Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Tech Manufacturers With Better Labor Practices?
First time accepted submitter srs5694 writes "In light of the recent flood of stories about abysmal labor practices at Foxconn and other Chinese factories that produce most of the tech products we consume, the question arises: Who makes motherboards, plug-in cards, cell phones, and other devices WITHOUT relying on labor practices that are just one rung above slave labor? If I want to buy a new tech gadget, from whom can I buy it without ethical qualms?"
Probably no one these days. Either components, or parts are made in china in some form or another. Even down to the base layer PCB. Though it's getting even worse than that, China is getting too "expensive" to operate in. And they're moving out to other 3rd world countries.
Om, nomnomnom...
The lack of responses so far suggests that they all do. most of us can't affors $20k for a cell phone.
we offer a full line of consumer and professional electronics, athletic apparel, and soy products, all officially certified by the retchdog institute for unicorns and sunshine to be completely free of whatever it is you find objectionable. our modest markup of 1200% is necessary to ensure that only the finest managers, assistant managers, and assistants to assistant managers are hired from a competitive field of my friends and extended family.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
No one. Seriously. I don't think you can even make certain all the components of an OpenMoko device are clear of your standards.
There's no such thing. Corporations aren't in the business of creating products in an ethical manner. They're in the business of making money by using the cheapest parts and labor possible.. If they could employ slaves, and get away with it, they would.
From open-source hardware communities?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
If you have infinite time and money, and care not for features, build your own? [insert laughter]
On a side note, how do you define ethical qualms?
Money talks, and we're all guilty in this rat race to the bottom for the lowest cost. When robotics and automation get good enough, even Foxconn exploited workers will be out of work. We're in the middle of a transition to full or almost fully robotic manufacturing, give it a few years, no one will have a job expect robot builders and service men to maintain them.
This is about as useful as asking who doesn't rely on semi-slave labor practices during the industrialization phase of the UK or US (no vacations, Pinkerton detective agency, strikebreaking, pittance wages, etc.).
Look, this phase is messy, but necessary.
They can't just start out with a "services" economy all styling each others' hair.
They have to go through this phase, and it's certainly a step up from the near-starvation they had in the countryside. Then wages go up, slowly, but surely. Before you know it, Chinese will be asking about organic certification before they deign to go to work for a company.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Fair labor practices are not something that takes care of itself via an Invisible Hand, be it that of Capitalism or of God. So long as the playing field tells the players that they can outsource slave labor, or even just significantly unfair labor (folks with nothing like 1st ammendment rights), then all players that chose not to do so will quickly lose and cease to exist. The only way to solve the problem (that I'm thinking of right now in full on rhetoric mode) is to have better national standards of who we do business with in the global international trade community. Put standards in place, and make it profitable for international actors to meet the improved standards. But as can be evidenced by opening your eyes in the morning and looking at the world, there will be a lot of political pressure against that path. But hopefully one day the incessant light - fueled by real freedom of speech and the press- shining on exploitive employers/slavers, will cause things to move in the right direction. I hope.
I work in China. It is worth noting that some of the conditions at Foxconn, while terrible by Western standards, are normal here.
A Chinese friend worked as a waitress. She thought $400 a month (in a culture where there are no tips) was excellent money. Most meals and a bunk in a shared apartment provided. No heat, at a latitude where frost is moderately common.
In at 9 am to do cleaning, work until after lunch, sleep in the afternoon, start again at 4:30 and work until closing which was usually about 11 but if customers wanted to stay later, some waitresses would have to stay until 2 or 3. No extra money for that. She got two days a month off, and thought that was generous, but a "day off" meant coming in at 4:30 instead of in the morning.
Sorry, corporate overlord here. Slaves require room, board, clothes, etc. provided for them. It doesn't come free. It's much much better now underpaying non-slaves, as people line up to replace them.
Keep complaining though, but make sure not to change your lifestyle at all. Because that works.
And again, moral panic.
Hitler hates pedophiles.
I recently bought a laptop from System76. I know they at least assemble their stuff in Americuh. And they support teh linux too, so thats cool.
It's unfortunate, but the only ethical source of most electronics these days is other peoples trash.
I have this hookup in Napa Valley which supplies me with free-range electronics. It comes from a commune where they manufacture phones and laptops using sustainable, cruelty-free paleo techniques. Their R&D division is an ayuhuasca hut.
