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Apple, Samsung, and Sony Face Child Labor Claims (amnestyusa.org)
An anonymous reader writes: Amnesty International has accused Apple, Samsung, Sony, and other tech companies of failing to do basic checks to ensure minerals used in their products are not mined by children. A new report explains how cobalt is harvested from mines by children as young as seven years old. The cobalt then ends up in lithium-ion batteries sold to device-makers throughout the world. The list of companies who use these batteries also includes Daimler, Dell, HP, Huawei, Lenovo, LG, Microsoft, Vodafone, Volkswagen, and ZTE. Amnesty International notes that half the world's cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where many mining operations have terrible track records for accidents and concern for workers' welfare. They say, "the vast majority of miners spend long hours every day working with cobalt without the most basic of protective equipment, such as gloves, work clothes or facemasks to protect them from lung or skin disease." According to UNICEF, about 40,000 kids worked in mines across southern DRC in 2014.
Would not Tesla be the biggest offender. Are they not the biggest user of lithium batteries
They got smart after blood diamonds got banned. Now they mine for cobalt.
This article singles out a few companies, but are there any companies which produce mobile devices who are not as involved as Apply, Samsung, and Sony?
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
No need to upset people by mentioning all the other consumer electronics giants being a part of this.
They have to be accountable for the actions of a 3rd party? I understand sourcing responsible materials is ethically and morally sound, but there has to be a point at which the blame is on the supplier and not the buyer....right?
Sounds to me like a moral issue more than a legal one.
Why should these companies be responsible for how their suppliers handle business?
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
Capitalism in action!
...always swear themselves free of participation in this, in particular Android users. Not a troll post. Just think about what camp it is always bringing this up, in particular with fingers pointed on Apple, never Samsung, never LG, never HTC etc.
So, the problem is that their miners are minors, then?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
http://www.conflictfreesourcin...
I would love to know what this initiative really do and what there need to fix the problem.
Whilst their siblings worked in the mills because they were small enough to crawl into the machinery and would be lucky if they came out alive?
Sure, we have moved on from child labour, but it took time and social / economical development to achieve. Why should we then suddenly impose our current position upon a developing nation?
choreographed sci-fi drama continues during own worst enemy spiritual bankruptcy award season....
You all do understand child labor is still legal in America right? http://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/flsa/screen75.asp
Personally, I would draw the line between buyer and seller. I don't see why a buyer should be held accountable for the actions of a seller, and you can hardly blame corporations for being "merciless heartless beasts that only care about profit" when the same societies casting those stones are also the ones constantly pushing companies to keep reducing costs to the consumer. Also, how can a company remain competitive when another company without scruples can just buy the cheap components and undercut you.
Also, let's not get into the conditions of the nation sourcing sweat-shops and child labor. Most of them are so poor that families have no choice but to have children work in order to support themselves. Cracking down on child labor in the DRC will probably result in many families starving because those few pennies that those children were earning were probably keeping the family fed.
I know it sounds like I'm a heartless person, but too frequently I feel some high-horse crusader will come in and shut down vital economies without ever having a plan to supplement those economies they shut down.
Posting AC, since this will no-doubt offend many of you bleeding heart liberals on this site...
The tree-hugging, bleeding heart liberal idiots who are upset by children working in mines are the same ones who will be first in line to buy the new shiny things.
Child labor is exploited to make these things, ... but oh well, it is new, it is shiny, it is from [NAME BRAND], and it is a fashion statement, so I MUST have it to maintain my inflated social status!
Not my problem. I'm not worried about social status. Social Status==buying shit you don't need, with money you don't have, to impress people you don't like.
In keeping with his current theme, Candidate Trump claimed that if the supply line is the problem to Apple making their products here, he will allow *American* seven-year-olds to mine for Cobalt in the United States, making America Great Again and competitive in the world.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Why should we then suddenly impose our current position upon a developing nation?
You're the type of person that would sit and watch happily a fox chew it's own leg off to free itself from a trap.
Why should we then suddenly impose our current position upon a developing nation?
Because the best way for them to develop is to stop using child labor and start educating their children in things that bring value in the international market.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
That's Horrible!
