The short answer is that in this particular case, no, I don't have first or second hand knowledge of this particular plant. I do have second hand knowledge of similar factories where this stuff does occur (I know more than one person who escaped from such factories to the US, and have heard their stories).
The hundred bunks is indeed not the core problem, the lack of employee choice in living arrangements in order to keep their job is the core problem. I am quite sure, having done business in the area, that good lodging is available in the area for less than the half of their salary the company is giving them no choice but to put into living in the company dormitories.
I'm not pretending to have familiarity with the situation specifically, I actually do have familiarity with the situation in general. The situation at this particular factory may not be as bad as some, but I would be surprised to learn that, and even if only the claims in the article are factual, and things are no worse, that is enough to indicate the situation is exploitative.
Ok, whoever modded this as a troll is on crack. Who exactly was being trolled here? I've not had a single reply, and I think it was a pretty reasoned response to the parent's claims.
Got moderated as flamebait. It certainly appears that someone is on a downmodding junket around this posting. Must have touched a nerve. Please metamod appropriately.
Ok, whoever modded this as a troll is on crack. Who exactly was being trolled here? I've not had a single reply, and I think it was a pretty reasoned response to the parent's claims.
Coming from the nearly the same hypothesis, I reach nearly the opposite conclusion.
First, a minor difference, plenty of activists have protested and complained about the US making China a most favored nation trade partner. They would love to get that position reversed completely. Our congress has even made noise about reevaluating the current position regarding China and the WTO.
However, I'd agree that the government basically doesn't care. And I don't think there is any practical way for an activist to make either government care. An individual corporation, such as apple, particularly one that makes a high price, high profit, non-necessity item like the ipod, however, makes an excellent target for a boycott threat.
It's a very smart, reasonable, way to improve conditions in a gradual way.
These people are working 15 hours per DAY . By tuesday they'd be done working in your cozy world.
Also, I'm guessing that your half-your-pay apartment is not shared with 100 other people in bunks, mandated by your company as a condition of keeping your job. But that's just a guess.
- How much responsibility falls on Apple to encourage its contractors and subcontractors to significantly exceed statutory labor guidelines or governmental requirements in host countries? (Yes, yes, we can all say that "consumers" have the power to force companies to take up the banner. After all, you can't make China change, so why not go after Apple?)
I think Apple (via its human employees and board members) has the same responsibility to act humanely and morally, and to avoid the exploitation of others that we all do. When you pay someone to do something for you, pay them fairly. When you pay someone to hire someone to do something for you, make a reasonable effort to make sure they aren't enslaving/torturing/exploiting them.
- Reports about someone earning "X" per month are meaningless out of context. How much, exactly, do other workers in their locale earn? What is the overall cost of living? (Yes, I'm aware that the article makes reference to food and rent consuming "half" their salary.) If the pay is "dismal" even by China's standards, as one of the articles asserts, then why is anyone even working there?
Indeed, comparing monthly salaries without comparing costs of living is meaningless. Certainly if food and rent is consuming half their salary, though, that's a red flag that they aren't getting paid enough, and people often enough get gangpressed into work that it could well be the case that offering the dismal pay is a way to keep even the notoriously bad chinese government off their back.
- No one has to work at a Foxconn plant making iPods. No one. And if it's viewed as the best alternative by individual workers who choose to work there, then it's probably, well, the best alternative. (Arguments about how people have no choice, or assertions about how people may be "persuaded" to stay in the employ of such a company once "hired" are likely to not be very persuasive to me. And if it's Chinese police or governmental entities that don't let workers leave and/or don't let them have visitors, well...)
Are you sure? Sometimes people do get forced into labor in China (and may even get paid, again, keeping the wrong officials from taking a closer look). And who knows exactly what goes on inside those compounds, with on site housing conveniently keeping the workers from external exposure.
