kept relatively low key because both sides have nukes?

Oh, and we have seen huge factories in India too, for far longer than in China - ever heard of Bhopal? Anyway, Apple doesn't produce there so nobody cares what others do there.

Re:How about India?

[Anonymous Coward]

India is made up of a lot of little states -- more of a confederation of states -- each with their own set of laws and economic strengths and weaknesses. China is definately NOT a confederation of states in the same sense that India is. Chinese workers apparently are willing to stoop a lot lower.

Re:How about India?

[Gilmoure]

India has a lot of manufacturing factories, usually set up as shared sites. Can't remember the tractor brand I was researching a few years ago (Cub Cadet? Ford?) but they set up a factory in India and the deal was that half it's production would be 'American brand' tractors and the other half would be sold under an Indian name. 'Course, the Indian brand tractors were 3/4-2/3 less than the American brand and painted a different color but other than that, totally the same. One marketing plus in the U.S. is that you can get parts for them at any 'American brand' supplier.

Same thing goes with Royal Enfield motorcycles. They're all manufactured in India.

I think the big deal with China is how it's marshaled it's manufacturing cities so that they're basically a one-stop shop. Shenzhen is geared towards consumer electronics, has all the sub-suppliers there, and a large pool of trained workers. Same goes for other manufacturing cities in China: they group the industries together to lower costs and such. I haven't heard of such things happening in India but it's possible it's happening by more of a free market process rather than a gov't directed one.

Re:How about India?

[Divebus]

Theory: China had a huge head start when Britain's lease on Hong Kong expired and it was turned back to the Chinese. It was already an enormous manufacturing and economic hub, very much unlike most of the rest of China. The Chinese government wisely created an expanded special economic zone there, giving assurances to existing business so they wouldn't leave and enlarging the zone around Hong Kong. The Chinese understood what they had and fostered its growth rather than stamping it out over some Communist idealism. This is the region where you'll find much of China's current manufacturing might. Couple that with the fact that they have millions of workers, plus the Asian culture generally fosters intelligent thinking and respect for authority. China also began allowing individuals to prosper in their own right around that time, a very un-communist concept which unlocked the perfect storm of what they had at their disposal.

About the intelligent Asian comment... I was around in the '70s when we had an enormous influx of Vietnamese coming to the US with absolutely nothing. They were willing to take nearly any job and I saw them starting businesses left and right. Their working habits were brutal and relentless. Within a few years, they were driving Volvos and living in nice houses. A few years after that, their kids were part of a statistic where a disproportionate amount of the University enrollments were Asian kids. Contrast that to some of our indigenous population who had nothing and had no concept of achieving anything, all the while complaining that they never had a chance.

Just a theory.

Re:How about India?

[tomboalogo]

Absolutely correct - it was early and I was lazy.
Perhaps this is better?? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_India

Re:How about India?

[tomboalogo]

To add a bit to my reasoning - I had a contractor from Wipro working on site. One day there was a news report that a series of bus shelters were bombed around the area where their offices are. I suggested that he call home to make sure friends and co-workers were alright. After 1/2 hour on the phone he told me "Oh it's ok they were only small bombs" I really don't consider a place stable where people are used to the idea that small bombs are ok.

Re:How about India?

[pnutjam]

Hmmm... When you are a well educated and prosperous individual who flees your country and has to start over, working hard gives you better results then someone who has been in poverty for generations and has a lower level of education and less access to higher learning, with a culturally ingrained distrust of authority.

How curious....

Re: Collateral damage

[ArsenneLupin]

Some (less than 10%...) of the "Fairtrade licence fee" goes indirectly to the farmers for training programs or communal infrastructure, but none directly as salaries or better prices. Most goes towards advertisement, awareness campaigns and administration in the consumer countries.

For evidence, just have a look at those fair trade associations' balance sheets... They don't have the fraud (obviously), but the part for advertisement and overhead is clearly visible. For indirect evidence of till tipping look for strange increases in expenditures for some services or supplies from one year to the next, especially where supplier happens to be related or married to a fairtrade employee and/or board member

Nice Godwyn there, by the way.

Evolution of Peaceful Industrial Society

[retroworks]

China, including (Taiwanese) Foxconn, is barreling down the same industrial revolution path as Europe, Japan and USA. There are no doubt some who will see the Apple certification effort cynically, but this is how change starts. The fact that China and Taiwan are working together making money via peaceful trade is worth more than anything. I'm an optimist about the future, not an apologist for the present, but recoiling from poverty is not the same as compassion. All the OEMs manufacturing in China are getting their hands dirty and risking their reputations, but the world is going to be better off than when China was cut off from world trade.