Sent from my iPhone.
like sitting behind a computer all day while the world eats our manufacturing base? Even Gary Kildall said its no problem cause everyone in America are innovators, and what a load of horseshit that 1980's mentality has turned out to be
let them run their own damn country for once, we are not the world's nanny
Not really. I like foxes. Children? Not so much.
This makes me want to play Civilization... Where I also do not check that my workers are minors before they mine resources.
Yes we did, and we also used to work 6-day weeks of 12 hours a day.
Everyone, don't forget to thank the unions for the 40-hour workweek on your way to the GOP primaries....
You need a market before you can have progress. Granted, improving infrastructure can create productivity; that requires an investment of wealth, which requires productivity. Either they labor and produce and trade their labor, thus increasing their wealth by increasing their productive output per capita (and trading it to other nations to buy things they have no means to produce), and then apply this wealth to the development of new, more productive means; or we essentially invade, claim the mantle of benevolent dictators, bring resources to legitimize our control, and build their infrastructure for them.
The latter model is a way to destroy a culture, but it does bring change more quickly. It has the secondary effect of reducing deviation between various economic units; that is, it makes more countries and more groups of people *the* *same*. That lessens the broad spread of information available to the world via varied methods of thinking across cultural bounds, which ultimately reduces the likelihood of any given incremental economic advancement. This isn't a hard fact: it doesn't automatically make us poorer; it simply sterilizes the world somewhat, narrowing the range of things that are likely to happen, both good and bad.
In any case, simple education isn't enough. It's a start, so long as you're smart enough to educate them historically: teach them to use old, outdated, low-productivity methods which will turn them into a poor, medieval nation, but which they can actually achieve. If you teach them high-industrialized techniques, they won't have the capital to go about building the infrastructure. This is a decent compromise, and can be worked into a well-engineered plan to maximize the aji of a growing civilization without distorting its culture too much. Realize, however, that it won't erase hunger and harsh living conditions as quickly as coming into their countries and stomping the populous into the ground until they bow to your imperial rule and let you fix their outdated infrastructure.
Pointedly, none of these plans allow an *immediate* end to child labor. If you cut that off before *integrating* an equivalent method of productivity--the ability to produce the same goods with less labor, thus allowing the children to play and the adults to work--you will *reduce* the productive output per capita. That means less for each person, meaning worse living conditions: they have fewer goods per person, such as food, housing, clothing, and the like.
Once you've integrated a method of productivity providing gain, you have free labor. If the children are no longer necessary *and* you can spare some of the adults while meeting the same productive output, then you can convert those adults into teachers. This is the basis of a modernized society. From there, you can probably just leave, and they'll figure the rest out on their own.
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The qualifier is retarded. Information work is useful, but not "because everyone in America are innovators". We are still making things; they're less tangible.
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I'm fairly certain traps of that type are not legal in my state.
Otherwise the rules and regulations of another country should be out of reach of our country aside from embargos and such. We can only deal with the business operating on our soil. Most like to outsource supplies sourcing for ease of management for the extremely large quantities needed.
But after a couple dozen subcontractors I can imagine it gets difficult to find out anything.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Ah yes, think of the children! Another tactic use by the socialists.
Well, yes, the socialists are thinking of the children. The socialists think they make pretty good workers in their mines. The mainland Chinese socialists. Congo Dongfang Mining (CDM), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chinese mineral giant Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Ltd.
When a buyer, say HP, gets parts and sells it with their brand on it and supports the parts under their warranty, it effectively becomes their product. You can no longer just point your finger over there. The finger is at HP, because their name is all over it. There is a difference here, and I hope you're not being willfully obtuse about it, because companies can and do decide who to do business with.
Hypocrites. Amnesty International workers and members who use an Apple, Samsung or Sony phone or laptop are just as "guilty" as Apple, Samsung or Sony.
Amnesty International is no better than the ambulance chasing lawyer looking for the person/organization with the deepest pockets to exploit rather than going after the truly guilty. In this case Congo Dongfang Mining (CDM), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chinese mineral giant Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Ltd.
Sure, we have moved on from child labour,
Indeed, we and we also understand that paying other people to shove children down mines is not functionally different from shoving them down there ourselves.