Someone with very high prices. (Or you could do without...)
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I hear Acme Slide-Rules in Burlington treats their employees very well.
on an airline.
As a country we aren't willing to pay extra for good service on an airline - it is all about who has the lowest fair on expedia/priceline/... not which brand has good customer service. As a country we are not willing to pay for extras like good customer service, quality, or good business practices. Anyone old enough when the big selling point of walmart was "Made in America"? It was great - walmart was great - jobs were great... Then it was time to lower prices - either by breaking the labor force in the USA or shipping manufacturing somewhere "cheaper". Now walmart requires suppliers to have a plan to manage their manufacturing in China... No more Made in the USA there.
It is a shame isn't it.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Okay, there on the left is Manuel. There on the right is Palmer. They will work for you as hard as you want them to, and nobody can accuse you of being a slave driver. That said, I think that a large fraction of customers, given the choice, would not buy slavery tainted products. That is one thing that has held me back on the more expensive Raspberry PI: the concern that Chinese manufacture may be tainted. But typically speaking, it is the profit maximizing stores that eliminate your options.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
it has never been necessary. there is nothing about the manufacture of electronics, or anything else, that requires
1. not paying wages
2. raping employees
3. dumping toxic waste into drinking water
4. 80 hour work weeks
etc etc etc. there are ways to produce goods without any of these things. the most productive nation on earth in the 20th century was the united states, and it was largely unionized labor with labor rights and relatively high wages. the only people who think 'slavery = prodcutivity' are people who think the old south was a nice place.
There are UL, CSA and CE marks which go on equipment which convey "This product was tested and found to be reasonably safe". There could also be a mark which goes in the product documentation and on the nameplate which is recognisable by consumers who are concerned about exploitation of workers. The safety marks require bi-annual inspections of the factory and also the submission of objective evidence that the product was manufactured with all the safety critical components in place. The same thing could be done with the supply chain for a procut all the way up to final assembly similar to what has been done with RoHS
Maybe the EU could incorporate this requirement right into the existing CE mark. If you then wanted to sell your product in the EU, you would have to prove that it was manufactured in a way which did not exploit workers throughout the entire supply chain. This would never happen in the US, though, as the Corps control the government there, and there is a culture of only caring about the price and not about the workers who made the product.
sparkfun iirc has some interesting stories on their site where they visit China and the lines that make some of their stuff. note: its not foxconn.
you can also buy used.
university does not = job skills tech needs apprenticeship for lot's of IT jobs and not just CS. No we need more tech school. Lot's of people are going to university not learning what they need to do a job and end up working at McDonalds or walmart with big loans to pay back.
Pinball Games Are made in the USA by hand.
The best of the worst when it comes to manufacturing, and at least the engineering work is done here and not overseas. We don't have a lot of success in electronics engineering in the consumer space anymore...
is that I remember reading an article about steve jobs discussing why products like the ipod will never be produced in america quoting that it would represent a 25% increase in costs and hence price. Personally I'd pay the difference if it meant people didn't commit suicide because of my ipod. I honestly would never buy from apple etc again if i had an alternative like that.
ALL of the crap you buy is made by slave labour in one form or another. Clothes, coffee, chocolate, hell even VW used der juden before the allied liberation / pastoralization of West Germany...
Nearly everyday I see examples of cheap effective robotics doing the same kinds of tasks as those chinese workers. Why don't we just automate the whole process I can't imagine that it wouldn't be far cheaper and more efficient in the long run. .
It's real simple, If you don't like Apple's policies don't use or buy their products (that's called being a man). instead you bitch on your Macbook Pro's about how they are mistreating the employees & make a stand on an internet messaging board. If Microsoft pulled the shit Apple is right now they would have been anti-trusted into bankruptcy... drink the kool aid BTW, I used a mac to post this.
Intel seems to have good labor practices: With the exception of Ricoh, Intel and Motorola Mobility, the IT industry earns dismal grades when it comes to sustainability and social practices, averaging about a D+, Oekom Research AG says in a new report. http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2011/12/19/it-industry-gets-d-green-policy-labor-practices
Someone with very high prices. (Or you could do without...)
Like apple?
Silence is a state of mime.
If I want to buy a new tech gadget, from whom can I buy it without ethical qualms?"
