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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."
Are you sure it was a Chinese company? It could be mine...
not enough to stop buying ipods and whatever other trendy shit is important to social status right now
In China, workers don't need unions, they just need to be an Apple supplier, and get China Labor Watch to give them a poor report on workplace conditions. Then, the world will force Apple to force the supplier to address the issues (or hide them better).
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
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.
Came to see comments about EA developers flooding into facility to work only sixty hours a week!
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.
So Apple has only one worker in all of China?
If not, then surely it should be "Chinese worker abuse claims".
If it wasn't for all the false reporting about conditions at Foxconn, I might take this seriously.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Daisey
"All the false reporting" was one nutjob who was confusing journalism with stage performance. A stark difference between Mike Daisey and China Labor Watch is their falsifiable report that, unlike Daisey's heart wrenching anecdotal stories, can be checked.
Examples:
At Pegatron, over 10,000 underage and student workers (interns), from 16 to 20 years of age, work in crowded production rooms, doing the same work as formal, adult workers. But some students are paid lower wages because schools deduct fees for the internship, while other students will not have their wages paid to them on time.
CLW’s investigations revealed at least 86 labor rights violations, including 36 legal violations and 50 ethical violations. The violations fall into 15 categories: dispatch labor abuse, hiring discrimination, women’s rights violations, underage labor, contract violations, insufficient worker training, excessive working hours, insufficient wages, poor working conditions, poor living conditions, difficulty in taking leave, labor health and safety concerns, ineffective grievance channels, abuse by management, and environmental pollution.
Did you read the report? It's got hard numbers and straight up accusations with defined conditions that can be checked. It's not like "I met a little girl who polished my iPhone." Instead it's like "A dorm room at Pegatron can accommodate 12 people. From Monday to Friday, residents have to clock-in within 24 hours or else they will be considered checked out of the dorm." or "The Pegatron factories had a list of discriminatory hiring practices, including refusing to hire people shorter than 4 foot 11 inches tall, pregnant women, those older than 35, people with tattoos, or people of the Hui, Tibetan, or Uighur ethnic groups."
My work here is dung.
Yeah, iPods are *really* trendy these days. So are fax machines!
That aside, everyone knows that "being trendy" is the only reason that people would buy Apple products. It doesn't have anything to do with preferring the way a product works, what an OS does, the design of the hardware, or actually being okay with the dreaded Walled Garden (Bzzzzzzt! Not allowed for Orthodox Slashdot Readers and Posters).
Nope, it's just to look like a hipster.
That's like not taking the war seriously because of a foxnews article about it.
You're right, Apple is clearly the big issue here.
There are no other tech companies that use foxconn and pegatron (oh wait, no, pretty much every tech company in the world goes via these factories).
All the other tech companies do much more to check out the conditions where things are being produced (oh wait, no, Apple are the ones sending teams in to check out what's going on, in randomized inspections, and actually canceling factories' contracts).
Apple aren't moving manufacturing to their own facilities in the US, because of the issues with these factories (oh wait, no, the new MacPro is 100% US manufactured, because they are moving manufacturing there).
yes... clearly Apple are the issue here.
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.
The country I live in (USA, you may have heard of it) once counted abundant, low cost labor as a comparative economic advantage. At that time, we exploited this advantage, which resulted in a sustained economic boom, accompanied by exploding output, and eventually the creation of a middle class. Our middle class then organized themselves and enforced much better working conditions. This eliminated our labor cost advantage, but we were able to make do with productivity improvements and a shift to services.
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. A well-meaning effort to improve the lives of a few then would have hurt the quality of life for many later.
Those who criticize Chinese working conditions are either ignorant of economics and history or have an agenda to hold China back.
Further Reading:
http://www.hamiltoninstitute.com/the-problem-with-sweatshops-is-that-there-are-not-enough-of-them-discuss/
Dance like you're hurt, Love like you need money, and work when somebody's watching.
-Scott Adams
If it wasn't for all the false reporting about conditions at Foxconn, I might take this seriously.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Daisey
The problem with Mike Daisey is that way too fucking many people consider "This American Life" to be journalistic instead of anecdotal (which is what the piece from Daisey clearly falls into). While TAL has much more self-imposed rigor than most op/ed outlets, that still doesn't mean you should treat their pieces like they are headline news. It's white folks riffing on how goddamn hard life is, plain and simple. Read more into it at your own peril.
Disclaimer: I am an avid TAL listener and fan.
yep only reason
I think a lot of this hand-wringing is just masturbation unless we can see what something like an iPhone completely made in the USA or under Fair Trade conditions would cost. It's easy to for a Westerner to feel righteous indignation about these working conditions in China. However, I want to see how many people will put their money where their mouth is when they are required to pay based upon first world manufacturing costs.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
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...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Those who criticize Chinese working conditions are either ignorant of economics and history or have an agenda to hold China back.
Well, yes. Many of the people demanding 'better working conditions' in China seem to believe that, if they can increase manufacturing costs in China, manufacturing jobs will magically return to America. In reality, they'll go elsewhere in Asia, and most work that does return to America will be done by machines.
Always eager to do Apple's PR work, aren't you?
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. A well-meaning effort to improve the lives of a few then would have hurt the quality of life for many later.
