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Investigation: Apple Failing To Protect Chinese Factory Workers
mrspoonsi writes with the findings of an investigation into working conditions at a factory that makes Apple products. Poor treatment of workers in Chinese factories which make Apple products has been discovered by an undercover BBC Panorama investigation. Filming on an iPhone 6 production line showed Apple's promises to protect workers were routinely broken. It found standards on workers' hours, ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were being breached at the Pegatron factories. Apple said it strongly disagreed with the programme's conclusions. Exhausted workers were filmed falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts at the Pegatron factories on the outskirts of Shanghai. One undercover reporter, working in a factory making parts for Apple computers, had to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off. Another reporter, whose longest shift was 16 hours, said: "Every time I got back to the dormitories, I wouldn't want to move. Even if I was hungry I wouldn't want to get up to eat. I just wanted to lie down and rest. I was unable to sleep at night because of the stress."
I can still have more iPhone? The workers are there to do work. I pay.
Why is it Apple's fault or Apple's problem? First of all these are Foxconn workers. Secondly Foxconn manufactures hardware for a lot of companies, not just Apple.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
You have chosen to rationalize the exploitation of Chinese workers, probably using a product you or your employer couldn't afford to purchase if manufactured by someone that shared your pleasant lifestyle. Your rationalization is characterized by one or more of the following possible memes;
[_] Making iPhones in a Chinese factory is better than being a Chinese peasant
[_] iPhones/Pads would cost too much if I had to pay my fellow citizens to make them
[_] iPhones/Pads would cost too much given environmental regulations I vehemently insist on for myself
[X] All the other manufacturers are doing it too
[_] Some/Many/Most Chinese workers appreciate 70 hour weeks and breathing my aluminum dust
[X] It's not Apple, it's Foxconn
[_] It's not Apple, it's the Chinese government
[_] They should quit if they don't like it
[_] It's just capitalism at work
[_] It's just communism at work
[_] Apple's disposable workers are paid better than non-Apple disposable workers
[_] Apple's auditors didn't find any serious issues
[_] Some day the Chinese will be too wealthy to exploit
[_] Your Android is Foxconn too
[_] You're an Apple hater using Apple as a scapegoat
[_] I also work 60/80/100/120 hour weeks at my IT job
[_] Apple designers are in the US
[_] The US did the same thing to the British
[_] The US had slaves once too
[_] The US has prison labor today
[_] It's up to the Chinese to stand up to their oppressive government
[_] There are lines of willing workers outside Foxconn factories
[_] If any company were to stop the exploitation, I really think it'll be Apple
[_] Your free Linux runs on Chinese hardware too
[_] Foxconn workers think they have it great, so it's ok!
[_] Foxconn worker suicide rate is lower than Chicago's murder rate
[_] Foxconn worker suicide rate is lower than China's suicide rate
[_] We can't pollute the whole world!
[_] Half of all US households have an Apple product
[_] If we don't exploit them they'll never develop
[_] The suicide's families get the insurance money
[_] You're posting from a macbook/iphone/ipad right now
[_] There are suicide nets on American bridges
[_] Interns in the US don't get paid
[_] They don't beat the workers, apparently.
[_] Why is this news? We expect this from China.
[_] It's their country; we have no right to judge.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
I started to write this and then I canceled because you're a troll and then I got pissed and started/canceled again, but anyway, fuck you and stuff.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
"Every time I got back to the dormitories, I wouldn't want to move. Even if I was hungry I wouldn't want to get up to eat. I just wanted to lie down and rest. I was unable to sleep at night because of the stress."
that doesn't sound that different from my years working in ops and dev in the valley :)
Hey apple, use your own products to fix this mess.
RFID fobs on workers, computers to monitor working hours, and computers to mandate rest times etc...
Mangers that over work people, SACKED!
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
These conversations inevitably focus on Apple, but what about contract workers in similar factories who make phones for Samsung, Huawei, Microsoft (that still feels weird to write) and newcomers like OnePlus? I suspect that conditions are worse, simply because there is less external oversight.
I used to work in China, in tech business. I have been to several Pegatron's factories in China as well as to several Foxconn factories
All the factories that I have visited are, to put it mildly, LABOR CAMPS
But there is a difference
The factories run by Foxconn, the condition has improved. While it's still "labor camp" like, at least it is humane --- and Foxconn having been scarred by the exposure (of suicides and whatnots) they are at least playing by the rules
Not so in Pegatron factories
Conditions there are way beyond inhumane. They lock workers inside a room, with few ventilation, and ask the worker to apply strong chemicals, chemicals that can destroy body cells if inhaled, that are carcinogenic, onto the devices that they are working on
Many ex-workers from Pegatron develop all kinds of ailments after being exposed to those chemicals, and there have been numerous protest against Pegatron, in many Chinese cities
I am not saying that Foxconn is an angel, no, they run labor camps as well. But at the very least, they are toeing the line, for the moment
Most phones that are manufactured in these places are Android phones--yet we only here about Apple failing to protect workers. Cisco, Nintendo, Sony, Amazon, etc. all use these companies (Pegatron, Foxconn, etc.).
