Women force change at Indian iPhone plant | Hacker News Reader

Women force change at Indian iPhone plant

reuters.com

148 pointshappy-go-lucky133 comments

The women would have continued suffering the condition (and apple continue to make profit) if the food poisoning did not happen. This title is trying to play down the condition of the dorms where the iPhone labourers were forced to stay.

The apt title should be as per this thread - "Crowded dorms, no flush toilets and worms in food: How protest forced change for women at Indian iPhone plant".

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29737698

For women who assembled iPhones at a Foxconn plant in southern India, crowded dorms without flush toilets and food sometimes crawling with worms were problems to be endured for the paycheck.

And:

The unrest at Foxconn was the second involving an Apple supplier in India in a year. In December 2020, thousands of contract workers at a factory owned by Wistron Corp destroyed equipment and vehicles over the alleged non-payment of wages, causing estimated damage of $60 million.

Which will just keep going on and on and on, of course.

Until we stop buying their shiny products any more than strictly necessary. And those making ICT4 and higher at Apple -- especially those working at HQ in any capacity -- get together and tell their bosses they simply will not allow this shameful dereliction of duty on their part to continue. And will absolutely resign if there are any further occurrences of it.

You mean Foxconn, right? As per my understanding this is not Apple's factory, simply just a factory that makes Apple products.

It is 100 percent Apple's responsibility to guarantee safe and humane working conditions for all workers at every level in its supply chain.

The idea that this is Foxconn's responsibility, or that Apple is "unable" to proactively monitor what happens at these plants is just BS.

I don't think that's how the world works. Just because you hate Apple, doesn't make it any different. I have a friend who runs a B2B sales company, by selling things like pencils and cups with logos on them, and he frequently communicates with a wide variety of factories who make those things, and in none of the factories does he have any control over how they do work, or what process they follow. But according to your logic, he should? And not only _should_, but it's his *responsibility*? Or do you just make this argument selectively based on how much money the company has who hires a factory? Because then again, you just hate Apple.

Apple is the most valuable public company in the world. They have plenty of leverage to force their suppliers to treat workers better. Apple just chooses not to use it to the degree they could. It is laughable to compare the market power of an enormous multinational that frequently buys out factories' entire production capacity, to some random middleman who sells branded cups and pencils.

I don't hate Apple.

I just don't see why they shouldn't be held accountable to universally accepted principles of basic human decency.

They are. They are held to higher standards than any of their conpetitors.

That doesn't mean these standards are sufficient.

> They are. They are held to higher standards than any of their conpetitors.

Are they, though?

I don't see people claiming that "crowded dorms without flush toilets and food sometimes crawling with worms" is totally fine if the plant makes Samsung or off-brand smartphones. What I'm seeing is a luxury brand on the defensive because their customer base learned that the workers making Apple's luxury products not only have been enduring "crowded dorms without flush toilets and food sometimes crawling with worms" but also tainted food that causes mass health issues.

What really boggles the mind is that these sub-human working conditions seem to cause downtime in their plants, which ultimately means it costs them money. But somehow even that is not enough to convince them to treat workers as if they are human beings.

> But somehow even that is not enough to convince them to treat workers as if they are human beings.

As has been said many times in this thread. It’s not Apple’s factory. Apple does have much higher standards than this, and has a program of enforcement. The problem is that inspections are often faked.

> As has been said many times in this thread. It’s not Apple’s factory. Apple does have much higher standards than this, and has a program of enforcement.

That makes no sense. I mean, all you need to do to check if the factory subjects workers to subhuman conditions is send someone from Apple there, look around, and ask a few questions to random employees.

And also, are you really trying to argue that Apple is able to verify and guarantee that their luxury consumer electronics products leave the plant meeting tight quality control requirements but somehow it's impossible to ensure that the same employees who met those quality control specs will have worm-free meals?

> I mean, all you need to do to check if the factory subjects workers to subhuman conditions is send someone from Apple there, look around, and ask a few questions to random employees.

