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Fair Labor Association Finds Foxconn Factory "First Class," Says Labor Watchdog
Richard.Tao writes "The Fair Labor Association found that Apple's plant where iPhones and iPads are far better than those at garment factories or other facilities elsewhere in the country. A quote: 'The lead investigator stated "The facilities are first-class; the physical conditions are way, way above average of the norm."' Which leaves the question, what is the acceptable norm?"
It's not Apple's plant. They're the biggest electronics factory in the world and make products for Dell, HP, Nintendo, Microsoft, Google, and more. Seems like a Greenpeace situation where Apple gets singled out because it generates more media coverage. Apple has actually been cited as the most proactive when it comes to monitoring work conditions in the factories they contract with.
"The Fair Labor Association found that Apple's plant where iPhones and iPads are far better than those at garment factories or other facilities elsewhere in the country. A quote: 'The lead investigator stated "The facilities are first-class; the physical conditions are way, way above average of the norm."' Which leaves the question, what is the acceptable norm?"
Translation: So the manacles are in better condition, they're punished with lifetime imprisonment versus death in other places, and the slaves are kept in slightly better conditions - but are still slaves given that one risks imprisonment or death if you speak out against Foxconn or the like.
So this organization is only a whitewash group for Apple.
Not so. /. has the older story of the initial impressions by the FLA. The new one today (reported on by Bloomberg), instead says:
“We’re finding tons of issues,” van Heerden said en route to a meeting where FLA inspectors were scheduled to present preliminary findings to Foxconn management. “I believe we’re going to see some very significant announcements in the near future.”
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/foxconn-auditor-finds-tons-of-issues-.html
Have been there. This factory is way beyond garment factories in terms of attractiveness. The Shenzhen campus, which has about 600k employees, makes not just Apple but HTC, Sony, Panasonic, you-name-it. They are owned by Taiwan, employ management from Hong Kong, employ Cantonese labor , and are governed by Mandarin communist party staff. They are ISO certified. There are so many reasons to run this factory right, it's kind of surprising that activists who are really concerned would pick on a factory like this in the first place, as opposed to say the garment industry in Guangdong. http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/press/releases/toxics/2010/textile-industrial-pollution/ My theory is that White People have their own "ju ju" words. Like Cameroonians who are scared to death of owls, environmentalists have an exaggerated sense of risk when something is technological and involves anything with toxics. A lot of cognitive risk dissonance over high tech and brown people. Personally, I think it's kind of cool that the Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Japanese, Communists, etc. get along here and run a factory that produces the coolest gadgets ever produced by humans. At the rate they have grown, I'm sure the auditor will find lots of violations. But the headline is accurate... the auditor knows within a few hours that they are NOT in the textile hell-hole up the river, or the smelter, or the copper mine.
Gently reply
The John Stewart show that started this whole thing stated some pretty ugly figures about suicide rates. Workers get a bunk in a small room with seven other workers they don't even know. Around high places where you could jump to your death, they've installed nets to catch jumpers. If you talk to other employees about forming a group to negotiate for better wages or working conditions, you get 12 years in jail.
China has people to spare, and not enough resources to go around. That's one reason why labor is cheap and may remain that way for generations. Here in the US, we have resources to burn but not enough people to make use of them. That's one reason labor here is expensive, and why some politicians want to make children of illegal immigrants non-citizens: this would create a whole new class of non-Americans, living for generations in the US with no rights, ripe for exploitation as cheap labor, just like their illegal immigrant ancestors. We're not alone in the world in wanting a large population of near slave laborers to do the hard work for us (seen any Americans picking strawberries lately?). Qatar, for example, allows citizens to "sponsor" foreign workers, who once in the country aren't even allowed to leave without their employer's permission, or change jobs or complain about working conditions or wages... Remember all those black Africans trapped in Libya when war broke out? This is typical of what happens around the world when bad governments allow exploitation of the weak.
If we can make a small difference through educating Americans about working conditions in the factories where our stuff is made, I think it's an effort well worth pursuing.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
The work that gets done now in China for Apple (or the other tech giants) used to be done in America, under American labor laws. Then the jobs moved to China, but they are equivalent jobs for American markets, so they should still be done under American labor laws.
Of course China has different laws, but American money from American consumers who pay for nominally American products should always get products made under American labor laws, regardless.
That leaves only two moral choices: either Chinese factories must raise their standards to American standards ASAP, or else Apple needs to be penalized (in America) for not following American labor laws while producing nominally American products.
CNN has a nice article that puts "The Fair Labor Association" in proper perspective:
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/17/opinion/nova-apple-foxconn/index.html/
Those aren't great examples.
The companies you've listed aren't really "product line" companies. Yes, they have some of their own (rebranded) lines, but their primary business is selling other people's products (Nike, Reebok, Guess, Apple, Nintendo, whatever).
That being said, I once knew somebody who worked as the middleman between a U.S. brand corp and Chinese manufacturers. Their contacts in the U.S. were ruthless and in many cases absolute dickheads. For whatever reason they could find, they'd slam the Chinese manufacturers with extra fees, penalties, etc. It became obvious fairly quickly that they considered the Chinese manufacturers a sort of sub-class... and the workers at said manufacturer weren't even considered at all.
It's not just Apple, or even Foxconn, it's big business in the west overall. Given the way the corporatocracy treats locals as an inferior subspecies, it's not exactly unexpected. So long as the majority of consumers buy their products with no consideration to how they end up here, that's the way it will be.
Don't weep for Apple. It's about time *somebody* noticed this sort of shit going all and asked their favoured corp an important question: "why?"
One can only hope that it will result in some improvement, and - as Apple is currently a market leader - that it will eventually push other companies to follow.