Apple's Chinese workers treated 'inhumanely, like machines'

[ChromeFoundry]

Investigation finds evidence of draconian rules and excessive overtime to meet western demand for iPhones and iPads

An investigation into the conditions of Chinese workers has revealed the shocking human cost of producing the must-have Apple iPhones and iPads that are now ubiquitous in the west.

The research, carried out by two NGOs, has revealed disturbing allegations of excessive working hours and draconian workplace rules at two major plants in southern China. It has also uncovered an "anti-suicide" pledge that workers at the two plants have been urged to sign, after a series of employee deaths last year.

The investigation gives a detailed picture of life for the 500,000 workers at the Shenzhen and Chengdu factories owned by Foxconn, which produces millions of Apple products each year. The report accuses Foxconn of treating workers "inhumanely, like machines".

Among the allegations made by workers interviewed by the NGOs – the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations and Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom) – are claims that:

Much More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/30/apple-chinese-workers-treated-inhumanely

[Brickbat]

1. No need to beat up Apple -- it's a pretty safe assumption that anything that has the "Made in China"

label on it has been touched by someone in a shitty working condition.

[jp11]

16. I think the point is part that apple has 'fans' for their products and that while yes

chinese working conditions are bad this particular situation might be worse than the normal 'bad' conditions in that country. Also that this situation might show the 'ideal' corporate 'slave factory' setup and how that affects people working there.

[ElboRuum]

20. It's more because of how Apple positions itself in the market.

Apple has, for most of its post Apple II existence has positioned itself as a "corporate alternative". First, the Mac ad that was the sledge-crashing-through-glass-heard-round-the-world sending notice to IBM positioned them as the new hotness, the alternative to the then stodgy unhip world of strictly business computing. Then, as the internet age came up, it was the "computer for the rest of us" and the whole "it just works" attention to quality. Now, its the choice of a new generation of the hip and connected, the white-hat, does everything the way it should be done corporation, a different company than all of those "profiteer" electronics manufacturers, and light-years ahead of the competition to boot (and charging a premium, but I digress).

Now, contrast that with sweatshop manufacturing. Yeah, it's likely to cause a little more blowback than usual, I think.

[Brickbat]

33. I can see that. I feel that the danger with these types of stories is that when one brand name is

"outed" in this way, it makes people feel like all they have to worry about is the brand name. The problem isn't "Apple," "Levi's," "Nike" or "Wrangler," though -- it's the "made in China" label.

I do agree with your point totally. And I'm an Apple snob. :)

[Stinky The Clown]

27. I'm sure someone will show how Dell or Microsoft or HP, or any PC maker, has country club factories

that pay a living wage.

Only Apple is the evil empire.


Ford or Chevy?

Coke or Pepsi?

Etc.

[OhioChick]

2. No surprise here n/t

[aquart]

3. Isn't that the point of Chinese factories?

No unions. No OSHA.

[Vinee]

4. Outsourcing the practice of slavery still seems like practicing slavery to me.

[provis99]

5. in other words,

they are being treated the way capitalists normally treat workers.

[RKP5637]

7. Yep, exactly, the capitalistic dream. Some win and many lose and suffer by design. n/t

[BOG PERSON]

11. it isn't the capitalistic dream

it's the capitalistic norm.

[RKP5637]

12. Yep, it is, isn't it! Thanks! n/t

[RKP5637]

6. Exactly the factory model the republicans want to bring to the US. Slave labor and

horrid working conditions, factories belching pollutants, children working, no social programs and no hope for advancement and peace except by death. This is exactly what the GOP wants for America.

[Vinee]

9. who was it that sent American manufacturing to China again?

[RKP5637]

13. Yeah! The model's been refined in China, now if they can gut labor here they

can bring it back for pennies on the dollar.

[Vinee]

14. the formation of an honest and useful opinion requires consideration of all the facts

even the uncomfortable ones. In this case, you can not honestly blame the GOP because it was not the GOP that facilitated the exportation of US manufacturing jobs to China, it was Bill Clinton (and Al Gore). Furthermore, it wasn't the GOP that extended permanent MFN status to China, it was Bill Clinton. And we're all still eagerly waiting for Barack Obama to renegotiate NAFTA. You may recall that he was so opposed to NAFTA back in 2006 that he used it as a club to beat Hillary Clinton over the head with when he campaigned against her here in my home state of Ohio.

[Uncle Joe]

15. What does NAFTA have to do with China?

NAFTA = North American Free Trade Agreement is between the U.S. Canada and Mexico.

[Vinee]

18. You don't see any similarity? no underlying theme? seriously?

[Uncle Joe]

19. You mentioned NAFTA specifically and tied it to China, so I'm not

looking for themes, I'm looking for specifics.

