Putting a human cost on the iPad

How is this different than every other electronic device produced in Asia?

LOL

OTB

In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad

The New York Times also ran an expose on how Apple has NO problems exploiting their workers as long as it FATTENS THE BOTTOM LINE!!! Apple is setting new pathetic records in this regards also, where workers are driven to suicide by jumping off the roof of Plants in RED China!!!

Of course this human exploitation matters little to our low life pathetic vermin here who endlessly CARP what a wonderful Corporation Apple is! Guess this is easy when you only concentrate on making money and LACK a conscience like our chief corporatist apologists and skillful well paid LIARS, here bottie and Johnny boi LaFooie and a couple of the other brown-nosers they pal around with!.....

In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad

The NY Times - By CHARLES DUHIGG and DAVID BARBOZA - January 25, 2012


SAFETY PRECAUTIONS After a rash of apparent suicide attempts, a dormitory for Foxconn workers in Shenzhen, China, had safety netting installed last May. Foxconn said it acted quickly and comprehensively to address employee suicides.

The explosion ripped through Building A5 on a Friday evening last May, an eruption of fire and noise that twisted metal pipes as if they were discarded straws.

When workers in the cafeteria ran outside, they saw black smoke pouring from shattered windows. It came from the area where employees polished thousands of iPad cases a day.

Two people were killed immediately, and over a dozen others hurt. As the injured were rushed into ambulances, one in particular stood out. His features had been smeared by the blast, scrubbed by heat and violence until a mat of red and black had replaced his mouth and nose.

“Are you Lai Xiaodong’s father?” a caller asked when the phone rang at Mr. Lai’s childhood home. Six months earlier, the 22-year-old had moved to Chengdu, in southwest China, to become one of the millions of human cogs powering the largest, fastest and most sophisticated manufacturing system on earth. That system has made it possible for Apple and hundreds of other companies to build devices almost as quickly as they can be dreamed up.

“He’s in trouble,” the caller told Mr. Lai’s father. “Get to the hospital as soon as possible.”

In the last decade, Apple has become one of the mightiest, richest and most successful companies in the world, in part by mastering global manufacturing. Apple and its high-technology peers — as well as dozens of other American industries — have achieved a pace of innovation nearly unmatched in modern history.

However, the workers assembling iPhones, iPads and other devices often labor in harsh conditions, according to employees inside those plants, worker advocates and documents published by companies themselves. Problems are as varied as onerous work environments and serious — sometimes deadly — safety problems.

Employees work excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week, and live in crowded dorms. Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped build Apple’s products, and the company’s suppliers have improperly disposed of hazardous waste and falsified records, according to company reports and advocacy groups that, within China, are often considered reliable, independent monitors.

More troubling, the groups say, is some suppliers’ disregard for workers’ health. Two years ago, 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens. Within seven months last year, two explosions at iPad factories, including in Chengdu, killed four people and injured 77. Before those blasts, Apple had been alerted to hazardous conditions inside the Chengdu plant, according to a Chinese group that published that warning.

“If Apple was warned, and didn’t act, that’s reprehensible,” said Nicholas Ashford, a former chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, a group that advises the United States Labor Department. “But what’s morally repugnant in one country is accepted business practices in another, and companies take advantage of that.”....[more on Apple's sordid reprehensible treatment of their workers/slave laborers]

b4u said:

Gee, could it be that NO other electronic device is under the same insane pressure to produce such large quantities in such short periods of time!!!!
twit

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Did you just admit that iDevices have phenomenal demand?

And that would also cover Android devices since they're out selling iDevices, right?

Bottom line is, part of this issue is structural and part is costs. The former requires government and education policy to correct. I'm fine with the latter. A few extra dollars to bring jobs back to North America seems like a good trade off.

But I'm not so sure our resident Android fans who piss and cry about iPhones being so expensive, mock people who pay for apps, etc. I can only imagine their reaction if their beloved phones went up in price by $50.