I'd love to hear from some of these workers before deciding what those ethical qualms are. I'm all for helping them out, but it'd be nice for them to ask. Afterall, we don't want to cause them to lose their jobs.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
No, the triangle works against the free market by consolidating power into the hands of a few people who are then able to control the market. In reality the free market would work better if everyone were on a more equal footing, since it requires people have the ability to negotiate a fair price for themselves. Not that I believe that will happen, but it's important to understand that the people who oppose that are actually opposing the free market.
Paranoid, or not paranoid enough?
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
Look for the one that costs 3 times the price of those other $100-a-month-Chinese-factory-produced gadgets...
Funny thing is: you (and most other people living in Western countries) would probably not mind so much paying that difference, had their wages not stagnated or downright sunk (relative to inflation and overall cost of life), in part due to all manufacturing jobs getting outsourced to low-paying countries. OK, nevermind: it's not particularly funny.
They're probably the last bastion of American computer assembly - I believe you can actually get an option code that certifies that an IBM POWER machine is made in the US of US components, even, intended for national security applications.
It wasn't all that long ago that the worlds manufacturing floor for PC components was Taiwan rather than mainland China. Anyone care to contrast the current working conditions in China to those in Taiwan 10 years ago?
Depending on your standard there is probably none. I have spent a lot of time in China over the last couple of years and have visited quite a few factories. The working conditions vary of course but general the higher quality the product the better the factory is made in. I guess the attention to details that make a better product are also more like to make a better work environment. The quality of our product is our reputation which is why we now have our own factory built to first world standards. We also pay our staff well above market value. In return for a better work environment and pay we make clear to our employees that we expect them to take the quality of their work seriously. The result is can produce a quality product at a good price. Of course if we were making high volume low margin products that might not be possible.
The catch is we don't make all the parts, but deal with factories that do and they in turn deal with other factories of which we have no idea of the their standards. The factories I have visited have been better than I had expected but most would be borderline by first world standards with hardest thing I have seen being the employees who work their whole shift standing. I couldn't do that. Often the heating and cooling is substandard and safety standards are like stepping back 30 years in time. I imagine myself doing their work and in most cases it would be no worse than the kind for work I did part time in my youth. While the work conditions are not great they are not so bad I feel guilty about buying Chinese products. Of course there may be many far worse places I have not seen yet.
The pay on the other hand is probably a issue. I don't know how much the average worker gets but I suspect it is often unethically low. That is a result of our race to bottom on prices because at the end of the day given two similar products most people will buy the cheaper one and you follow that down the supply chain you will find that is the cheapest labor force.
There is an irony here that over the 6 years since I first visited China the average person's position has improved. For example my first trip bicycles were the most common transport, now it is electric scooters. With wages rising and work conditions improving China is now loosing it competitive edge over other 3rd world countries who's peoples have not seen any improvement.
China has recently change their laws, and is trying to get out of the cheap unskilled labor.
Due to this, and increased fuel costs, jobs are starting to return to the US.
New laws make it illegal to work more then 60 hours a week, even if the worker volunteers. Salary increase, etc..
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
He's not suggesting that it is necessary from a manufacturing point of view. He's claiming it is a necessary stage from a developmental point of view, ie that there is no other (or at least no better) way of transitioning from a largely pre-industrial/agrarian society.
What are China's other options? It is tempting to view this from a western perspective and see it as some sort of "race to the bottom". From a chinese perspective that wouldn't be the case as they are seeing massive reductions in poverty.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
There's no such thing. Corporations aren't in the business of creating products in an ethical manner. They're in the business of making money by using the cheapest parts and labor possible.
Emphasize "possible". "Possible" includes behavior acceptable to consumers.
Sweat shops and outsourcing are driven by consumer preferences. Namely the consumer's preference for the absolute lowest price regardless of all other considerations. It is a classic tragedy of the commons situation.
Corporate greed does *not* inevitably lead to sweat shops and outsourcing. Of primary importance to corporations are sales, and sales are determined by consumers. Outsourcing and sweat shops are only possible if there is consumer indifference, if employing such methods will offend customers and result in lost sales then the "greed" motivation says do not employ such methods.
Corporate greed actually inevitably leads to satisfying consume demands at the lowest possible cost *and* consistent with consumer expectations. Consumers are actually in control of the methods employed by corporations.