Why should we then suddenly impose our current position upon a developing nation?
We don't. They can shove children down mines all day long on their own dime. But we collectively realised we don't want to be responsible for it so we are not going to pay them to use child labour.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
They have to be accountable for the actions of a 3rd party? I understand sourcing responsible materials is ethically and morally sound, but there has to be a point at which the blame is on the supplier and not the buyer....right?
Yes, absolutely, buyers should be blameless. Especially the Amnesty international workers and supporters who use Apple, Samsung or Sony phones or laptops.
"Subcontractor" is business speak for "positive deniability", hence the current popularity of contractors.
And what of the Amnesty International workers and supporters who are using Apple, Samsung and Sony phones and laptops. Aren't they engaging in deniability?
Here is what one is dealing with in the DRC:
The Democratic Republic of Congo remains plagued by wide-ranging conflict between government forces that historically have been backed by Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe and rebels supported by Uganda and Rwanda. Much of the eastern part of the country remains embroiled in conflict. In 2006, Joseph Kabila won the first multi-party election in 40 years. He was re-elected in December 2011 in a flawed and violent election. Rebel groups including the Lord's Resistance Army, M23, and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda remain active in the eastern regions. Renewed violence has led to massive population displacement and atrocities against civilians. The DRC continues to host the U.N.'s largest peacekeeping mission. Political instability, lack of transparency, and systematic corruption undermine economic growth.
17% of children 5-14 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo work. This is despite 67% attending school, and 16.2% of the children go to school and work.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has ratified all key international conventions concerning child labor, including a minimum age to work of 16. But obviously it isn't enforced (if it is enforceable).
Children are required to attend school only up to age 15. This standard makes children who are 15 years of age who do not have an apprenticeship particularly vulnerable to the worst forms of child labor, as they are not required to be in school but are not legally permitted to work either
More info here.
Here is what is going on in DRC:
More info here.
Because it is not the same thing. We are talking about Africa, not China, their dictators basically enslave the people using the very weaponry the developed world produces. At what point do we say, "No, we should intervene"? Do we let the child soldiers in Africa roam free looting and pillaging their people & resources so that the master can buy higher end weapons from us to support his effort? Hitting closer to home, if the South won the Civil war, became a nation, and kept slavery; should northern USA sit idly by and say "They are a developing nation."
Nike sweatshops in the 1970s are the perfect example. Without consumer awareness and backlash, the situation would have taken decades more to fix itself. Nike did a good job, providing day care facilities in their factories, educational facilities, and doing random inspections. It not only impacted the workers at Nike, but also other companies assessing their current facilities and setting up new ones.
At the same time, it is easy to go too far and become protectionist; imposing our ideals on them. Example: 7 year old is young, but 13... most cultures consider them basically adults. Many carry more responsibilities than 21 year olds in the Western world.
I still remember my college professor's story about setting up child free factories in China in the 90s due to the "sweatshop" scare. I am paraphrasing, but his Chinese counterpart responded to a stern statement after a laugh: "No, no one under 16 will work at _your_ factories Mr. Smith. I will make sure of it. They will continue their regular jobs just outside; servicing the now richer men after shift hours."
So the pendulum can be pushed too far, but it will take forever to get to a good balance by leaving it where it is. I know I made up unfair scenarios up top, but can't we atleast say that labor shifts can't be more than 9 hours long? The underlying reason being that 1 person working for 16 hours is less effective than 2 people working 8 each? There has to be tons of stuff like this that we learned the hard way and can pass on or enforce onto these nations.
There was a great video on the topic by John Oliver as to how exactly how clothing companies have been "dealing" with the same issue. Basically it is about plausible deniability. Except in this analogy (Tech VS Clothing), it is another degree of separation. Company A (Clothing/Technology Company) deals with a Company B (Supplier) usually in China/India/Etc... and is told to adhere to code of ethics. Company B subcontracts out to Company C and D (also Suppliers). Company C and D subcontract out to Companies F,H,I, and J (Manufacturers)... It is found that Company I and J use child workers. Company A says they had no idea, and told Company B to act ethically. Companies I and J go out of business (briefly) then start up new companies K and L, and start all over again. In this instance, it is like Companies F,H,I, and J get their materials from Company M (as it produces 50% of the worlds X so is cheaper).