All the factory has to do is clean things up for the inspection and make sure the employees know they’ll be fired for speaking up.

Also, consider that these conditions existed in only some of the dormitories. To find them they would have needed to inspect them all.

As someone that has worked with Chinese production enough to for it to give me grey (each order in the many-millions of pieces) - the factories do this behind the backs of the company and they're pretty good at evading detection, and yes they know it's wrong.

For example any scheduled inspection by Apple would be met with a safe and well running facility - and the moment they leave it all returns back to normal. Apple, like other companies, do random inspections - and that's when you find all of the infractions, but these companies are pretty clued in to when a random inspection might occur since there are telltale signs for that (the factories will also pay off anyone they need in order to get advance notice, e.g drivers, airport staff, hotels you name it.)

So it's a constant battle of trying to uncover and rectify the supplier problems. As a simple anecdote for the production staff to have normal working hours we would need to pay them as if they worked an 18 hour day on the requirement that they used the rest of the day for rest and leisure - because otherwise they'd just go to other factories to get in additional hours. The workers are not there for a good time, they're there for the cash.

Despite the Apple hate on HN (HN has a big thing for double-standards), Apple do a very good job about this and unlike many companies Apple publish their own dirty laundry in their supplier responsibility report. As someone rightly noted earlier: You hear about the Apple ones, you barely hear anything from non-American companies, but let me assure you - their conditions are far worse and in many cases simply dangerous and not suitable for humans.1

1. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2018/11/23/samsung-electro...

If you can not trust your suppliers then why do you continue to do business with them?

How many times has Foxconn been in the news for the same sort of issues? Is Apple not aware of that? Is Apple unable to find a supplier who can meet their needs?

You say that Apple does a good job, they publish reports and so on. I say bullshit. Apple accepts the status quo and does the bare minimum to make people think they care. Same as Nike and everyone else.

Sure, you don't get the same reports from some companies. That just means that they are not trying to blow as much smoke up your ass.

If Apple or anyone else was serious about doing something they would. In 2007, the tech press was all aglow with the wonder that Apple could command a production change a month before shipping https://www.cnet.com/news/a-tale-of-apple-the-iphone-and-ove...

Now poor Apple is helpless and at the mercy of their suppliers?

You want to hear a solution? Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and who ever start a joint venture assembly. They choose and hire the management. They have representatives at the factory.

The reason they do not is because they do not want to pay what it costs to be done right. If they wanted to, they could. They are smart and powerful people, any excuses are just bullshit.

I mean I could go through this bit by bit and provide good rationales for why things are the way they are, cite my own examples and provide links to industry whitepapers and even detail the numerous ways that such companies do indeed improve their supply chain (even how they do quite a bit of their own assembly as you casually solve major problems with little more than 5 seconds of thought)... but I've learnt that certain figures on HN are not interested in resolving the real issue (nor do they really care) and the facts are disinteresting to such people because you could have looked up plenty of counter-statements to what you've stated there.

No, it's the drama you want, and you want it to be loud and about specific brands that you don't personally like.

That's why I don't bother.

Doesn't Apple choose these companies based on lowering cost and having leverage over them.

So does that leverage and squeezing not ultimately impact these laborer's at the bottom of the food chain

Is Apple, like all companies that outsource ultimately aware of this but sees it as necessary to their profit margin, Yes.

Would any other company in Apple's position do the same, almost certainly.

> It is 100 percent Apple's responsibility to guarantee safe and humane working conditions for all workers at every level in its supply chain.

You're advocating a particular ethical framework, but I'm not sure what the justification is. I'd be interested in hearing an argument for why others should adopt it.

> You're advocating a particular ethical framework

Treating human beings decently is the ethical point here

Why should others adopt it? For me it is enough to treat others decently, and by that I can only use my own standards (and I do not have a flush toilet in my house, but there is running water to wash with).