An agreement between North American nations is one thing and any other trade agreement with other nations is another, each needing to stand on their own merits, it's not one size fits all.

[Vinee]

24. you'll notice I also mentioned extending permanent MFN status to China

because I'm talking about "outsourcing the practice of slavery" and the people who have facilitated that outsourcing. what are you talking about?

[Uncle Joe]

25. To me that's a separate issue, that's what I'm talking about.

Furthermore I don't consider NAFTA to be "outsourcing the practice of slavery," I considered that treaty to be adjusting to a changing world.

P.S. One other point, Clinton/Gore haven't been in power since the very beginning of 2000, we had ten years of Cheney/Bush to drive the nation off a cliff.

I believe if Gore had officially been President, we would be in much better shape as he would've altered or fine tuned any trade agreement that we were engaged with whether that was re: environmental or labor concerns, Cheney/Bush simply didn't give a damn.

[Vinee]

26. Both issues relate to the posted topic.

If you consider NAFTA to be simply "adjusting to a changing world", you must consider the permanent extension of MFN status to China as the same and; therefore, you must not be overly concerned with the human rights violations perpetrated in China or Mexico in the name "US free trade". Are you sure you're not just trying to defend a couple of really bad policies by making inconsequential distinctions?

[Uncle Joe]

28. Again one size does not fit all,

the human rights violations in Mexico's border region are primarily related to other dynamics that being our insane so called "War on Drugs" which enriches the drug cartels and organized crime along with our total love of anything that shoots.

They send us drugs, we send them guns.

China's problems are related to their rapid climb out of poverty and third world status to a soon to be world super power combined with the corruption inherent in a one party political monopoly.

[Vinee]

30. You're making silly little distinctions in order to get this argument on ground that U can defend.

Your last argument reminds me of a religious nut trying to rationalize his religious views. You can't rationalize the irrational because you can't defend that which is indefensible. NAFTA was indefensible. Extending MFN status to China was indefensible. period. look at my signature line: "all actions have consequences". The consequences of these indefensible actions are equally indefensible.

[Uncle Joe]

31. NAFTA is easy to defend if you just try, as I mentioned before the world was changing regardless and

there was no going back.

The United States had ruled the roost after WWII because the vast majority of the rest of the Industrial World had been bombed to the Stone Age, so it took them decades to recover which they eventually did.

As those nations caught up to snuff, their demands for energy accelerated, driving up the cost of energy in the U.S. and increasingly competing with us in regards to manufacturing.

I remember when products from Japan were derided for their cheapness back in the 60s, by the early 90s we didn't joke about that anymore.

This was also about the time that Europe was combining in to one large trading bloc; the EU, and we recognized that China a nation of 1.3 billion wasn't going to be contained or cordoned off by us whether we wanted it to happen or not.

The world was growing smaller with advances in transportations and communication, there is no way in Hell that we could maintain a "Fortress America," trying to do so could only starve our economy just as it did in the 1930s.

The most obvious solution was to attempt bringing Mexico's standard of living up while forming our own trade bloc here in North America, then we could export more to Mexico a nation that could better afford to buy more of our products, but Mexico was coming from behind from an economic standpoint.

Now Ross Perot; he of the the giant sucking sound would've been happy had the status quo remain the same because he had his own private NAFTA monopoly free trade zone, he just didn't think it was good enough for the rest of the nation, Al Gore exposed his duplicity during the Larry King debate and Perot from a political standpoint was never the same.

No doubt there were trade and environmental concerns but those could also be addressed as our relationship evolved, but the coup of 2000 drastically altered that possibility at least for so long as Cheney/Bush mismanaged the economy with their total blind, hands off approach.

I'm glad to see that you agree with me re: the insane Drug War and gun smuggling as contributing to the human rights crisis in Mexico, at least there is some hope there.

I see that you just got here in February so welcome to D.U. and peace to you.:hi:

[Vinee]

37. I voted for Perot. Thatw as my first election. He was right then. He is even more right now.

Our trade policies have been absolute disasters for everyone except the same old rich assholes that keep getting richer while the rest of us keep getting poorer. You are just plain wrong. so was Al Gore btw.

[Uncle Joe]

39. As I mentioned Perot had his own private free trade zone in Texas, he had a major

conflict of interest, if NAFTA was passed his monopoly of free trade wouldn't be a monopoly anymore.

I'm out for the evening, have a good night.

[Vinee]

45. right, and the rest of us would still have jobs, homes, and medicare.

NAFTA created poverty and misery for everybody except the extremely wealthy.