Nokia used to make a lot of components in Finland, Romania etc. but after recent troubles, closed down the factories and moved to Asia.
Making of N9 Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqxYiXtzKd0&feature=player_embedded
... The only way to solve the problem (that I'm thinking of right now in full on rhetoric mode) is to have better national standards of who we do business with in the global international trade community. Put standards in place, and make it profitable for international actors to meet the improved standards. But as can be evidenced by opening your eyes in the morning and looking at the world, there will be a lot of political pressure against that path ...
Yes and no. Your logic is flawed because it is government based, based on political pressure. The true solution is to have a consumer based solution, to leverage corporate greed. To have consumers make conscious decisions to pick products more inline with their ideals rather than whatever has the lowest price tag. Corporate greed seeks sales not lowest cost production. Low cost production does no good if consumers reject your products to do your production methods.
I looked at two full HD resolution computer monitors last week. A Viewsonic made in China and a Samsung made in Mexico. They seemed to be basically equivalent, but the Viewsonic was about US$30 cheaper. After considering that Mexico is a neighbor and that the Mexican government is friendlier I decided to go with the Samsung. I do not mean to suggest that Mexico is perfect with respect to labor practices, just less objectionable. Sometimes that is the only option available.
That said, the internet has made if far easier to find Made in USA goods than ever before. You are no longer limited to what your local brick and mortar carries.
LG and Samsung are South Korean companies. I suspect they build most of their stuff in South Korea; so, technically its built by Korean labor instead of Chinese labor. How's that?
http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/
Who makes...
Nobody. Just buy your Chinese stuff, be thankful the drinking water into which the effluent is dumped is 8k miles away and support your congress critter when they rail about the need for more EPA regulation you'll never suffer the cost of.
As for your conscience, just do what this guy does and delude yourself.
There are a lot of apologists on /.
I guess a lot of people really want their shiny. But it ain't all that hard to at least TRY to limit slave labor in your purchases. Lots of stuff is made outside of China. It is like the Raspberry PI claim that they couldn't find anywhere to produce it except China... right.
Where is the Arduino produced? In Italy. All of it? Probably not but at least it is not totally outsourced to China for the sake of lowest possible costs.
There are other phone, mp3 and even tablet makers that produce in Korea and Japan. Some parts may come from China but at least they try.
But a lot of people prefer just to look the other way, make excuses and claim "ich habe es nicht gewust". Well, the Indians probably are happier on their reserve.
These excuses have always been used. At least they got work, our own labor laws were pretty bad, they don't know any better, it is their culture.
Only this time we are not just screwing some minority, this time we are screwing ourselves. Right now, if you try to google "non-china made tablet" you only get articles telling you about Chinese made tablets... and how crappy they are... and how the first china made iPad killers are just around the corner.
Does that matter?
Japan was once the place that cheap crap came from and stabs at Sony aside, that is no longer the case. High quality tech is not just produced by Japan on its own initiave, it is researched and invented. Nobody seriously could still think of Japan as a backwards nation with the only selling point hard workers and cheap labor.
And this change hit the western economies pretty hard. Where are the western TV makers? Until MS entered the market, console makers were ALL Japanese for a LONG time. Granted, you could say that all these consoles are really IBM but how many people make their money of Nintendo/Sony in Japan vs the US? How many wage packages are taken home? Not the 100.000 dollar type, just the average salary with which people pay their rent, their taxes and send their kids to school?
If China pulls of what Japan and Korea and even Taiwan did before, go from just cheap labor to technically advanced countries with their own products... then the west is done for.
It is already happening. In Holland the story at the moment is the closing of a car factory. What does it produce? Daf (dutch)... no. Volvo? Volkswagen? Any european or American name?
No. Mitshubishi. Right now the Dutch government is begging the Japenese to keep some production in Holland. And talking about changing labour laws and wages to attract the business?
If you can't see the irony, then that explains a lot about peoples attitude towards the global economy.
And it is already to late, if you are old, you might remember the worry about Japanese buying up western assets. Right now, the Chinese government is already supporting the western economies with massive loans. If they pull the switch for whatever reason, the western economies will think the recent banking crisis was a tiny pimple on the charts.
The claim by Raspberry PI that they could not produce in the west is either a damning statement about the willingness of people to pay a few pennies extra OR shows just how much the west has collapsed in its production capacity.