But perhaps some people need another reason. Perhaps they should ask their priest?

Perhaps they should consider how they wish to be treated themselves, and what goes around comes around.

But for me: Just be decent. Remember the Golden Rule: Do not be a dick

Well if India the country cant even bother to inspect its own factories (in many countries we dont bemoan the american overlord to please stop our people from beating each other: we just inspect ourselves), nothing will change.

The problem is Indian or Chinese people valuing each other so low they do that to each other. The american overlord, they tell him yes yes and will print all the pretty pictures and stamped documents he required. So Apple, Foxconn, I dont think we should even care, they dabble in a specific environment: what is India doing for its taxpayers ?

> India the country cant even bother to inspect its own factories

That is unfair.

The USA in the nineteenth century had similar problems, as did England.

It is a side effect of rapid economic development, methinks. Time will tell but I think working conditions will improve.

They are not that flash in England or the USA either

You're right - but it's not really unfair though: I agree with the people who complained in France of these problems 100 years ago too and I think asking what the state is doing is how you get the state to maybe do something.

Saying "it's the cost of modernizing" may risk making people believe it's the cost of modernizing, rather than a side effect to quickly correct so you have a rise of the middle class criss-crossing the rise of the factories, rather than the explosion of a slave caste and no one in the domestic market able to buy the output of the production. I think for instance it's not normal India trails China, it's probably explainable by many facts, but it's still nearly as shocking as China trailing France.

What is the state doing ffs.

I think you can make a case that the responsibility is a metaphorical chain. If you do something, eg make a phone through a complex chain, you need to make sure all the parts of your system are ethical: dangers are minimized, people have sensible working conditions, etc. If you could just stop being responsible as soon as you sign a contract with a subcontractor, it would be very easy to avoid any responsibility. Simply set up everything as another company, or get real subcontractors. Then hide behind "but I told him to treat everyone fairly, see this contract?"

In addition the subcontractor could do the same, and nobody would have to check any of the unpleasant stuff. The brand name could just hide behind people who hide behind non-brands (who really shops at Foxxconn?).

The fact is in the modern world we have these things called brands that people associate with positive or negative vibes, and we use them because we really don't have enough attention to dig deeply. The brand is an investment into making a positive vibe that hopefully is a true signal. If it's not, people are misled and they end up buying things that they didn't want (though GDP doesn't suffer, that's another story).

The Golden Rule:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

Combined with Apple's astronomical financial leverage and obvious capability to prevent situations like this from ever occurring again.

What's the role of the government of India in this?

It is actually 100 percent the consumer's responsibility to guarantee that they are using only things made under safe conditions.

For instance, if the packets you sent over the Internet to post your comment traveled over equipment manufactured in unsafe conditions, you are acting unethically.

The manufacturer has infinitely more visibility into, and leverage over the supply chain than the customer.

That's where this attempt to flip responsibility fails.

Voting with your wallet doesn't work. There is no ethical consumption under our current economic system. The only way to end this is to end the global neoliberal anti-protectionist social and economic order which permits serfdom in third-world countries for lower prices on final goods here at home.

Note that I'm not advocating for protectionism. Free trade is largely a good thing. But the current system is unsustainable and affords too much privilege to multinationals to self-police. It cannot be allowed to continue unchecked, lest we sacrifice our environment and the living/working conditions of families and individuals halfway around the world.

There is no ethical consumption under our current economic system.

This is manifestly false. It may only exist in narrow domains. But it most certainly exists, and in the mainstream. I'm sure you can think of a few examples.

You're right though that it cannot be relied on a strong lever in the near-term.

The only way to end this is to end the global neoliberal anti-protectionist social and economic order which permits serfdom in third-world countries for lower prices on final goods here at home.

Unfortunately there's no clear route to "just doing this" either. It's a genuinely vexxing problem that I certainly do not pretend to know the answer to. Indeed, it's kind of one of those big questions people have been wrestling with, and throwing bombs, and whacking people on the head over for quite some time now, is it not.

