This is my main issue with the whole story. I've not seen a single article contrasting "life at Foxconn" against life in lower-class China in general.
My understanding is that it's heads and tails better for the average blue collar/semi-skilled worker inside Foxconn than outside the gates. Additionally, the reports of hours worked per week are misleading - most workers would work more hours, if they were available, even to the detriment of their health.
If the average Canadian was told they could go work 60-80 hour weeks at a factory-city and make 10-100x what they were making currently, I wonder how many would take that opportunity, at least for a few years? I'm betting quite a few.
My understanding is that it's heads and tails better for the average blue collar/semi-skilled worker inside Foxconn than outside the gates. Additionally, the reports of hours worked per week are misleading - most workers would work more hours, if they were available, even to the detriment of their health.
If the average Canadian was told they could go work 60-80 hour weeks at a factory-city and make 10-100x what they were making currently, I wonder how many would take that opportunity, at least for a few years? I'm betting quite a few.
To me that's the big issue. To say people need to look at the big picture is a little misleading... people need to look at the big picture and that picture happens to be the size of China.
It's easy to say "Apple is run by a**holes because factory conditions are poor at Foxconn. They should fix it". It's much harder to say "China on the whole is a humanitarian cesspool and in order to fix it we need to essentially rock the entire economy". We get cheap goods from China and I would argue very few people care enough to change that.
There are people who legitimately give a damn about Chinese workers, and there are people who just love ripping on Apple whenever they can. Together those groups are making a little noise. Sadly it isn't nearly enough noise to make a whole lot of real difference.
You know what Apple could do to generate a ridiculous amount of goodwill in the US? Take 1 of the 100 Billion in cash they have laying around, and build a technical school in Michigan to train out of work folks on iProduct assembly, and take 9 more billion and build the most high tech factory in the world. Then move Apple production to America. They can afford it like almost no other company, and it would impress even Apple haters like myself. This would really be the ultimate response to the whole "crappy conditions are good compared to the rest of the country we use to make our stuff" thing.
There are people who legitimately give a damn about Chinese workers, and there are people who just love ripping on Apple whenever they can. Together those groups are making a little noise. Sadly it isn't nearly enough noise to make a whole lot of real difference.
So is the goal here to substantially and suddenly raise the income level of a large number of Chinese workers, and artificially and dramatically increase the rate of inflation until we starve out the non-factory Chinese?
Or are we looking to enforce labour codes and human rights decisions on them that put them at a competitive disadvantage with the other emerging economies that are nipping at their heels?
You know what Apple could do to generate a ridiculous amount of goodwill in the US? Take 1 of the 100 Billion in cash they have laying around, and build a technical school in Michigan to train out of work folks on iProduct assembly, and take 9 more billion and build the most high tech factory in the world. Then move Apple production to America. They can afford it like almost no other company, and it would impress even Apple haters like myself. This would really be the ultimate response to the whole "crappy conditions are good compared to the rest of the country we use to make our stuff" thing.
I would applaud the hell out of the move, but it just seems unlikely. You can either spend 10 billion dollars and make the workers, people who generally think apple is evil, and a segment of the apple community happy, or you can spend 10 billion dollars and make a huge acquisition or create an awesome product and make people who throw money at you happy. For the shareholders there is only one option.
There would be incredible benefits to doing it. Shipping times would be almost impossible to beat and it would create thousands of American jobs. I think it's almost 100% unlikely though because Apple's direct competitors (samsung, amazon, motorola) would continue producing their goods at slave wages. From the cold financial point of view, it makes almost zero sense for Apple.
Lastly, Apple pulling out of China and coming stateside could be devastating for the people who would be out of work in China. While the conditions are poor, there are still more people who want the jobs than those who have them. Leaving China would just add to the high number of people who need work.
How are conditions poor? Relative to what? To the rural Chinese? To the guy that mines the gallium used in LCD manufacture? The dude that mixes chemicals for the batteries? The guy swabbing toilets on the cargo vessel bringing the manufactured goods West?
How far down the supply chain do we (or Apple apparently) have to go to satisfy the hue and cry over how electronics are manufactured?
There would be incredible benefits to doing it. Shipping times would be almost impossible to beat and it would create thousands of American jobs. I think it's almost 100% unlikely though because Apple's direct competitors (samsung, amazon, motorola) would continue producing their goods at slave wages. From the cold financial point of view, it makes almost zero sense for Apple.
The labour to assemble Apple devices is a minuscule part of the supply chain, and also the highest paid. The slave wages, relatively speaking, aren't occuring in the assembly plants, its all the way down at the rare-earths miners, farmers, refiners, and chemical plant operators that really produce the semi-raw goods required to assemble iPads and whatnot.
Electronics assembly is the amongst the pinnacle of skilled manual labour, not the bottom of the barrel as so many are painting it. That's why there is so much demand from workers to get into those positions.
__________________
-Scott
The Following User Says Thank You to sclitheroe For This Useful Post:
ABC didn't see this. Apple just needs to cut back on their margins a bit to pay their workers better and to have some oversight in their factories so the Foxconn managers can't just hide their underage workers before inspections.
That wasn't quite what I expected. It's certainly not good, but it didn't seem nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Sclitheroe made a good point that the problems are more in the mining of materials instead of the factories, and I definitely see his point. It looks boring as all hell, but the workers don't appear to be as broken down as I anticipated.