Anyway bottom line, is keeping the whole supply chain straight (pardon pun) is complex and difficult to enforce any adherence to ethical standards upon. Amd that's if you are really intent and interested in doing so, not just giving it lip service for when it pops up in the media every decade or so... Probably made even more difficult when as the article says, the offender supplies most of the worlds cobalt, so sourcing from else where in volume is probably logistically difficult and expensive. Then again, with the commodity cost of cobalt and how much of it is used and given say the markup on these sorts of devices (I'm looking at you Apple), you'd think they could be a bit more discerning without much hit to their bottom line if they cared. Unfortunately, they likely don't.
The west may have moved on from child labor, but that's not true in most of the world. Why should we do this? Because we're humans and have a conscience. "Oh, who cares if these kids die young, I'll get my battery 10p cheaper!"
So they have political troubles. An industrial society would deal with that--have you seen the tax structure and government corruption in the United States?--and still get along fine. An industrial society would also already have active markets, with high demand for products.
As humans designed new production methods using machines, the demand for steel increased. Note that a production method requiring 200 labor-hours won't replace itself with a machine-driven production method requiring 50 labor-hours and 250 labor-hours of machine construction and fueling (the 50 labor-hours are, of course, the time spent operating the machine--instead of 4 times as long hand-weaving cloth), all things (e.g. wages) equal. New steel-making methods and efficient engines reducing that to 50 plus 100--a total of 150--make those machines viable, leaving 50 labor-hours to do other things, which would divide up between e.g. 17 labor-hours of operating machines to make new products and 33 labor-hours of work building, maintaining, and fueling those machines. You've now got the labor of an entire person devoted to making one more product, without cutting back on making anything else, *and* ignoring the making of all this steelwork.
Simply dump materials onto a society and you get a market with more product than demand. Market saturation doesn't create jobs, and wastes labor producing a product nobody needs.
*Successfully* transition to a more industrial society too quickly and you get the Industrial Revolution. I advise you to read up on this. The argument about automation--that it will end all jobs and create an economic apocalypse--is blind to the realities of past events such as the Industrial Revolution.
If we transition onto the new machines over decades, we're just facing business as usual: a few jobs lost, concentration of buying power, new markets to sell goods (those consumers have unspent income), expanding production to capture those markets, and expanding employment to fuel that production (thus *replacing* the lost jobs). Everyone ends up with roughly the same proportional distribution of income; however, with the ability to make products with much less labor, your 0.0000000005% of the income translates to buying more (because it translates to 5.0e-9 of all stuff produced, and we produce more stuff).
If we transition onto this shit in a huge rush, we quickly raise unemployment to 50% or 70% or 95%. Jobs are lost at a rate of 1,000,000/month and gained at a rate of 3,000/month; do this for a few months and you have millions of jobs lost and growing unemployment. Those unemployed are no longer a reachable market, so demand for goods drops off; you cut production, and you're now poorer (lower per-capita production). This removes jobs even more quickly. Eventually, you're at a high rate of unemployment with no fast way to dig your way out of it.
All actions have consequences. There are always sets of actions whose consequences are completely offset by their benefits; we don't always *know* any of those sets, but they exist. I never said DRC wasn't bad; I said blindly hurling money, education, or international policies against child and slave labor at an underdeveloped nation has negative consequences. You will find a need to plan your interactions meticulously; you'll have to decide your political position, too: diplomatic negotiation, forced invasion, or a campaign to incite revolution and topple the government? All of these incur death, either by the delay (people are starving), the casualties of war, or the bloody consequences of a violent uprising. Your actual plans will also send working men to the sidelines, temporarily, where they may starve to death from time to time; over time, the general quality of life increases, and you pay the cost of greasing the machine with the blood of the lowest laborers.
This is why we have welfare in wealthy nations: your lowest, poorest class of laborer necessarily spend time without jobs. No plan of full employment ope
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have you seen the tax structure and government corruption in the United States?