- How, precisely and specifically, has Apple "staked its image" on "progressive politics"? (And wouldn't more effective change come from the US being able to have a global position such that it can exert pressure on the Chinese government and other human rights abusers, rather than trying to mobilize consumers to target US companies?)
I think this is a good question, though one could easily argue that their 'think' campaign and many of their advertisements emphasize that Apple is a progressive company with a progressive computer. Surely it would be better if the US could exert pressure on the Chinese government to improve things, but that's not going to happen. Apple is a more practical and realistic target.
I guess it always pays to go after the market leaders. And I'm saying that in all seriousness: I'm sure people saw targeting Nike as the most effective way to fight sweatshops at large, just as some might say, "Free Tibet, and you free the world." I will say that it's rather unfair that, in campaigns like these, it's often that one target, however, that bears a hugely disproportionate burden of vilification, blame, and bad press. I can't blame them though; the iPod is certainly an easy and high profile target.
Indeed, if you target the biggest producers, presumably you help the largest number of workers. If you make the biggest producers a 'safe' buy, then it becomes challenging for the smaller producers to sell slave labor goods, because not only is the bigger producer known for its superior brand, but also for that brand being slave labor safe.
The iPod is a good target: very popular, and a glaringly unnecess
The actual capabilities of software have grown enormously over the years. Word does much more now than it used to. Remember when you had to 'run' a spell check on your documents? Remember when a grammar check didn't exist. Then when you could buy it as an add on. Then when you could run a grammar check. And notice now that it just makes dynamic suggestions as you type? Remember when it couldn't just auto replace common typos?
Remember when Excel could only give you eight thousand rows? One hundred thousand?
Why aren't you using netscape 4.7 (or something from the 3.0 series) instead of firefox 1.5? It used less memory and cpu.
Remember when you didn't need a mouse to use your computer? Because you didn't have a GUI?
Our computer software has been taking many, many small (and some large) steps forward over a long period of time. Maybe the advances, individually, just aren't obvious enough, but most software uses more resources today than years ago because it does much, much more.
Even 8k rpm 120mm fans won't hurt you if you stop them with your finger. The worst one I ever touched felt like a mild pinch. These things just don't have a lot of mass.
I guess I should note: assuming cheap plastic fans. Don't do this with a metal fan.
Also, disclaimer: don't blame me if you find some way to make this go wrong.
Most established game houses don't give credit to the people who really do the design and the work. Instead, credit goes to the owners, and this helps to make it harder for the really creative people to break away and do their own thing. As one of the more glaring examples, you might note that it's not called 'Soren Johnson's Civilization IV'.
And he gets more credit than most of the people I'm thinking of.
Actually, they are a perfectly reasonable choice. It really doesn't matter who is doing new line deployment, the fact that it can be done, economically, is proof that the natural monopoly does not exist. That only a firm with the right of way from local government is allowed to do it is just further evidence of an un-natural monopoly.
The last mile is not at all a natural monopoly. Verizon is proving that right now by doing new last mile fiber to the home installations. There's no real physical reason ten companies couldn't run wires to your home.
The obvious way to make this work is to have localities build infrastructure to support just 20 or 30 lines into the home, and then to rent out that infrastructure yearly, with a prepaid unwiring requirement to handle the case of a company giving up a given market.
Here in the states I started a business (in a different state no less!) without even the visit to the chamber of commerce. Just filled out the forms online.
Things don't start to get interesting here til you make money, or employ more than 50 people.
Personally, I set up a couple of fake myspace accounts for 'former employers' where they have a reference to what great work i've done, or how I solved a problem that really saved the companies ass ('sometimes I wonder if this company could have survived the last 2 years without the help of surt's real name here'. I bury it in with a ton of other material about the daughter's birthday or this or that so it won't look too blatant or fake hopefully. I believe it would be enough to fool most people's first search efforts, and should even pass an uncareful examination.
Anyone who goes googling for me on the internet is going to find that apparently there are a number of people who think really highly of me as a coworker.