Re: Collateral damage

[Uberbah]

Oooh, you insufferable cunts, always pointing to others. OJ to judge: Yes I committed murder, but there are also other murderers. So it's OK.

And if there were worse killings going on right outside the courthouse but for some reason the DA and the cops didn't give a shit - OJ would have a point.

This isn't a "everybody else does it so it's okay" defense, it's a "why are you directing 100% of the outrage at one player when there many others at least as guilty". But you knew that already, since the parent poster was perfectly clear:

While Apple bashing is always fun, let us remember that Apple is not the only FoxConn client. So while you may revel in this negative publicity of APPLE, would you be as thrilled to hear that your Xbox 360, your PS3, your Wii, and your Kindle are also built at those same FoxConn factories? Whatever dirt is uncovered will not only tarnish the fruit company but also plenty of other tech titans from HP to Microsoft. So does your umbrage only extend to Apple Inc? My guess is that you will not be metering your indignation equally.

Looks like you proved his point on indignation.

Re: Collateral damage

[Uberbah]

Who gives a fuck?

Obviously, exploited Foxconn workers who wonder why nobody gives a shit about them unless they're building an Apple device, obviously.

Re: Collateral damage

[sgt scrub]

So does your umbrage only extend to Apple Inc?

No. Just as I expected more than just Nike to investigate their sweatshops, I think all of their customers should pressure Foxconn to do right by their employees.

then don't fucking read it

[Uberbah]

I am just tired of all news Apple. Am I alone?

No, you'll find lots of like-minded fundies that are whiny assed titty bitches when it comes to the amount of sex (or even worse, gay sex) on TV. Completely ignoring the fact that they can change channels and that TV's have been programmable for content for almost 20 years.

Re: Collateral damage

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple of things to deflect the idea that worrying about Chinese factory conditions is Apple bashing.
1) Apple is getting attention because they are the most successful at using this model of cheap Chinese labor to produce their products. Apple contract manufacturers employ somewhere around 700,000 workers, each workers get paid around $1500 per year. The labor is paid so little, that the Chinese can not afford to buy the products they assemble.
2) Apple is getting attention because they also get attention buy selling bright shiny things that are perceived as being elite, of course Apple is getting attention. It works both ways, good attention and bad attention.
3) Apple, being Apple, saw nothing wrong with demanding a change that involved putting 8,000 people on 14to15 hour days for six weeks to make phones, in order to meet a timeline to get the phone on the market in 4 weeks. If you do not see how this sort of pressure results in manufacturers treating employees as slave labor, then good luck to you on being morally corrupt.
4) Focusing on improving the work conditions at the plants manufacturing Apple products will also impact plants making products for other companies,Apple is merely the 800lb gorilla in the room.

Like Red Cross inspections WWII internment camps?

[Squidlips]

I am sure that the enviroment will be cleaned up the day of the inspection and the employees will be threatened into saying happy things, but the condition will revert to a living hell afterwards. If Apple really cared about the workforce, they would manufacture in the US. Screw you Apple and you other slave masters if you think this will fool anyone.

So much for "communism"

[seven of five]

"Worker's paradise," my shiny metal ass.

Re:So much for "communism"

[shutdown -p now]

China hasn't been communist in any meaningful way ever since they declared socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics, which is really just an euphemism for state capitalism. As such, it has all the inherent problems of the latter due to class disparity, but it doesn't have any of the safety valves that exist to regulate the undesired effects in a democratic capitalist society (where we can raise taxes and then distribute them as welfare among lower classes).

This isn't to say that workers fared any better back when China was actually socialist, but that's a different matter with a different cause, and has no relevance to the situation today.

The sales require a highly paid workforce

[Anonymous Coward]

The sales require a highly paid workforce for SOMEONE. Else who will buy the Apple iPhone 5? Nobody has a well paid job, apart from a few percent of really wealthy people who would rather increase their wealth than spend it on yet another phone.

Chinese workers don't get paid enough, and there aren't enough in the middle class in the west any more.

single player insurance will help also long hours

[Joe_Dragon]

single player insurance will help also long hours lead to worker burn out and more errors / carp work as you get to the end of the work week.

Less work hours can let a place put in a 4rd shift. Also Four-day week maybe at 9-10 hours a day.

More hours a week pre workers does not end up with more out put all the time and 6-7 day work weeks should be replaced with more workers. Also what is the point of being on the work site 24/7? less time at work leads to more time to spend at other places.