Transparency International Corruption Perception Index for the USA is 74/100, for DRC it is 22/100, a rating that ranks it 154th out of 175 countries. Not quite the same thing.
If the mining companies were based in the west, activists would hound them to death just because they could. So the companies sell out to Chinese concerns which are immune to activist complaints.
Corporate taxes are near 40% in the US. Free trade tariff of 11% is unimpressive, but I get the difference in income tax versus a tariff: a tariff behaves more like an increased labor cost (it raises the monetary expenditure of production, same as having no tax and increasing wages or labor time per volume production). You can compare these as long as you don't take them as direct analogs.
The US government frequently works by bribes, power plays, and other unsound behavior. This brings favoritism leading to economic damage. In a nation such as DRC or DPRK, such behavior would create a relatively-rich noble class and a body of half-starved peasants; here it is less significant. That is what I meant when I said an industrial society would handle that just fine: taking a sizable chunk of enormous wealth is different than taking a moderate chunk of insubstantial wealth.
These are kind of cyclical methods of reasoning, anyway: an industrialized society facing enough pressure to hobble it would collapse back into a pre-industrial society; the people would not simply become poor slaves shoveling 97% of their wealth to the aristocracy.
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got it...you stand there and do nothing.
we'll stand here and try to fix the wrongs being perpetrated by others.
and time will tell, in the end....who prevented the triumph of evil. (hint: it's never a guy who did nothing)
Holy crap. A truly intelligent, insightful post that understands the big picture is far more complex than X is bad and Y is good.
I'm not sure how to react. Please say something inflammatory and insulting instead.
Welcome to World War 3 - The victims are those exploited in 3rd world countries while the winners are first world countries that are doing the exploiting.
Seriously, who gives a shit?
If brown people wanna kill off their kids, more for the rest of us.
Why should we then suddenly impose our current position upon a developing nation?
To keep them back by imposing additional burden, so they stay "developing" forever can never threaten to overtake the "developed" countries, obviously.
because if you don't it becomes a quick wink and a nod situation. If you look at bank laws they focus on intent so that you can't say one thing and do another. But then again bank laws matter to the rich, laws against child labor? Well I guess they matter, in so much as they actively oppose them.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Seriously. Or or just a troll. Or a shill for some PAC or another. I can't decide, maybe you can't either.
/. these days...
Here's a radical, crazy, batshit insane idea. Why don't we pay their parents enough so that their kids don't have to work in dangerous mines? Now _that's_ socialism. Preserving species from extinction is Environmentalism. They have absolutely fucking nothing to do with each other except sometimes socialists happen to be environmentalists. We're also humanists first and foremost.
When someone criticizes things that are just plain right it's OK to call them on it. If you're just trying to point out that _other_ idiots can criticize things please stop. You're spreading infectious and nasty ideas.
Jesus, the stuff that gets modded up on
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I can't spell "You're". Feel free to point that out.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Timmy Cook's most favorite meal is "Suckling Pig", only that the "Pig" is a human baby 0.1 to 5 days old.
This information has been around for at least two decades. Look at diamonds, no one cares how many hands were chopped off or impoverished people were killed to get it. They just want the sparkle. I showed videos of working conditions in Apple factories (Foxconn, but don't for a minute think Apple care or consumers care.). As long as this transpires 'over there', it's cool.
Now that Fairphone 2 is shipping, there is no excuse not to get a more ethical phone. (Its also quite a nice phone, modular, repairable, runs multiple OSs)
but can't we atleast say that labor shifts can't be more than 9 hours long? The underlying reason being that 1 person working for 16 hours is less effective than 2 people working 8 each?
You can say that, but it doesn't work.
The person just has 2 jobs with two 8 hour shifts and now has to move between two jobs.
In fact, depending on how things are setup, the 2 people might swap jobs, moving between 2 buildings at the 8 hour point, with each building "owned" by a different company, but really not.
You're trying to change economics by decree, it just doesn't work. Too many external factors are at play.
My question may seem obvious, but at the same time I can be missing something here:
Aren't we supposed to first accuse mining companies for employing children and for providing poor working conditions? Or is it because DRC is an isolated world that those companies get to do whatever they want because they own many government agencies and they cannot be inquired?