I think the Nazi's were working on breeding allergy free people. Apparently their plans went awry somewhere, because I hardly ever hear about that work any more.
There... from cute allergy free kittens to nazis in two steps. Beat that Godwin fans.
Hey... don't give us USians such a hard time... we have the most powerful military in the world protecting our congressmen, they are a major pain to kill.
There was already such a mass exodus. Over the last couple of years they've lost over 50% of the Starcraft guys, 90% of the Diablo I/II guys, I'm not sure on Warcraft... over 50% from WarII are gone, WOW has probably not lost quite as many because it is still bringing in the bucks.
Step 1: Flood mp3 market with crappy quality tunes recorded at concerts, so that no one can find your good quality material on the internet. Step 2: Sell your cds in massive numbers to anyone who wants a better quality recording. Step 3: Profit!
Wait... I think step 2 was supposed to be ???, but this plan seems pretty clear cut to me.
No longer will copiers of electronic media be referred to as 'pirates'. They are now to be escalated to terrorists. That way, the MPAA & RIAA can get federal anti terrorism money to help in their fight against these evil people.
You can't hide the source or destination ips, those are in the ip header (remember, every tcp packet is just the data payload for an ip packet, hence it is often referred to as tcp/ip tcp over ip). I assume a mapping of ip address -> owner is fairly trivial for the telco to set up, and so it would be easy to decide that if owner == google, drop packet.
Slashdot Mirror
The short answer is that in this particular case, no, I don't have first or second hand knowledge of this particular plant. I do have second hand knowledge of similar factories where this stuff does occur (I know more than one person who escaped from such factories to the US, and have heard their stories).
The hundred bunks is indeed not the core problem, the lack of employee choice in living arrangements in order to keep their job is the core problem. I am quite sure, having done business in the area, that good lodging is available in the area for less than the half of their salary the company is giving them no choice but to put into living in the company dormitories.
I'm not pretending to have familiarity with the situation specifically, I actually do have familiarity with the situation in general. The situation at this particular factory may not be as bad as some, but I would be surprised to learn that, and even if only the claims in the article are factual, and things are no worse, that is enough to indicate the situation is exploitative.
Note to meta-moderators, the parent post:
Ok, whoever modded this as a troll is on crack. Who exactly was being trolled here? I've not had a single reply, and I think it was a pretty reasoned response to the parent's claims.
Got moderated as flamebait. It certainly appears that someone is on a downmodding junket around this posting. Must have touched a nerve. Please metamod appropriately.
Ok, whoever modded this as a troll is on crack. Who exactly was being trolled here? I've not had a single reply, and I think it was a pretty reasoned response to the parent's claims.
Coming from the nearly the same hypothesis, I reach nearly the opposite conclusion.
First, a minor difference, plenty of activists have protested and complained about the US making China a most favored nation trade partner. They would love to get that position reversed completely. Our congress has even made noise about reevaluating the current position regarding China and the WTO.
However, I'd agree that the government basically doesn't care. And I don't think there is any practical way for an activist to make either government care. An individual corporation, such as apple, particularly one that makes a high price, high profit, non-necessity item like the ipod, however, makes an excellent target for a boycott threat.
It's a very smart, reasonable, way to improve conditions in a gradual way.
30 hours/week is where you went wrong.
These people are working 15 hours per DAY . By tuesday they'd be done working in your cozy world.
Also, I'm guessing that your half-your-pay apartment is not shared with 100 other people in bunks, mandated by your company as a condition of keeping your job. But that's just a guess.
Were you (literally) chained to your desk with no bathroom break for four hours at a time?
Have you been threatened with physical assault and rape if you try to quit your job?
Have you been raped on the job?
Did you get to choose where you live for that half of your income? Is it in a room with a hundred other people in bunks?
I'm not feeling all sorry for you, but change my mind.