Re: Collateral damage

[Anonymous Coward]

Or a bit in the criticism of part in the Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade_coffee#Criticism

"Critics believe the Fair Trade certification is abused by marking up retail prices significantly, while only providing the growers with marginally higher prices."

And yet some places still do/did

[phorm]

And yet many companies did still manufacture in the US (some few still do), and did manage to manage a profit. The only thing is that they weren't making the easy *record profits* that companies do nowadays from farming them cheap labor overseas.

Apple vs others

[phorm]

McDonalds is not the only fast-food company in the industry with unhealthy food
Neither is Nike the only shoe company to use cheap labour to make their products.

But, like Apple, these companies were hit hard on the reputation-front for what people perceive as areas in great need of improvement? Why them? KFC brings in things like the "double-down" which is a lot worse than a big-Mac.

The reason is that they're the elephants in the room. They're the most capable of pushing change, the have the biggest visibility, and often make the most profits. With their larger customer bases and tons of other companies just waiting to crawl over them, a big swing in reputation can be a real threat.

On top of the above, Apple has pretty much bragged about how they can get product pushed out quickly in foreign due to conditions where we wouldn't tolerate locally.

I'd love it if all my electronics were made in safe, employee-friendly workplaces. Heck, I'd love it if more were made locally. When you're pushing for change, you don't push on the little guys, because even if they *do* want to change, they don't have much influence themselves. With their high profit margins, they've also got a few bucks extra to spare to deal with the issue (heck, even if they increased the prices of an iphone by $1-2 a unit to do so, it's not like anyone would notice).

Apple has the ability to push change. They may not really want to until right now as it's not profitable, but if bad reputation hits their bottom-line, you can be sure that they'll feel more desire to do so. If the biggest customer of said factories wants change... then it's a whole lot more likely to happen.

Starbucks is also a big name, but they generally seem to have a fairly decent reputation for being fair to their suppliers, and seem to push for improvement of labor conditions. Why can't Apple do the same?

Re: Collateral damage

[shilly]

I asked for evidence. You kinda made my point about the echo chamber

Re: Collateral damage

[shilly]

Ok, I'm calling horseshit on this. A vague assertion that it's possible to see fraud if you look in balance sheets hardly cuts it as evidence. Especially as if you look in the annual reports of eg the uk fairtrade foundation, you can see the exact value of the premium to producers.

Not sure when godwin got expanded to cover all right wing politics. Nor how many apolitical critics of fair trade actually exist. I've never seen any, that's for sure

Re: Collateral damage

[ArsenneLupin]

A vague assertion that it's possible to see fraud if you look in balance sheets hardly cuts it as evidence.

Fraud does happen, are you really so naive to believe that they would be so brazen as to label it as such in their balance sheet?

Re: Collateral damage

[Anonymous Coward]

I can only to reply to this with "RTFA"

Hypocrite, thy name is you

[SuperKendall]

This is a smart business move, no more no less.

It is more though, because again it is SOMETHING happening. Something beats nothing, even a candle in the darkness is still better than the inky black.

What I have not seen from anyone is a clear idea of what path forward is both superior and practical. It's not like Apple owns these factories, they are managed and run wholly by the Chinese and you cannot change a culture overnight.

Not lying. The probability is clear.

[SuperKendall]

Apple haters do not use Apple equipment, no matter how inferior what they must use as an alternative may be.

So simple logic shows us he was using a computing device made from a company not Apple, therefore one not doing inspections as Apple is doing.

There is perhaps a .00001% chance I am wrong. But it's pretty clear I'm not.

P.S. being wrong is not the same as lying, as the original poster was doing. I am merely making a best guess estimate:

P.P.S. attacking me will not relieve the guilt you feel over not purchasing Apple gear and thereby increasing suffering for factory workers.

What bullshit

[SuperKendall]

Maybe if they were less evangelical in their advertising and PR

How is Apple AT ALL evangelical in advertising? They just show people using the product!

It's Android that displays devices as huge glowing monoliths that solve all the worlds problems with clouds of glowing robots (sorry, androids, even though they are vaguely humanoid at best).

Apple's PR is not even close to evangelical either.

In the end I think that's what makes me think Apple Haters are such twits, because they attribute to Apple behaviors that Apple simply doesn't exhibit. You cannot blame Apple for the acts of some crazy supporters, yet that's exactly what Apple haters do daily.

Re:What bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Not bullshit from what I see. The commercials in Aus are dripping with it. These products are changing lives people! Changing lives!

