Apple Faces New China Worker Abuse Claims

AmiMoJo writes "Technology giant Apple is facing fresh allegations of worker rights violations at Chinese factories of one of its suppliers, the Pegatron Group. China Labor Watch has alleged that three factories of Pegatron violate a 'great number of international and Chinese laws and standards.' These include underage labour, contract violations and excessive working hours. Li Qiang, executive director of China Labor Watch, claimed that 'our investigations have shown that labour conditions at Pegatron factories are even worse than those at Foxconn factories.' The campaign group said that it had found that average weekly working hours in the three factories investigated by it were approximately 66 hours, 67 hours, and 69 hours, respectively."

Comments

Are you sure it was China?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure it was a Chinese company? It could be mine...

Pegatron

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Apple does not. A supplier that Apple uses, Pegatron, does.

I know Apple generates more page views than Pegatron but can we please try for a vague hint of accuracy in the article summaries.

Why focus on Apple?

[hambone142]

Several other computer manufacturers use Foxconn and Pegatron. H.P. is one of them for example. We get the behavior we measure. Cost cutting is the constant mantra of U.S. corporate management. We turn a blind eye to such practices. I won't even get in to the pollution issue they cause in China.

Re:Why focus on Apple?

[shutdown -p now]

Two reasons.

First, customer base. HP is a rather boring company, and most of their customers are medium and large businesses bulk-purchasing hardware. They couldn't care less about some workers in China, but they do care about the pricing. Apple, OTOH, has more individual customers, and in particular a large number of that type of vegan "fair trade" coffee drinking hipster. This is precisely the kind of audience that can be efficiently targeted with emotional appeal, and would respond to it by pushing back onto the company.

Second, finances. Apple is widely known as a wildly successful technological company. With the kinds of profits that they report every quarter, they can't say that their margins are too low, or something along those lines.

Why is constantly Apple vilified for this?

[l0ungeb0y]

These are the actions of the Pegatron Group, a separate company from Apple that like FoxConn is a contractor. So why is it claimed that Apple that is mistreating workers? And why the exclusive focus on Apple when other high profile tech companies, including direct competitors who use these same companies with workers receiving the same treatment at those plants?

I suppose the most likely reason is because Apple is seen as the lead brand in consumer technology, and by slamming Apple in the press, they prompt Apple into action, but it also seems that by focusing on Apple, they unfairly saddle Apple with the cost of fixing this than the industry as a whole.

Re:Why is constantly Apple vilified for this?

[dwightk]

What is the difference in projected traffic volume for an article with the headline
"Pegatron faces China worker abuse claim"

vs.

"Apple faces new China worker abuse claim"

Who is better then?

[SuperKendall]

What the world needs to realize is that no pun intended, Apple is rotten to the core

Why?

Apple is the only technical company to actually provide reports on factory conditions, and impose worker limits on factories assembling for them.

If you think Apple is rotten, why are you not out complaining about EVERY other technical compan, which is far worse?

Whatever you are typing on was produced under worse conditions than Apple assembly workers face. The same is true of whatever display you are looking at, and the computer processing your words.

If you really meant what you said you would throw out everything and crawl into a forest. But you don't, you apply one standard to Apple and a far, far lower standard to every other company on earth.

Did you every stop to think that by demonizing the only company that is trying to improve worker conditions that you are actually screwing over the Chinese workers? If Apple went into a bug decline Chinese factories could go back to horrendous overtime and lower worker conditions as they pleased, because they would be back to working only for companies that did not care about how things were assembled...

Re:Want to hurt Chinese workers? Improve Condition

[dkleinsc]

Imagine if, say, the UK meddled in our business in the 1880s and forced us to improve factory conditions prematurely. Our growth would have been slowed and the eventual creation of the middle class would have been delayed.

That is far from an indisputable argument:
1. Working conditions in the UK were not all that different from working conditions in the US over the same period. For example, child labor was legal in both the US and the UK until well into the 20th century.
2. An overall growth in wealth does not necessarily create a middle class - you also need the distribution of that wealth to be even enough that those who are not members of the investor class are not living hand-to-mouth. If you want an example of a rising tide not really lifting all boats, look at what happened to GDP versus wage growth since 1975.
3. You're completely ignoring trade unions and government regulation, both of which changed policies dramatically.
4. I'm not sure which period of the middle class you're talking about, but if it's the one from the 1950's, you also have to factor in the lack of able-bodied men and the G.I. Bill.
5. There was another significant comparative advantage in play for the US in the 1880's: Many of the raw materials for the products of US factories were from the US, so manufacturing in the US cut transportation costs. If you're raising cattle in Colorado, it's far easier to make that into ground beef in Chicago than it is to ship cattle to Birmingham. If you're mining iron in upper Michigan, it makes more sense to do your smelting in Cleveland or Detroit than it does to ship it to Bath before smelting.

What is better, an attempt at truth or nothing?

[SuperKendall]

Yes, and they also have a vested interest in lying.

But the other companies don't have even that. Even if Apple is misleading in some respect, they are at least giving you SOMETHING. Other companies remain totally silent on worker care issues. They provide no documentation as to conditions. They impose no restrictions on companies they contract with for Assembly. Apple Does.

So even if Apple isn't doing some of it quite right, they are still vastly far ahead of other companies in trying to improve working conditions in China. Which is why if you actually cared about the Chinese, you'd be supporting Apple instead of attacking them.

Instead, you'll continue to use your non-Apple laptop and your non-Apple smartphone because you like them, totally ignoring the fact that the conditions they were made under are far worse than anything reported for Apple.

Myself, I have taken to buying some things like wireless routers from Apple that I used to purchase cheaper versions of before, because at least I have some idea of the conditions they are being manufactured under. Either you actually care or you don't, you can't just claim to care and then act as if the issue doesn't matter.

The hypocrisy here is just sickening.