- How much responsibility falls on Apple to encourage its contractors and subcontractors to significantly exceed statutory labor guidelines or governmental requirements in host countries? (Yes, yes, we can all say that "consumers" have the power to force companies to take up the banner. After all, you can't make China change, so why not go after Apple?)
I think Apple (via its human employees and board members) has the same responsibility to act humanely and morally, and to avoid the exploitation of others that we all do. When you pay someone to do something for you, pay them fairly. When you pay someone to hire someone to do something for you, make a reasonable effort to make sure they aren't enslaving/torturing/exploiting them.
- Reports about someone earning "X" per month are meaningless out of context. How much, exactly, do other workers in their locale earn? What is the overall cost of living? (Yes, I'm aware that the article makes reference to food and rent consuming "half" their salary.) If the pay is "dismal" even by China's standards, as one of the articles asserts, then why is anyone even working there?
Indeed, comparing monthly salaries without comparing costs of living is meaningless. Certainly if food and rent is consuming half their salary, though, that's a red flag that they aren't getting paid enough, and people often enough get gangpressed into work that it could well be the case that offering the dismal pay is a way to keep even the notoriously bad chinese government off their back.
- No one has to work at a Foxconn plant making iPods. No one. And if it's viewed as the best alternative by individual workers who choose to work there, then it's probably, well, the best alternative. (Arguments about how people have no choice, or assertions about how people may be "persuaded" to stay in the employ of such a company once "hired" are likely to not be very persuasive to me. And if it's Chinese police or governmental entities that don't let workers leave and/or don't let them have visitors, well...)
Are you sure? Sometimes people do get forced into labor in China (and may even get paid, again, keeping the wrong officials from taking a closer look). And who knows exactly what goes on inside those compounds, with on site housing conveniently keeping the workers from external exposure.
- How, precisely and specifically, has Apple "staked its image" on "progressive politics"? (And wouldn't more effective change come from the US being able to have a global position such that it can exert pressure on the Chinese government and other human rights abusers, rather than trying to mobilize consumers to target US companies?)
I think this is a good question, though one could easily argue that their 'think' campaign and many of their advertisements emphasize that Apple is a progressive company with a progressive computer. Surely it would be better if the US could exert pressure on the Chinese government to improve things, but that's not going to happen. Apple is a more practical and realistic target.
I guess it always pays to go after the market leaders. And I'm saying that in all seriousness: I'm sure people saw targeting Nike as the most effective way to fight sweatshops at large, just as some might say, "Free Tibet, and you free the world." I will say that it's rather unfair that, in campaigns like these, it's often that one target, however, that bears a hugely disproportionate burden of vilification, blame, and bad press. I can't blame them though; the iPod is certainly an easy and high profile target.
Indeed, if you target the biggest producers, presumably you help the largest number of workers. If you make the biggest producers a 'safe' buy, then it becomes challenging for the smaller producers to sell slave labor goods, because not only is the bigger producer known for its superior brand, but also for that brand being slave labor safe.
The iPod is a good target: very popular, and a glaringly unnecess
How much in lost revenue is all this Microsoft Patching costing the real economy?
And perhaps more interesting:
How much more would it cost not to patch?
How much more would it cost to patch a comparable number of linux installations.
Because it just isn't true.
The actual capabilities of software have grown enormously over the years. Word does much more now than it used to. Remember when you had to 'run' a spell check on your documents? Remember when a grammar check didn't exist. Then when you could buy it as an add on. Then when you could run a grammar check. And notice now that it just makes dynamic suggestions as you type? Remember when it couldn't just auto replace common typos?
Remember when Excel could only give you eight thousand rows? One hundred thousand?
Why aren't you using netscape 4.7 (or something from the 3.0 series) instead of firefox 1.5? It used less memory and cpu.
Remember when you didn't need a mouse to use your computer? Because you didn't have a GUI?
Our computer software has been taking many, many small (and some large) steps forward over a long period of time. Maybe the advances, individually, just aren't obvious enough, but most software uses more resources today than years ago because it does much, much more.