I only know that I'm not going to pretend this shit doesn't seriously bother me. And as a matter of principle, I try not to buy fancy gadgetry of any kind that I don't literally need to get through the day.

Another article from front page.

Crowded dorms,no flush toilets and food crawling with worms at iPhone plant in India.

[https://www.independent.ie/world-news/asia-pacific/crowded-d...]

Reuters is a much better source of information. Look up the ownership of The Independent.

Note that this wretched situation is at the very top of Apple's supply / manufacturing chain. (Maximum visibility, maximum risk of bad P.R.)

Think about how workers further down - say, making small electrical connectors - are probably treated.

Then consider that Apple's supply chain is probably held to considerably higher standards than those of the great majority of consumer product companies.

Need more initiatives for approaches like fairphone.com, which offer a solution at least for conscious consumers.

This is absolutely criminal and we should be a lot more cognizant of where our phones, laptops, and other gadgets come from. For a company like Apple (with the biggest private corporation war chest arguably in history) to tolerate these kinds of conditions is shameful.

I'm sick and tired of Twitter slacktivism that does not fix these issues, and the real sad part is that there's real suffering that ought to be fixed. I read a book this year that I would recommend[1]. It's about organ trafficking in underdeveloped nations, but it's really opened my eyes to how much human suffering and injustice we tolerate as Western consumers. Of course, being an Eastern European immigrant, it really touched a nerve, but I think everyone should read it.

[1] https://www.scottcarney.com/the-red-market

Stop buying all things Apple. That literally is the solution. Stop buying from them because their walled garden is an illusion as they do literally nothing to curate their app store. Stop buying from them because they're clearly OK with using sweatshop labor. Stop buying from them because they view their products as crudely made fashion accessories they can sell for a substantial markup no matter how awful they are.

Just. Stop. Buying. Apple.

Go buy a Pine Phone instead.

Anyone have information about the manufacturer process for Pine Phones?

I would suggest Fairphone, which actually tries to address these issues.

I buy Huawei, at least the money goes to people who have half a stake at making conditions better (but just half, let's not kid ourselves).

How would Huawei leadership have a stake in how the workers fare beyond what Foxconn leadership have in how their workers fare?

Huawei is happy to use Uyghur slave labor, so really not a better option.

> I'm sick and tired of Twitter slacktivism that does not fix these issues, and the real sad part is that there's real suffering that ought to be fixed.

I agree, but I don't understand your point. This comment feels like an expression of impotent rage. And as justified as it may be I don't feel like it adds to the conversation.

This did not happen overnight and it will not be solved overnight. There always has been and always will be plenty of people and companies that will do anything to make a buck.

We can't just scrap the global economy to start over and the international community has trouble getting countries/people to acknowledge basic human rights; let alone less major ethical problems.

It's extremely difficult to get people to care about anything outside of their own daily lives and the number of things they can care about is extremely limited. I'm not a fan of "slacktivism" as you label it, but it is SOMETHING. It's frustrating that it's not more and also I'm frustrated that I won't do more myself.

So what is your thought about how to replace slacktivism and what should replace it?

If not for basic human decency, then at least in the name of productivity these issues should have been solved.

It just seems stupid to not offer a sane working environment.

> It just seems stupid to not offer a sane working environment.

You need to read about the history of corporatism from the mid 19th to the early 20th century. It's absolutely not stupid: it's optimal. The problem is that these two goals (optimal productivity and human rights) will conflict. There's absolutely an economic case to be made for working someone to the bone (and 16-hour workdays and beatings used to be the norm); it is, however, also unethical and morally wrong.

> It's absolutely not stupid: it's optimal.

It's absolutely not optimal, it's inefficient. Many companies have learned this, which is why you see things like "Unlimited Vacations! Free snacks! Company provided lunches!" etc, offered as perks.