And as far as blaming Apple for its customers, well not directly perhaps, but they do encourage it (which makes sense because it makes them a fuck-ton of money). Apple haters hate for many reasons, and I'm pretty sure that doesn't make them all twits any more than having an iphone turns you into a souless consumer-zombie... oh wait a second...

ATTENTION ALL WORKERS!!

[Droog57]

Heard over the tannoy at the Factory: "ATTENTION ALL WORKERS!! Until all Evil Inspectors leave plant you will ALL BE HAPPY, or your family will be billed for the bullet."

Re: Collateral damage

[shilly]

Erm. You told me it can be found in balance sheets. Presumably you think it's spottable there by laypeople, or else you would have not suggested a self evidently fuckwitted idea. Now, do you have any actual evidence that the situation you assert exists really is the case? Not hand waving, not telling me it really can be spotted, but actual evidence of the sort that wouldn't immediately be laughed out of court, or a newsroom? Let's bear in mind that you have made an assertion that the fraud exists, not me. So you'll only be taken seriously by people who don't yet agree with you, like me, if you have some actual evidence. I suspect that you don't really care much about doing anything other than airing your prejudices though.

Re: Collateral damage

[ArsenneLupin]

I know some of the people involved.

The do this

[DynamoJoe]

Go to the slashdot homepage and
click Options
click Exclusions
select Apple
click Save

...is that so hard?

Re:The do this

[glitch0]

it's easier, but not as fun as bashing apple and predicting doom and gloom for it

FLA TED Talk - Making Global Labor Fair.

[bd580slashdot]

Part of the FLA thing is anonymous channels for employee reporting of conditions and compliance. The FLA is the real thing. If Apple is using them things will improve. Go watch the TED talk now ...

Re:Chinese' contribution to American infrastructur

[shutdown -p now]

Who cares about their background? Were they American citizens? Did they work in U.S., paid taxes there and purchased goods there, supporting local economy?

Re: Collateral damage

[shutdown -p now]

We should rather be pressuring our legislators to institute regulations that would apply across the board to all companies that deal with Foxconn (or rather, with all foreign manufacturers).

... then you wouldn't buy iPhone

[Taco Cowboy]

And if that means iPhone gets $50 more expensive, so what?

If iPhone gets $50 more expensive, cheapskates like you would switch to Android phones, and Apple won't get to become the biggest entity in Nasdaq

Re:... then you wouldn't buy iPhone

[shutdown -p now]

You obviously don't understand what I'm asking for. Going for Apple alone is the wrong approach - they're simply maximizing economic efficiency within legal means. Of course they can't stop doing that, since their competition will rip them apart. What we need are laws that apply uniformly to all corporations that outsource their manufacturing. So every phone would get $50 more expensive, not just iPhone.

And yes, I would be willing to pay that price to know that the local economy of my country of residence is not on a downward spiral with no end in sight.

Re: Collateral damage

[Osgeld]

Ill have you know I own none of those things, and make my own computer, for example let me just look at who made my motherboard .... FoxConn ... shit, carry on

Amen, brother!

[manual_tranny]

I'm mostly a liberal myself, and I feel the same way as you on all counts. I'm a liberal libertarian. :)

Re: Collateral damage

[pegasustonans]

Who gives a fuck?

Obviously, exploited Foxconn workers who wonder why nobody gives a shit about them unless they're building an Apple device, obviously.

Right, because my post was clearly indicating I only care because they're making Apple products? If that was your point, I think you need to re-read my post.

Re: Collateral damage

[shilly]

Seriously? You think that's evidence? An assertion that you know some of the people involved?

Re: Collateral damage

[sgt scrub]

Like Sony? You realize this is an international issue right? The "best" international way of effecting change is public opinion on the biggest communication system to date. If that causes people to pressure their legislators then I'm all for it.

Re: Collateral damage

[shutdown -p now]

Like Sony? You realize this is an international issue right?

It doesn't matter where the company contracting manufacturers is headquartered. What matters is where it sells its products. If it does it in US - and they all sure want to do it in US - it can be nailed for such practices, one way or another.

But, yeah, this is much more efficient across several countries. US + Canada + EU would be nice.

Re: Collateral damage

[Uberbah]

While Apple bashing is always fun, let us remember that Apple is not the only FoxConn client. So while you may revel in this negative publicity of APPLE, would you be as thrilled to hear that your Xbox 360, your PS3, your Wii, and your Kindle are also built at those same FoxConn factories?

Who gives a fuck?

Who gives a fuck - your words. Right, next time we'll try and read your mind more clearly so we know you mean they opposite of what you say....