Your equation is faulty, because you use words like "few" and "many" on a very ad-hoc basis without quantifying them. Why, exactly, would "few" be affected, and not the entire worker base? And why should those "few" be forced to sacrifice their life quality for the sake of some other "many"? If you know anything about the history of sweatshops in US and Europe, those places were real hell; we'd probably consider them outright torture in some cases, in fact.
And the abundance of cheap labor, aside from a "sustained economic boom", has a lot of externalities, since in many cases it is cheaper for a capitalist to buy the disposable labor than to actually invest into safety practices or better automation. And then you get stuff like this. Again, who are you to decide that those people need suffer such for the sake of future generations?
Daisy was not a "nutjob", he was just less careful than others doing the same thing.
Since when is intentionally fabricating evidence "just less careful"?
Plenty of dirt poor Asian countries full of workers who aren't going to cry about better treatment. If they're willing to wait 10 years, I'm sure they could relocate to Michigan for even cheaper!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
We cheer on labor rights in China, but complain about unions in the US. Maybe it's the balance, I don't know. But, it seems hypocritical.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
We cheer on labor rights in China, but complain about unions in the US. Maybe it's the balance, I don't know. But, it seems hypocritical.
US unions seem to be among the biggest cheerleaders for 'labor rights' in China, presumably becuase they're the ones who expect to benefit from increasing Chinese manufacturing costs.
Just like with Daisy or Greenpeace or the other people that have made allegations about factories in China, they all attach the Apple name to get attention even if Apple is not involved. Daisy was not a "nutjob", he was just less careful than others doing the same thing.
I remember "hundreds of workers threaten suicide at iPhone factory". Why? "They are afraid of losing their jobs because of reduced Xbox production".
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.
I am officially gone from
the apple can buy up a huge part of detroit, privatize the DPD, and augment a police officer to take a bite out of crime.
And he never wanted this.
Alternatively you might just have become like Germany, where manufacturing is strong but wages are reasonable and conditions are generally good. You might have moved towards the kind of service economy you have now. After all, the way the UK would have "meddled" would have been though consumers demanding products that are ethically manufactured, and by being willing to pay for them. Apple products are quite expensive anyway, but even with things like basic foodstuffs people are willing to pay for Fair Trade or free-range.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"Technology giant Apple is facing fresh allegations of worker rights violations at Chinese factories of one of its suppliers"
What other western companies do business with the Pegatron Group and why is Apple only singled out for attention by China Labor Watch?
AccountKiller
Even if there were some questionable rendering of the facts, Mr. Daisey seems to be spot on about Chinese factories. China has only proven - since the Tiananmen Massacre on June 4th 1989 - that they are only interested in giving favor and freedom to multinationals while denying freedom to their own people.
That said:
It seems like the factories in China would rather smear anyone who questions their practices, and hope that their US-side clients come to the rescue if it goes global. Failing that, they go to the PR firm that takes on the worst of the worst - Burson Marsteller - in order to whitewash their image.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Or they are hoping to be the first to sign up chinese to their membership. Think of the union dues on millions of chinese workers? The union is a business just like any other, they need new members/dues to function.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Stop placing blame on people who are kept ignorant to the practices and lied to. Every time something like this comes out, consumers are first told "No wayz, we would never hurt people to make profits" which turns into "we are investigating" when more evidence is provided, and finally "we are fixing it" when they can't deny problems any further.
It's like blaming unions for the downfall of companies while exec's get multi-million dollar bonuses. It's illogical to put the blame there, but you tow the party line and say it anyway.
When people realize there are issues, they do vote with their wallets. If that was not true companies would _never_, _ever_ change. Foxconn would still be the piece of trash it was (and maybe it is, we only see the post cards). If they are kept in the dark, you can't blame them for not making noise or boycotting.
If you really want to blame someone other than management, how about bashing our media monopoly that spreads propaganda instead of news and politicians that allowed it (and continue to allow) this to happen? Of course that's not the party line, so you won't even think about it. Right?
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Would be in Communist China and that is to exploit workers. Or they want Communism to succeed over America, Most likely butt hurt by some politics. Personally I would arrest the CEO and others for UN-American activities.
The problem with Mike Daisey is that way too fucking many people consider "This American Life" to be journalistic instead of anecdotal (which is what the piece from Daisey clearly falls into).
When it's made up, as Daisey's stuff clearly was, it isn't anecdotal.
Well, yes. Many of the people demanding 'better working conditions' in China seem to believe that, if they can increase manufacturing costs in China, manufacturing jobs will magically return to America. In reality, they'll go elsewhere in Asia, and most work that does return to America will be done by machines.
It's actually a quite perverted point of view that better working conditions would have to increase cost. For example, improving worker safety and having fewer accidents reduces costs. Having a clean workplace makes it easier to produce items that pass quality control than dirty workplaces. Sexism, racism, or just plain bullying in the workplace doesn't exactly make workers more productive. Excessive overtime increases cost because the work is done by exhausted workers who can't concentrate and therefore work slower and make more costly mistakes.
Very reassuring and interesting to see a psychopath's perspective on this. I imagine if we just get rid of 'good conditions' everywhere we'd have much better world economic output. Let's just hope reason prevails.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.