For low-skill labor, there isn't much benefit in making employees lives overly comfortable, but it is worth it to invest in some basic amenities - easy access to clean restrooms, regular breaks, clean air, clean water, warmth. These are the basics.

In the case of these workers:

- Better dorms = good sleep/less sickness

- Decent food (without worms...) = less sickness/healthier employees

- Decent toilets = less sickness/reduced stress

All of these => happier, more energetic, and less distracted employees => more efficient work => more work gets done.

With the benefit of making your company look like a good place to work.

The problem is that Apple can require that, their sub-contractors can agree and then just pocket the additional cash for it and not do it. Apple must more closely verify the conditions of its Indian subcontractors just like they had to do in China a decade ago.

Definitely a problem. Bad-faith actors can screw up well intended policies making everyone look bad. Inspectors that verify the work-site conditions help, but can also potentially operate in bad faith. It's a hard problem to "solve", but still likely worth it for a company like Apple, both in regards to PR and ROI.

Apple solved the problem in China with surprise inspections done by independent organizations (e.g. the FLA); e.g. see

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/feb/20/foxconn-r...

The title oddly enough is "Apple faces its 'Nike moment' over working conditions in Chinese factories" from 2012.

One challenge here is that the host government (local, provincial, or national) is often complicit and might not agree to allowing such inspections. In that case, you simply have to be ready to walk away.

Fascinating. TIL. Thanks for the link.

Such a strange situation, where a company has to walk away from letting people work for them because they can't verify their working conditions are good enough. I suppose these are the tricky side-effects of being an international corporation though.

Ah the unlimited vacations that no one actually takes out of fear to be fired by the next opportunity.

> In the case of these workers: ...

You assume they have to keep those workers here. Foxconn can just get new people when the old ones break. It isn't optimal on a country level, but for the company it is optimal. Which is why we make laws to prevent companies from abusing workers like this.

There would probably need to be a case study to see if overworking, booting, and hiring new workers is more cost effective than investing in better work conditions.

My money is on better work conditions being a better investment long term. It'd reduce turnover. Less time hiring/training new employees, and the employees you keep are happier, stick around longer, and become more efficient at their job through experience.

> My money is on better work conditions being a better investment long term. It'd reduce turnover. Less time hiring/training new employees, and the employees you keep are happier, stick around longer, and become more efficient at their job through experience.

You might have noticed that most companies don't care about these things, because it doesn't matter much for them. For software engineers or equivalent, sure it matters a lot, but for unskilled workers that needs minimal training? Then it doesn't matter much, as even today we see that basically no company cares about their minimum wage workers conditions.

> You might have noticed that most companies don't care about these things

I've noticed the opposite. Even when I worked retail jobs (minimum wage) in high-school and college, those employers considered morale the be an important aspect of a productive work environment.

We'd have company BBQs, random pizza days, birthday recognition (sometimes with cake), etc. They gave us the proper tools to do our jobs, including gloves/box cutters/shirts/etc. Typically if you told a manger you needed something (work related), they would get it for you. Things chugged along fairly well.

Reducing turnover was an active goal because it cost them time and money to hire and retrain new people, even for basic tasks.

Good ol' Survivorship Bias.

Got anything to actually contribute to the conversation besides a trite lazy dismissal?

OP suggested that I had "noticed" their perspective and I shared my opposing experience.

Yea. Up-thread I suggested you read history around the 10 hours laws in England.

Not sure how "read history" is a contribution to a discussion about the cost-effectiveness of abusing workers vs investing in better work conditions.

A history lesson on "we used to do things this way, but then we made a law that says we can't anymore" isn't an analysis. It just tells me that people got fed up with being overworked and lobbied for a law against it. Not that their employers were making informed decisions.

It's akin to the broken "butts-in-seats" culture that has been slowly dying. Many employers are realizing that more hours at a desk isn't always a net gain in the long term.