But it's okay because those companies never pretended to try to enforce higher standards--that's what you're saying, right? with a straight face and everything.
AFTER unions got torn apart, in the US, perhaps.
but in my grandfather's day (turn of the 1900's), they fought for better working conditions and this is where the 5-day work week came from, time and a half (or more!) for overtime and I remember my GF telling me that 'every 4 hours, they are required to let us eat'. even today, at my 'cushy IT job' I don't get a food break every 4 hours. not that I need it, but its a thing that we once had and lost due to 'those evil unions' (sigh).
so, conditions were horrible in the US, we fought to make them more human-like and we won.
then, we lost them ALL. pretty much all of it.
cops and other groups have unions and no one says a word about it. but if IT guys or factory guys want to have a union, its 'hey, why do you hate america' and shit like that.
if my GF was still alive, he'd be furious for the things he and his peers fought for and yet we let drift away over the years.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
scholar.google.com if anybody's interested.
Effects of scheduled overtime on labor productivity - Abstract says 'no significant effect on productivity'
Productivity in manufacturing...: As hours/day dropped, they worked more days(of the year), so productivity remained about the same.
Scheduled Overtime and Labor Productivity: Quantitative Analysis: Productivity drops 10-15% for 50/60 hour work weeks.
Effect of Reducing Interns' Work Hours: Surprise, Surprise, NOT working medical interns for 24+ hours straight reduces serious medical errors by more than 50%.
I don't read AC A human right
Try Abbe.
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Munster/Industrial/chap17.htm
To quote:
"It was found that everywhere, even abstracting from all other cultural and social interests, a moderate shortening of the working day did not involve loss, but brought a direct gain. The German [p. 213] pioneer in the movement for the shortening of the workingman's day, Ernst Abbé, the head of one of the greatest German factories, wrote many years ago that the shortening from nine to eight hours, that is, a cutting-down of more than 10 per cent, did not involve a reduction of the day's product, but an increase, and that this increase did not result from any supplementary efforts by which the intensity of the work would be reinforced in an unhygienic way.[41] This conviction of Abbé still seems to hold true after millions of experiments over the whole globe."
... I remember my GF [grandfather] telling me that 'every 4 hours, they are required to let us eat'. even today, at my 'cushy IT job' I don't get a food break every 4 hours ...
You probably do. Its one of those things that moved from union contracts to state law. Read your employee handbook, it probably says something about mandatory breaks and mealtimes after fixed numbers of hours. Or read the mandatory state labor rules poster in the break room at work.
if my GF was still alive, he'd be furious for the things he and his peers fought for and yet we let drift away over the years.
My grandfather's working days began a little later than yours, late 1920s. Blue collar union jobs from the late 1930s until retirement in the 70s. The way he explained it to me is that unions were less important today because the things the unions fought for back in the day are generally in the law now. So we're protect by law not union contract now. That the things his union fought for in the 60s and 70s, and that he went on strike over (reluctantly), were largely BS and they lost money by striking. The additional benefits, relative to the offer on the table before going on strike, never making up for the lost wages. That it was just politics and posturing of the union, and the union looking out for the union organization not the workers they represented. Every union is different but his was a very large well known union so I think his story may be more of the norm not the exception.
After 30 years working in software development I've not seen a return to the bad old days as you suggest. Never had an employer that didn't recognize breaks and meals. About all you could say is that it was left to you, no manager was clocking you in and out. Certainly no manager was upset when you disappeared for half an hour and reappeared with a soft drink cup from a local fast food joint in your hand. The only time my managers ever cared was after a bogus complaint to the state by a disgruntled former employee, yes myself and coworkers thought the complaint bogus. Then managers were all annoying asking if you've been working four hours yet and haven't taken a meal break. They didn't care if you were in the flow coding and not hungry yet and wanted to continue for another hour before grabbing a bite, they had to interrupt you. And if you really wanted to stress them out say you brought a sandwich and wanted to eat at your desk while you worked. Losing the flexibility to take a meal at 3 to 5 hours of work depending on your focus and/or your hunger did not improve things.
The closest you could get to the bad old days was that we were salary and didn't get paid overtime. However at the one company where we put in a ton of overtime we got pretty decent bonuses that made up for it. Now are all companies decent in this manner, no, certainly not. But as "white collared" salaried employees things were not that different from the old strong union days. Want to talk about unpaid overtime, talk to an uncle who worked on the space program in the 50s and 60s. Of course in their mind they were on a holy crusade and happy to do it, even more so than a recent college grad offered a job at a video game company.
For computer equipment, buy used and learn how to repair it. It's not a perfect solution since no electronics are made without slaves, but it's better than Feeding the Beast directly. It honors the people who bled for your equipment by not throwing out their labor when it has lost its shine.
That's pure whitewashing. Like saying that if you don't buy endangered species souvenirs directly from the poacher makes it okay.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Well, I found it in a book by Eysenck about a study in war-time Britain, where he found that workers working 57 hours a week in arms production were less productive _per week_, not just _per hour_, than workers on a 48 hour week. And these were people who should have been highly motivated for obvious reasons.
You and everyone else knows it--the mental contortions required by Android fans to criticize Apple for something that is worse in Android-land is transparent and ridiculous.