If you can no longer buy tech or even have it produced anymore, then you are now a third world nation. The Brits really believed pre-WW2 that they could outsource farming. Why would you want to sully the british isles with farms when those grounds could be used for hunting and tea parties and let Americans and Australians do the hard work (and make the real money).
WW2 put a stop to that before it was to late but it is happening again. Farms are closing down because they can't compete with cheaper imports. It makes perfect short term economic sense. Just better hope that nothing happens to those supply lines. Fuel costs, a blockade or a natural disaster in another part of the world.
The worl
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Its up to the countries where things are built not up to the manufacturers. No matter what policies you (the manufacturer) put in place, when outsourced to foreign countries its up to them on how the process is conducted. Don't hate the manufacturer hate the country its manufactured in. For example China, opening trade to them was a huge mistake and in doing so other APAC countries were greatly effected but its ultimately the labor laws, within that country, to restrict despicable practices that we frown upon in the US. Either way we have little control when its out sourced. I speak from experience and spending lots of time in the APAC region where most HW is manufactured today. I'm frankly disgusted at the US government more than the manufacturers outsourcing. Its the reason for outsourcing in the first place, we can't be competitive in anything because of nazi rules and regulations. There are 50 agencies to perform the job of one in the US which we are taxed for. Outsourcing is the only way to be competitive. Point the finger at Congress not the companies that outsource!
While I think you are largely right I would love to know who gets a CS degree and ends up working at Mc Donalds, Wallmart, or in any other hourly or low pay job. I will admit that 99% of the kids I graduated with from a top notch CS program could barely program.... but still. I don't see any of them working at Mc Donalds. They were at least brighter than the majority. The school only graduated about 20 of 200 CS students.
Why go so far afield to other countries when we have the same kind of thing right here in the good old USA? What about these legal and illegal immigrants working on pesticide laced industrial farms? How about the workers at megacorporation slaughterhouses and food processing plants? Are their working conditions really that much better than those at Foxconn in China? Is a Mexican working all day in the hot California sun for minimum wages and living in a migrant worker shack that much better off than a Chinese factory worker? Media like the New York Times are hypocritical to the nth degree. They should start their muckraking investigations right here at home, before they start singling out one particular extremely successful tech company for their hypocritical tirades.
A sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality.
Yes, other people are doing it, too. This is what every speeder says when he gets stopped by a cop. This is a simple fallacy, however. Just because other people are guilty of doing the same thing doesn't mean that you should face no repercussions. Is it fair to Apple that they've been singled out? No less so than it is that some random motorist was stopped by a cop for speeding, out of all those others who were also speeding. Is that cop is hypocrite if he doesn't pull over every single speeder on the road?
Hopefully, those fly-by-night companies that exploit illegal aliens will see their day in the spotlight, as well, but there's no reason to ignore Apple's business tactics, just because someone else might be guilty, as well.
You could use a course in basic English skills and proof-reading. A quick refresher on punctuation would not go amiss, either.
At least that way your money isn't going directly to the feudal overlords of the technology serfs. Of course, it's still dependent on those serfs to build it the first time.. Maybe Apple will start charging a premium for gear built only in humane conditions. From what I've heard, the money they save per iPad amounts to $65. I'm sure I'd pay that extra just so I didn't feel like I was killing people for my toy.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
apparently it's not so much the minimal labor wages that make China attractive to manufacturing, but the supply of trained engineers to manage the operation. Apple alone needs hundreds of engineers to supervise the thousands of workers.
http://www.tuaw.com/2012/01/22/why-apples-products-are-designed-in-california-but-assembled/
AC was referring to his friend who is a waitress having a shared apt with a bunk, not factory workers in a dorm. A shared apt is not going to have a sufficient quantity of people in it to talk about the body heat warming the place.
Hopefully. And hopefully it doesn't get that cold (the GP seemed to be struggling to make it sound cold - frost is "moderately common" - wow). But I don't think you get the gist: if this is indeed the situation then she's doing well - it's hardly the sob story that was intended. But actually I don't think the picture you have in your head of an "apartment" bears any resemblance to the kind of "apartment" Chinese businesses provide for their staff. Clue: We're talking high population density, high property prices.
