Apple To Help Foxconn Improve Factories

An anonymous reader writes "In a welcome move, Apple has agreed to help share initial costs with Foxconn in improving the factories being used to manufacture iDevices. From the article: 'Foxconn chief Terry Gou did not give a figure for the costs, but the group has been spending heavily to fight a perception its vast plants in China are sweatshops with poor conditions for its million-strong labor force. It regards the criticism as unfair. "We've discovered that this (improving factory conditions) is not a cost. It is a competitive strength," Gou told reporters on Thursday after the ground-breaking ceremony for a new China headquarters in Shanghai. "I believe Apple sees this as a competitive strength along with us, and so we will split the initial costs."'"

Comments

Re:Let me see if I have this straight..

[dkleinsc]

Here's what's going on, in a nutshell:
1. The conditions at Foxconn are dangerous, cruel, and completely unacceptable to Western sensibilities.
2. The conditions at Foxconn are completely legal, better than other plants, and probably considered ethical by Chinese standards.

In other words, this whole brouhaha says more about outsourcing manufacturing to China in general than anything about Apple or Foxconn specifically. Basically, if Americans and Europeans really thought about who was getting killed and maimed and exploited in order to supply their cheap stuff, they'd never accept it, but because it's far away and not talked about they're effectively putting it out-of-sight-out-of-mind.