[Elwood P Dowd]

32. Insane and suicidal trade polices have wrecked the lives of millions of American workers,

and just because some have different acronyms such as NAFTA, GATT, WTO, MFN, CAFTA, FTA, etc. is a meaningless and specious argument. You are right on.

[RKP5637]

29. You're quite right! I was thinking that while away from the PC, that Bill Clinton had

played a large role in this, and the exit continues. Thanks for your informative correction/addition! That said, I really blame all of the politicians, both parties over the years for the shedding of jobs from America. I recall in the 80's when we starting closing down manuf. in hi tech, for example, and shipping the jobs out of the states.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. But they make you hip like Justin Long!

While the other brand makes you nerdy. So what's some slavery to buy that kind of cred?

[Kurovski]

10. K&R.

.

[ElboRuum]

17. An anti-suicide pledge?!?!?!

What's the penalty for breaking it? Reanimation into a highly productive zombie?!?

There aren't enough faces and palms in the world to express the dimwittery in that.

[AlabamaLibrul]

21. they're pretty common nt

[ElboRuum]

23. Ok, so that makes it less nonsensical, somehow?

[AlabamaLibrul]

46. Absolutely not nt

[ElboRuum]

51. Right. Just checking... n/t

[Elwood P Dowd]

22. Foxconn makes products for Dell, HP, Microsoft, and several other companies

yet no mention of them, only Apple. Republican companies such as Dell and HP continue to get a pass on DU while Apple, a company with liberals such as Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, and Al Core at the top, continue to get hammered here. The same DUers doing the bashing are probably doing it on equipment manufactured under the very same conditions. In fact, just about every mainstream consumer electronics product made today comes from suppliers who run factories similar to Foxconn's in China.

I wish Apple would bring production back to the US, but then everyone would complain about the cost even more. The core group of Apple haters here would even have a field day with that. These people are obsessed with Apple bashing, and the fact Apple products come from the same factories as their competition will NEVER be mentioned.

Because of our insane trade policies of the past three decades, companies like Apple are forced to use these foreign suppliers or become non-competitive on prices, features, and the latest technology. There are not enough votes in Congress to change them, so we are stuck.

[Stinky The Clown]

35. Well stated

[REP]

38. Please don't drag facts in here

This is for oh-so-hip posturing only the ultra-cool who turn up their noses at Apple.

[Electric Monk]

41. You win this thread. Well played.

[JoeyT]

48. They're not being given a pass.

Everyone knows they're evil. There's no point saying "Foxconn, Dell, or HP would melt their employees down in a pit of slag if it would increase their profit margin by .0001%." because everyone knows it. Apple claims to be different. They're not.

Poor Jobs. Forced...FORCED I say, to use slave labor to make overpriced crap just to keep a roof over his head.

[Codeine]

34. Apple? Everybody uses Foxconn.

Why are we singling out Apple and not HP? :shrug: Cheesy-ass agendas around here.

[jmowreader]

43. Because everyone knows HP is a bunch of worthless sluts...

[IDemo]

44. They got rid of her a few years ago...

Sorry, had to go there!

[ChromeFoundry]

47. Because Hon Hai Precision's largest contract is with...

ummm, Apple.

The most profitable of all their contracts. Pay no attention to the "cheesy-ass" facts or the hipster behind the curtain... it's much easier to play the Lemming card.

[IDemo]

36. See #22 and #34 immediately above

The Foxconn troubles go far beyond Apple alone.

[DainBramaged]

40. It's simple, raise the prices and bring the jobs home to America

that ends the bullshit, but of course, America just doesn't give two shits about workers anywhere as long as they get the best price on everything.


You reap what you sow, and someday, we'll run out of places that will make shit cheap for our gluttonous consumption.

[jmowreader]

42. The only reason they ever say "Apple's Chinese workers"...

is Apple is supposed to be this wonderful hippie commune and not the Fortune 500 corporation that it is.

These are just SOME of the companies who use Foxconn to assemble their products, according to Wikipedia:

Apple, Acer, Amazon, Asus, Intel, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Nintendo, Nokia, Microsoft, Sony, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Vizio.

Also be careful of the kind of PC small local builders make, because Foxconn sells lots of bare motherboards, graphics cards, cabinets etc., and a JoePC or a MaryPC very well could contain Foxconn parts.

It's a Chinese Contract Manufacturer with no worse of a human rights record than any other Chinese Contract Manufacturer--these are places that make Durham's and Brown's in "The Jungle" look like benevolent paradises.

[JoeyT]

49. Yep, a lot of "Custom PCs" use Foxconn boards.

Because they're cheap as dirt. They also have the lifespan of a mayfly.

[JVS]

50. Arise! All who those who don't want to be slaves!