Even 8k rpm 120mm fans won't hurt you if you stop them with your finger. The worst one I ever touched felt like a mild pinch. These things just don't have a lot of mass.
I guess I should note: assuming cheap plastic fans. Don't do this with a metal fan.
Also, disclaimer: don't blame me if you find some way to make this go wrong.
You call yourself a slashdotter and yet posted that without the obligatory OMG Ponies!!! ???
Most established game houses don't give credit to the people who really do the design and the work. Instead, credit goes to the owners, and this helps to make it harder for the really creative people to break away and do their own thing. As one of the more glaring examples, you might note that it's not called 'Soren Johnson's Civilization IV'.
And he gets more credit than most of the people I'm thinking of.
RTFS. Not even RTFA. Just the summary. ;-)
... 15+ years ago.
e r_game)
It's about the lack of new 'game gods' being created by new titles. Sid Meier is well established. Since
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_(comput
Actually, they are a perfectly reasonable choice. It really doesn't matter who is doing new line deployment, the fact that it can be done, economically, is proof that the natural monopoly does not exist. That only a firm with the right of way from local government is allowed to do it is just further evidence of an un-natural monopoly.
The last mile is not at all a natural monopoly. Verizon is proving that right now by doing new last mile fiber to the home installations. There's no real physical reason ten companies couldn't run wires to your home.
The obvious way to make this work is to have localities build infrastructure to support just 20 or 30 lines into the home, and then to rent out that infrastructure yearly, with a prepaid unwiring requirement to handle the case of a company giving up a given market.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2004/10/the_ legacy_of_d.html
Of course, this assumes that Bruce Schneier is not an NSA stooge.
Here in the states I started a business (in a different state no less!) without even the visit to the chamber of commerce. Just filled out the forms online.
Things don't start to get interesting here til you make money, or employ more than 50 people.
Personally, I set up a couple of fake myspace accounts for 'former employers' where they have a reference to what great work i've done, or how I solved a problem that really saved the companies ass ('sometimes I wonder if this company could have survived the last 2 years without the help of surt's real name here'. I bury it in with a ton of other material about the daughter's birthday or this or that so it won't look too blatant or fake hopefully. I believe it would be enough to fool most people's first search efforts, and should even pass an uncareful examination.
Anyone who goes googling for me on the internet is going to find that apparently there are a number of people who think really highly of me as a coworker.
I think the Nazi's were working on breeding allergy free people. Apparently their plans went awry somewhere, because I hardly ever hear about that work any more.
... from cute allergy free kittens to nazis in two steps. Beat that Godwin fans.
There
Hey ... don't give us USians such a hard time ... we have the most powerful military in the world protecting our congressmen, they are a major pain to kill.
There was already such a mass exodus. Over the last couple of years they've lost over 50% of the Starcraft guys, 90% of the Diablo I/II guys, I'm not sure on Warcraft ... over 50% from WarII are gone, WOW has probably not lost quite as many because it is still bringing in the bucks.
Step 1: Flood mp3 market with crappy quality tunes recorded at concerts, so that no one can find your good quality material on the internet.
... I think step 2 was supposed to be ???, but this plan seems pretty clear cut to me.
Step 2: Sell your cds in massive numbers to anyone who wants a better quality recording.
Step 3: Profit!
Wait
Well, since the police have raided the pirate bay, I guess we'll find out just how much other illegal activity those guys have been up to.
No longer will copiers of electronic media be referred to as 'pirates'. They are now to be escalated to terrorists. That way, the MPAA & RIAA can get federal anti terrorism money to help in their fight against these evil people.
You can't hide the source or destination ips, those are in the ip header (remember, every tcp packet is just the data payload for an ip packet, hence it is often referred to as tcp/ip tcp over ip).
I assume a mapping of ip address -> owner is fairly trivial for the telco to set up, and so it would be easy to decide that if owner == google, drop packet.