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Chinese Supplier Gets Dumped By Apple For Fraudulently Using Underage Labor
jones_supa writes "Another report from Apple regarding Chinese labor practices surfaces. After conducting its 2011 audits to 339 sites, the company found that cases of underage labor had jumped from 6 to 74 in one year. It was concentrated in a single circuit board manufacturer, which Apple says was willfully conspiring with families to forge age-verification documents. According to a new report, Apple didn't find any cases of underage workers at its final assembly suppliers in 2012, but it plans to continue going deeper into the supply chain to ferret out violators. We are talking about Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics Co., with which Apple has now terminated its relationship."
Indeed. The choice in places like this isn't slaving away for 22 hours a day in a Dickensian nightmare vs. kicking balls around in a field with butterflies and songbirds.
It's working in a factory vs. living in grinding poverty that makes Appalachian nightmares look like Bill Gates' guest house. The West lifted themselves out of this, now China is.
Imagine someone from the Galactic Federation pulling into orbit in 1850 and hauling out vicious criticism of England. No friend of humanity, that's for sure. If what you care about is actual measurements of well-being, which exploded thanks to factories at that time...vs. grinding poverty, not vs. imaginations of butterflied fields.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Did anyone who's already posted even read the article? Apparently, the children are placed back at home and their education is completely financed by the violator. Apple follows-up regularly to make sure they are complying.
The child probably went to work in the first place because the family could not afford an education, so they had to choose between sending the child to school or putting food on the table. So now they can put the child back in school, and someone else in the family can work to put food on the table, and not have to worry about paying for an education for the child anymore.
While it is undeniable that a combination of superior machinery and fossil fuels kicked off an era of unprecedented prosperity for humans on average, there are a couple of complicating factors to consider, both boiling down to distribution issues:
The most obvious one is that child labor(since it is usually cheaper, and since children in the workforce raise the total supply of labor) tends to depress wages and reduce the slice of the industrial prosperity that accrues to the workers(especially in per-labor-hour terms). Certainly, it will generally be the case that a given household will be better off with an additional salary(especially if something prevents one or both parents from working, like being unskilled, infirm, dead, etc.); but workers as a group are better off if children are removed from the labor force, reducing labor supply and allowing children to accrue education and other human capital. Part of the "West lifted themselves out of this" process was precisely the eventual success of the working class and any allies swayed by moral sentiment in legally forcing restrictions on child labor across the board. Since, structurally, such restrictions are essentially a cartel arrangement(since any individual defector will be better off through violating the agreement; but the group as a whole wins if nobody violates it), it more or less had to be done by force of law.
Second consideration involves looking at whatever conditions in the agricultural sector are sucking so much that a ready supply of child factory workers exists. England had its 'Enclosure Movement', which helped swell the supply of impecunious urbanites. I'm less familiar with the Chinese case; but the disparity between urban and rural conditions there is pretty remarkable.
Read the article idiot!
When new violations are found, Apple requires its suppliers to return the workers back to a school chosen by the family and finance their education. "In addition, the children must continue to receive income matching what they received when they were employed. We also follow up regularly to ensure that the children remain in school and that the suppliers continue to uphold their financial commitment," wrote Apple in its latest report.
China is a bit behind, but it isn't in the 1850's. Child labor (defined as employment of people under 16 years of age) is illegal, and there exists compulsory education for children (as best as can be implemented in practice, of course), the same as any modern country* I'm quite certain that Apple and the Chinese government are on the same page with regard to their moral/legal stance on child labor. What bugs me is that there's no mention of the local government taking charge on the issue, and that Apple is tasked with doing what the government should be doing.
*Translate with your preferred service:
http://china.findlaw.cn/laodongfa/zhuanti/tonggong/
http://baike.baidu.com/view/63809.htm
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Months ago, when talking about underage workers was all the rage, people were decrying Apple for profiting from child labor. Now that Apple is taking a strong stance against it, they're causing the children to suffer. Right, that's not biased.
Apple gets a lot of flak for 'letting it happen', but Apple is the only company I know of that is actively trying to do something about it.
If this is happening to Apple, you KNOW it's happening to everyone else. And I have yet to hear a single report of Samsung doing a similar thing to what Apple is doing now.
Hooray, instead of working they now can live on the street and starve to death.
Gotta love Slashdot. Its hatred is for Apple runs so deep, there are many here who would rather children be forced into labor than admit that Apple does something non-evil, or even (dare one say it!) something *good*.