As far as I can tell, life in Britain is pretty good. If our economy is going to 'collapse' to that level, then I'm ok with that.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Nokia has been in China for a while. 5+ years ago I saw a program on the business tv channel cnbc showing how Nokia had compliance officers auditing their factories in China. The Nokia compliance person said that they actually spend a bit of their time getting vendors to comply with Chinese labor and environmental laws, as required by the Nokia contract. The program gave the impression that Nokia does more to assure compliance with Chinese law than local governments.
Everytime there is a story about car black boxes and insurance, people complain about the invasion of privacy. At all other times they complain that they pay insurance for other people...
Why should MY ticket payed with a secure and cheap payment option pay for YOUR incredibly insecure and costly credit card? I worked on payment systems and the cost difference is extreme. Credit Cards charge a percentage, have chargebacks with high fees while EU payment systems have a flat rate of cents with no chargeback without a serious investigation.
Ryan Air just offers what people think they want, the cheapest possible ticket. Customers just don't realize how much they rely on all the "free" extra's others offer. It is budget and means it. It is like ordering a really healthy meal and then being really served one. UGH! A healthy salad has little to no dressing, you are eating rabbit food.
Everyone of the items you mention cost money, if you want them, you got to pay for them. And you also end up paying for the overhead of choosing (tracking all those options cost money) and for the increased cost of those options because fewer people use them.
But you knew all this, and still bought a Ryan air ticket. Because you thought you could save a few bucks. Then when you landed, you bought a 5 euro cup of coffee. Right?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Let's save all of those poor asian wage slaves by boycotting products from asia. That'll help 'em!
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
NSFW for language
http://www.oglaf.com/relief/
Try http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/
Sandforce, designed and built in the USA (they seek US & imported parts). 3/5 or 7 year warranty depending on what you buy.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It also pays to diversity your investments. The Japanese et al. would want to keep some manufacturing in Europe. Not putting all your eggs in one basket - be it a country or continent does help. And then of course there can be government restrictions. You want to sell your car in the EU, Japan? Well you gotta invest here too, or you can leave, there are many other manufacturers who will be willing to invest in return for the right to trade here.
From their own Blog @ RaspberryPi.org (it's older then the main page displays so on the bottom click "older posts" of course):
I’d like to draw attention to one cost in particular that really created problems for us in Britain. Simply put, if we build the Raspberry Pi in Britain, we have to pay a lot more tax. If a British company imports components, it has to pay tax on those (and most components are not made in the UK). If, however, a completed device is made abroad and imported into the UK – with all of those components soldered onto it – it does not attract any import duty at all. This means that it’s really, really tax inefficient for an electronics company to do its manufacturing in Britain, and it’s one of the reasons that so much of our manufacturing goes overseas. Right now, the way things stand means that a company doing its manufacturing abroad, depriving the UK economy, gets a tax break. It’s an absolutely mad way for the Inland Revenue to be running things, and it’s an issue we’ve taken up with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
So we have had to make the pragmatic decision and look to Taiwan and China for our manufacturing, at least for this first batch. We are still working hard on investigating UK possibilities; at the moment, we’re investigating an option which would mean that all the Model As (whose demand we expect to be much lower than that of the Model Bs) will be built in the UK, and at the moment that’s looking quite do-able, although it’s not as efficient economically as doing it in Asia. I’ll fill you in on how that goes later on.
Don't hate the manufacturer hate the country its manufactured in.
Uh... last time I checked a manufacturer can go above and beyond what the country says: needs to be in place, safety requirements, etc.
Really? Britain's economy is in worse shape than any other European country?
Britain has the lowest unemployment rate in the EU, and a GDP per capita higher than the majority of EU countries.
Britain still has a AAA rating on its sovereign debt, France is about to be downgraded, and let's not talk about Italy or even Greece.
Manufacturing output of Britain increased last year despite a recession in the rest of the economy.
Britain is having to bale out other EU countries like Ireland. Nobody is having to bale out Britain.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I love it.. Chinese counterfeit goods spam in a thread on ethical manufacturers. Heh.
I know this isn't tech gadgets, but some jobs are in fact coming back to America. Master Lock brings manufacturing Stateside
Obama is going about this all wrong in a socialist way, by making our tax code bigger and more bloated. There should be no exceptions and conditions for a lower tax, just a flat out lower tax, Eliminate large portions of the tax code, make taxes more simple, and lower the tax rates on businesses. That's just the beginning of it, things like minimum wage should also be eliminated since the people it hurts most are the people such laws are intended to help Minimum wage harms young minorities the most
Anyhow, go out and buy a Master Lock, I know I will.