LOL yep, workers at other Chinese plants enjoy a country club atmosphere and higher pay. They have the same size staffing and factories as Foxconn, they just have to produce less. Foxconn workers move slowly when assembling Samsung, Sony, IBM, Nintendo, Lenovo, Acer etc products

onthebottom said:

How is this different than every other electronic device produced in Asia?

LOL

OTB

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Yeah, the Foxxconn factory in question manufactures Samsung tablets also.

Doesn't the slow process of getting RIM's Playbook out now make RIM sound so ethical?

onthebottom said:

How is this different than every other electronic device produced in Asia?

LOL

OTB

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So does that mean you support Apple in its dirty ways of making profit?

First they steal ideas and innovations from other high tech companies and then participating in some of the worst labour laws in the world, not to mention moving all that jobs away from the US.

b4u said:

....


Apple publishes an annual report of its suppliers’ compliance with the company’s code of conduct. The company has issued rules on labor rights, health and safety protections, ethics and more than two dozen topics. Every detected violation is corrected or the supplier is terminated, but adherence to the rules is mixed.

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This is good policy, does Samsung do the same.....

OTB

Love these comments from macrumors' site. lol

"Before it's said here 10,000 times I want to clarify that we all understand that other tech companies use Foxconn too. But if you want to tout your sales numbers and profits, you have to deal with the criticism too. You aren't an underdog anymore, Apple.


Covering his a**. Instead of writing letters, Tim. Do something about it. Just like Steve said he'd do something about it and did absolutely nothing to stop the atrocities. It's said that all it takes is a letter to make the fanboys happy.

Couldn't agree more with the use of atrocities. These conditions make Darfur look like a Day Camp.

Covering his a**. Instead of writing letters, Tim. Do something about it. Just like Steve said he'd do something about it and did absolutely nothing to stop the atrocities. It's said that all it takes is a letter to make the fanboys happy. "


Although, I guess the other argument is, billions of Chinese, so who's to miss a few if they die in the process of making a silly gadget?

DJK, aren't you Asian btw?



Tim Cook channeling steve-the compassionate-park-in-handicapped-parking-spots-jobs-the-"Buddhist".... (paraphrasing)..."uhhh, we feel bad and we will talk to people about this and hopefully they'll do something about this and rectify it all.... there isn't an App for that?"

onthebottom said:

This is good policy, does Samsung do the same.....

OTB

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Comprehension 101? You may like your math and boast how brilliant you are at playing with them among other things no doubt.
But did you miss this part? ... "but adherence to the rules is mixed."

splooge said:

Yeah, the Foxxconn factory in question manufactures Samsung tablets also.

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As someone on an apple site said brilliantly...
"But if you want to tout your sales numbers and profits, you have to deal with the criticism too. You aren't an underdog anymore, Apple. "

Article citing Cook's response to employees:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...r-violations/2012/01/27/gIQA1fnaVQ_story.html

OTB

From the link above... "one former Foxconn manager as saying, “Apple never cared about anything other than increasing product quality and decreasing production cost.”
Anyone honestly surprised?



...and as someone who posted on Macrumors about the issue posted in a thread over there,
"Covering his a**. Instead of writing letters, Tim. Do something about it. Just like Steve said he'd do something about it and did absolutely nothing to stop the atrocities. It's said that all it takes is a letter to make the fanboys happy."

b4u said:

Under that mandate, shouldn't foxconn be terminated?

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FACTS like that are meant to be obfuscated away by our chief of obfuscation.....master-bottie....

He needs to stick to numbers, 1+1s, clearly he has a problem with English (1) + comprehension (1).... hopefully, the numbers in brackets helped him understand this bit.

Looks like the Brazilian's are pursuing the "human cost on the iPad" with 5 new plants.....

http://www.webpronews.com/foxconns-brazilian-ipad-factory-to-begin-production-2012-01

OTB