"The workers always tell us they resemble machines," she told AppleInsider. "Their regular day at Foxconn is waking up, queuing up for baths and work, work and go back to the dormitory and sleep. They do not have a social life and they are doing the same monotonous task in the factory for thousands of times a day. If they are not efficient enough or they make some mistakes, they will be yelled at by their supervisor or punished."
Sounds exactly like the years I worked at Cargil in High River.
Pushed like machines? Check.
Repeating the same task thousands of times a day? Yep.
Punishment and yelling for poor performance? Sure thing.
That is the life of working on an assembly (or disassembly in my case) line. The only difference is they live at the plant, and I assume work longer hours, but I cannot verify that from the article.
__________________
"Wake up, Luigi! The only time plumbers sleep on the job is when we're working by the hour."
Sounds exactly like the years I worked at Cargil in High River.
Pushed like machines? Check.
Repeating the same task thousands of times a day? Yep.
Punishment and yelling for poor performance? Sure thing.
That is the life of working on an assembly (or disassembly in my case) line. The only difference is they live at the plant, and I assume work longer hours, but I cannot verify that from the article.
According to the video they work around 12 hour shifts. Their housing is $17.50/month and the meals are about $0.70.
According to the video they work around 12 hour shifts. Their housing is $17.50/month and the meals are about $0.70.
That doesn't account for the overtime that many workers are told is "optional" but workers find they need to do out of necessity in order to have enough money to get by.
Tim Cook announced that Apple has more money than they know what to do with currently. They really should just put some of it back into their supply chain and manufacturing rather than pay out a shareholder dividend.
Why is Apple taking all the heat on this? They are the ones who initiated the original investigations. Amazon, Dell, Acer, Samsung, Sony, Nintendo, Motorola, Nintendo, Nokia, Microsoft, HP, Intel and others all use Foxconn and seem to be getting a free ride.
Why is Apple taking all the heat on this? They are the ones who initiated the original investigations. Amazon, Dell, Acer, Samsung, Sony, Nintendo, Motorola, Nintendo, Nokia, Microsoft, HP, Intel and others all use Foxconn and seem to be getting a free ride.
Apple is taking the brunt of it since they are making the most money on it, and could give up some of their profits to help the situation and still be taking it in. Sure other people are making money as well, but is isnt to the same degree as Apple.
Rathji
__________________
"Wake up, Luigi! The only time plumbers sleep on the job is when we're working by the hour."
I think part of it is that many of us hippy-wannabes that hang out in the fair trade coffee shops sipping our latte's while surfing the web on our iPad bought into this whole "think different" cult of apple. That is Apple's traditional niche market, but they are obviously more mainstream now. But that traditional market like to think that we are concerned about human rights and the environment, but we've turned a blind eye to Apple where those things are concerned. But now that Mike Daisey has put a spotlight on this behaviour, we can't bury our heads in the sand anymore. And there is good reason why Mike is on Democracy Now! and Real Time. It is those slightly-left-of-centre people that are most appalled by the stories coming out of Foxconn, not because the bleeding hearts are the most likely to be offended, but because they are the ones that feel guilty for buying Apple and being fooled into thinking they were better than anyone else when it came to things such as the environment or human rights.
The other thing is that now that Apple IS one of the big-boys they are a bigger target as Rathji suggests. The media has grabbed onto the hype that Daisey started and it has really snowballed. And I'm glad someone is holding them to account.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
It really does bring up a bigger issue which probably shouldn't be in this forum. But Campbell's soup ASKED Health Canada to make regulations regarding sodium content in soups. Campbell's WANTED to make healthier soups (even their sodium-reduced soups cannot be considered heart healthy; they still contain about 30% of your daily sodium limit). However, if Campbell's did that, they would lose market share to the other soup companies that didn't reduce their salt because PEOPLE LIKE THEIR SALTY FOODS, particularly salty soups. So the only way Campbell's would do it is if everyone was forced to do it at the same time. In this case, Apple is forcing Foxconn in the right direction WITHOUT government regulation, but nothing is holding Samsung or Sony or anybody else to improve conditions at their factories. Apple is being asked to take on additional expenses for the sake of public appearance that the other companies are not being forced to comply with. Which I don't think is fair. There should be some minimum standards for workers that EVERYONE has to comply with.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Devils'Advocate For This Useful Post:
According to the video they work around 12 hour shifts. Their housing is $17.50/month and the meals are about $0.70.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hack&Lube
That doesn't account for the overtime that many workers are told is "optional" but workers find they need to do out of necessity in order to have enough money to get by.
Which means 3 meals a day and a month's boarding costs them about $85 a month. They are making about $1.78 an hour..so let's say 5 * 12 hours shifts, means they are bringing in $427 a month (_minimum_, if all the accounts of rampant overtime are to be believed).
At the very beginning of the newsclip, they mention that unless they work more than something like 50 hours of overtime a month, their wages are tax free.
This means that they are spending 1/4 or less of their monthly income on room and board and food.
That's not half bad at all, especially after the shots of the villages they are coming from to do the work.
Edit: I'm not saying it's ideal, just pointing out that for a young person who likely had zero future to look forward to in their home town, that's a heck of an opportunity for themselves and their families.
__________________
-Scott
Last edited by sclitheroe; 02-25-2012 at 04:49 PM.
I think I remember a while ago that someone suggested a good OSX app to manage music on an iPhone without iTunes, can anyone suggest an app like that?
I am on my laptop (and I use my PC to manage my music) and I just realized I can't get a whole bunch of music and books onto my iPhone and I wont be back on my PC for a week. Help!
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