Western decadence is completely dependent on 3rd world slave labor. And we're all complicit by participating with our money. Let that soak in. You are partially responsible for this. And the only way to fix it is to abandon the lifestyle and starve these companies of profits. Short term would be bad. But we need to make corporations understand that they do not have the right to treat people like serfs. Otherwise they will continue to do so until we're all working under such conditions.
What do you think busting all the developed countroes' economies was all about? Getting us used to a lower standard of living so they can eventually treat us the same way. And we'll be grateful for it.
That's still largely an argument about cheap labor, though. Foxconn uses 100,000 workers to assemble phones, because humans are cheaper than even the cheapest machines. You need thousands of people to manage those 10's of thousands of workers. If you built that plant in Japan or the US or Germany, it would probably employ less than 10% that many people and be heavily automated (and the cost per iphone would go to $20, instead of $8).
It's a silly argument to say "it's not about cheap labor, it's about the fact that you can quickly hire 100,000 workers (and engineers)"
Yes, please enforce "fair" labor practices.
Then the jobs can come back to America.
Those Chinese folks are too stupid to know that those jobs aren't paying enough.
Ethics are basic to human nature - even to animal nature. Rats will put sharing with other rats ahead of their own gluttony. Two year old kids will play fairly with each other even when adults aren't watching, and get mad if any of the other kids breaks the assumed rules of equitability. Adults with no ethical grounding - true socipaths - exist, but in the pure form of that are quite rare. All businesses are in part based on trust. For trust to have a basis, there has to be at least "honor among thieves." If you're doing business in Scandinavia you'll likely find it's honor all the way through. If you're in Southern Italy or China, it's honor, but largely among those with whom you share some sort of family connection. In the US presently it's honor among those who went to the right universities - thus Obama's Harvard people won't bust the banking Harvard people for a broad menu of fraudulent acts against, well, people who didn't go to the Ivys. So we may not like it, but it's an ethic. Harvard people can trust each other to cover their backs. Scandinavian people can trust each other to cover their backs. Even rats and two year olds can. They've all got ethics. The only question is how expansive they are, who is within the charmed circle.
When Henry Ford paid his workers several times what he had to, that was ethics. Worked out well for all concerned. It's a totally viable business plan to be ethical with everyone. The current state of the world economy would not be such if American and European banks had been ethical, rather than carrying out massive fraud assured that their old-school peers in politics would back them. Lack of ethics is destroying capitalism. Pretending that ethics is incompatible, and should be cast off by corporations, is at the heart of the problem.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
They don't have a vote in my country.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
....very little is made in the world anymore without something like that.
I could go on. Burberry is a cheapo Chinese knockoff nowadays, but Barbour isn't. You can buy just about all your clothing needs made in the UK from our local farm co-operative, who tend to be a bit patriotic - shoes are the main problem, and people are starting to make them again as the Chinese start to want real British goods. Most of my clothes are made in the English Midlands or in Scotland; I wouldn't touch cheap imports, but often the price difference is quite small.
Despite the worst our banks can do, there is a surprising amount of UK manufacturing and it is mostly upper market. Some of it is quite old; there is a company very close to us that has been in business continually since the late 1700s. We have always been quite good at this; we are also crap at the low end, because anybody with any pride in their work naturally wants to work for a reputable company.
Incidentally, "The IT Crowd" is an arts graduate's fantasy of what IT is like. We have plenty of them available for export...they seem to do well in the USA.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I've come to expect a higher caliber of troll here on Slashdot. This is Digg-worthy at best, and just barely so.
I was listening to a 2600 radio show podcast from a few months ago where they had the guy who made TV-B-Gone. I think it was a fund-raising show if that helps out for anyone looking for it. He talked about how they went over to China and looked into places for manufacturing. The place they chose has high quality chefs on premises to make food for the workers as well as giving lots of educational improvement to them. The factory found that keeping the workers happy leads to better production and less turn-over. The extra cost that TV-B-Gone had to pay to go with a morally sound factory rather than a Foxcon was around 10 or 25 cents per piece (I realize that is a large spread, I don't remember the exact number). So it is possible to find factories in China who treat their people well, make a good product, and are still rather cheap.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
...but than I took an iPhone to the knee.
