Forum Post: Apple Made in china
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 25, 2012, 10:10 p.m. EST by vats
(107)
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Sucking news came out now, apple has opned production unit in china, and we americans will lose jobs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/30/apple-chinese-workers-treated-inhumanely 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:
■ Excessive overtime is routine, despite a legal limit of 36 hours a month. One payslip, seen by the Observer, indicated that the worker had performed 98 hours of overtime in a month.
■ Workers attempting to meet the huge demand for the first iPad were sometimes pressured to take only one day off in 13.
■ In some factories badly performing workers are required to be publicly humiliated in front of colleagues.
■ Crowded workers' dormitories can sleep up to 24 and are subject to strict rules. One worker told the NGO investigators that he was forced to sign a "confession letter" after illicitly using a hairdryer. In the letter he wrote: "It is my fault. I will never blow my hair inside my room. I have done something wrong. I will never do it again."
■ In the wake of a spate of suicides at Foxconn factories last summer, workers were asked to sign a statement promising not to kill themselves and pledging to "treasure their lives".
Foxconn produced its first iPad at Chengdu last November and expects to produce 100m a year by 2013. Last year Apple sold more than 15m iPads worldwide and has already sold close to five million this year.
There are a lot of Americans who work those kinds of hours in a month here, both low and high income.
While I agree that conditions can and should be improved but
36 hrs a month is too little, which is little more than an hour a day. That is too little work. Even an regular office employee puts in 8-10hrs a day here in US. And even if a worker makes $1 an hour,that means $36 a month and that's unsustainable. So any worker would want to work more hours. This kind of legislation of 36 hrs a week is stupid and will never get enforced. It should be rational.
Even white collar employees get pressurized to work for the entire week, particularly in banking and consulting.
Not good. But it is not unusual for a boss to express displeasure and sometime quite publicly. Let the Chinese evolve their HR practices. I am sure even American blue collar employees do have to listen from their boss once in a while. In fact, if you visited a trading floor you will see a lot of people shouting at each other and calling names.
Sometimes that is better than the worker sleeping outside on the street. And define 'crowded'. Also that is China, a third world country. People are more used to living in crowded places, a whole family of 8-10 including elders sometime live in a 600 sqft 2 bedroom apartment. So lets not judge them by our standards. It would be impossible for any third world country to live up to those standards.
What you forget to mention is that this is happening in all kinds of Chinese factories, not only Apple's.
Also foxconn makes parts for almost every consumer electronic company: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn
But only apple seems to get the flak for it.
Indeed. The writer of this article doesn't really know what he's talking about. He should be complaining about Foxconn, not Apple. In any case, this is not very important for OWS. What's more important is working on getting corruption out of government. Organizations that deal with problems like those at Foxconn already exist. OWS should not try to take care of all the world's problems. It needs to remain focused on its primary goals.
Here's a list of all companies who use Foxconn's assembly services:
Our hope is that the OP will also stop buying products from all the companies above, not just Apple. Meanwhile, I'll still be buying Apple products for years to come.
Yea seriously, OP better stop buying products from all of the above, or get off of his/her high horse.
And Apple products do kick ass. Happy Apple customer since 94.
Cool. I'm a happy Apple customer since 95.
Suppliers - Apple has no factories of its own - routinely violate China's "Law on the Prevention and Control of Occupational Diseases." Several manufacturers replaced alcohol, used to clean parts, with n-hexane, a chemical that works better than alcohol - but poisons workers. Because of the chemical in suspected supplier Lian Jian Technology's plant, Suzhou No. 5 People's Hospital admitted 49 employees who fell ill. More employees were likely poisoned, but many were pushed out before they fell ill, and Lian Jian forced them to sign papers saying they would not hold the company accountable.
"They left with 80 or 90 thousand yuan [$12 - $14,000]," said a Lian Jian worker, "that they got in exchange for their lives and health, with fees and medical costs they would have to pay for the rest of their lives."
In these factories, the workers, often women in their teens or 20s, were forced to work with the poison in unventilated rooms.
Xiao Zhan, a 19-year-old who was poisoned at Yun Heng Hardware and Electrical, where Apple logos were polished, described in her blog how she and her coworkers became more and more sickened by the poison, until they eventually needed intensive medical treatment.
In less than six months, 12 employees of Foxconn, "Apple's largest supplier in China," committed or attempted to commit suicide by jumping from buildings. This, according to the study, "shocked the nation. Chinese society began to rethink how best to give workers proper respect..."
The local government checked 5,044 workers, finding that 72.5 percent had been forced to work more overtime than legally allowed. Many have blamed the harsh working conditions on the suicides.
http://peoplesworld.org/rotten-apple-ipod-sweatshops-hidden-in-china/
why occupy movement is not protesting against apple, only blasting exxon? typical liberal hypocrites
If OWS wants to take up this issue, they should protest against Foxcoon directly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn
The OP is not well informed. Foxconn has more than one client. They also assemble products for all of the following companies:
What you forget to mention is that this is happening in all kinds of Chinese factories, not only Apple's.
Article in NY Times, today, "In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an Ipad."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
GM too. Economic treason!
A good article on this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?sq=apple%20china&st=cse&scp=6&pagewanted=all
well, we have apples here in the usa too
The New World Order in action.
I'm a Canadian living in Bali working for a US company. I'm so sorry. However, if this makes you feel better, I know a lot of Americans working for Indonesian and Chinese companies.
well hundred americans work abroad and a million americans lose jobs in america , is that ok?
oh, thrasy, what did you do?
I don't blame you... I blame myself for leaving you home alone with the dog..... we've got get this peanut butter cleaned up fast before mom gets home....she'll freak out again
.... I don't think skippy will ever be the same again....oh thrasy....
The writer of this article doesn't really know what he's talking about. He should be complaining about Foxconn, not Apple. In any case, this is not very important for OWS. What's more important is working on getting corruption out of government. Organizations that deal with problems like those at Foxconn already exist. OWS should not try to take care of all the world's problems. It needs to remain focused on its primary goals.
Here's a list of all companies who use Foxconn's assembly services:
Our hope is that the OP will also stop buying products from all the companies above, not just Apple. Meanwhile, I'll still be buying Apple products for years to come.