Foxconn annual profit (2010) is $2.2 billion.
Foxconn employees (2010) is 920+ thousand.
That means annual profit per employee is $2391.
Lets suppose they give the entire profit away to the employees. Thats $199 per month, or $6.55 per day, per employee.
Are you still all smug, or do you now have a lump in your throat because of how ignorant that you now realize that you are? I wonder. The right thing to do would be to have that lump... thats if you have a conscience.. do you have a conscience, or is this fake caring that you do enough for you?
Apple alone made $26.71 billion that year.
Using the same math you did, that comes out to $29032 per worker.
Plus those $2391 they are already payed it comes out to $31423 per worker.
Which is 6 times the Chinese GDP, and twice the minimum wage in the USA.
Imagine... one company with ability to lift almost a million workers not just out of poverty, but straight into 1st world middle class.
Imagine that "trickling down".
Instead of... you know... building their house made of gold.
Sorry... made of glass. Without any corners.
....as long as you can go to another country and get your product manufactured by what would be defined as slaves (and illegal) if it happened in your country.
The only real way I can see of stopping this is to force companies to manufacture anything sold in the country it's intended to be sold in, and only allow raw materials to be imported instead of the products themselves - Nike and the like have been doing this for years and nobody stopped buying their products.
Sure, the products will go up in price, but I'd suggest that it's a worthwhile cost. It's not as anyone will die if they don't own an ipad.
Are you kidding me? Right here in Maine we make relatively affordable CUSTOM shoes:
www.shopnewbalance.com/us574
Yes, they are about $120, so maybe 2x the cost of some Nikes, but you choose the colors, and they last longer. Especially if you take care of them. The worst part about cheap labor is that we have made everything a commodity, so we don't even care about taking care of our goods. Just throw it away and get a new one...
Thank you representative from the UMW; I sure am glad we got to hear from both sides.
There are other phone, mp3 and even tablet makers that produce in Korea and Japan.
Proof please.
Britain has the lowest unemployment rate in the EU
The UK rate is currently 8.4% (apparently; not sure how much I believe that since the UK government has a long history of playing shenanigans with the definition of "unemployment" for political reasons) and the Netherlands has an unemployment rate of 6% (the accuracy of which I can't vouch for at all). Both countries are in the EU. Taking both at the quoted rate, NL is lower than UK. Real rates might vary, but I'd still expect that relationship to hold.
Facts. Always getting in the way of a good argument and making you look stupid! (The figures are all things you can google for yourself in seconds.)
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
My roommate has a CS degree. He had to work off his loans doing "landscaping" (mowing lawns, trimming trees) for 6 years, never really saving anything, just basically overpaying on his loans. Now he's back in school, getting a degree in english for teaching. He already has prospects with that career path. He still has none with a CS degree because he couldn't find a job within 1 year of graduating.
I guess what I'm saying is, McDonald's is just an example, there's LOTS of people with technical degrees that are NOT working in their field.
If you bring down taxes and eliminate minimum wage (and other labor regulation) laws, you'll end up with jobs back in America alright - but those jobs will be done in the same abhorrent conditions that we see in China. The whole point of regulation is to prevent such conditions.
It's the cop who was wrong to stop the speeders. Not that following what someone else does justifies all actions, but this is definitely one of them.
It's disappointing the ratio of critique of the question to answer of the question on this page. AFAIK everyone is cynical pessimistic and generally useless on this topic except one person who suggested looking at open source hardware and one baker who is all DIY.
When did we just decide to give up?
Stupidity is its own reward.
Some workers at Foxconn were made to clean iPhone screens with a cleaner that is a known neurotoxin but weren't given adequate protective gear. The neurotoxicity led to hand tremors to a point were they were eventually laid off due to an inability to do their job. So yes, I expect that is worse than the local job examples you have given, although when migrant farm workers get sprayed with pesticides it probably comes close.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
There are a lot of apologists on /.
No really. Some of us just see it as it really is: 10% of the world is trying hard to convince the other 90% that they are being exploited. It is quite disgusting, given that I've been that 'exploited' worker until the state came along and stopped me from working overtime. Thanks for adding to my college debt, Massachusetts.