Perhaps study the history of the 10 hours laws in England like 100 years ago? Documented points where the factory knew of the dangers and did nothing, fought to do nothing, cause the worker was replaceable. And nearly endless supply of Irish to literally work themselves to death. It's depressing.

I have zero sympathy for Capital when they have to sacrifice Profit for Ethical/Moral treatment of Labour.

> It's absolutely not optimal, it's inefficient. Many companies have learned this, which is why you see things like "Unlimited Vacations! Free snacks! Company provided lunches!" etc, offered as perks.

You are very (very) wrong and need to read some history. I strongly suggest an economics primer like Robert Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers[1]. It's the second-best selling economics book in history and well worth the price of admission.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82120.The_Worldly_Philos...

Saying I'm "very very" wrong and need to read history/some book isn't a good counter argument. It is the opposite, and a lazy retort at best.

If I am wrong, I'm sure your history lessons should be able to provide good examples how I am incorrect, and I would be happy to hear if that's the case, but I can't see just saying "you're wrong, read history" as productive conversation.

> I can't see just saying "you're wrong, read history" as productive conversation

You're denying a very foundational economic fact which, as a society, we litigated over a century ago, so giving you a resource (I can cite chapter numbers if you'd like me to) seems appropriate. Capitalist forces will always tend towards optimality and working people to the bone (including children) is optimal. This is why we need to have governmental forces preempt this by making these kinds of things (e.g. child labor) illegal.

This isn't really a dig against capitalism, it's simply how the system works by design. In other words, you're denying the precise thing that corporations optimize for: worker productivity and shareholder value.

Perks are a hack to continue to overwork your employees. Feed them and they don't have to leave to get food. Give them yoga and they won't have to leave for yoga class. Give unlimited vacation and they'll think they can take a break whenever they want, so they won't take one.

General inefficiency in their company is completely fine as long as they continue to increase revenue, as revenue growth is the only "efficiency" that matters in capitalism.

> Many companies have learned this, which is why you see things like "Unlimited Vacations! Free snacks! Company provided lunches!" etc, offered as perks.

In countries like India, the supply of daily wage workers is almost limitless and companies don't have to care much about their retention as they can easily be replaced. What you're asking may be the efficient way of doing things for businesses in countries where there is a labour shortage and workers have more options than the employers.

It just seems stupid to not offer a sane working environment.

No -- Apple management sees this as a smart move, actually. Allowing these little flare-ups to happen now and then allows senior management to broadcast to the world just how cold-blooded they really are. Which helps keep the staff at home in line.

Elsewhere you claimed not to hate Apple.

I wonder how much it costs to improve the working conditions to basic hygiene? Anyone has any idea? I want to compare it to the top executive salary and see how much of a pay cut they will have to take

Looks like Tim Cook makes about $15 million a year, which seems really low for the value he brings. This is likely more a question of Apple not requiring its contractors to bid in wormless food for their employees, when they bid a contract.

Seems like Apple could just say on their contract deals "If you offer onsite dorms and food for your employees, it must not contain worms, feces, poison, or Brussel sprouts. Also you can't use slaves or children. Bid accordingly."

Apple spends billions on stock buy backs per year they can redirect a bit of that so those who make their products for them don't have to be treated worse than animals.

That would be true if we only looked at his salary, but it appears he makes an order of magnitude more[1].

1: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58352098

(edited for a more reputable source)

I've always thought that it was dishonest to include non-monetary compensation in statements like "they make [x] amount of dollars, they can afford to [y]". Usually, to buy [y], you need cash.

Cash is easy to get by borrowing against assets.

This is true for some people, some assets, and some amounts of money. Regardless, for the super-rich, they have enough cash that people can make more honest apples-to-apples comparisons with the same effect.

Particularly for stock assets, where margin interest is less than 1% for large accounts.

You could also compare it to the ~$200 billion[1] in cash they have on hand.

[1]https://finance.yahoo.com/news/15-companies-most-cash-reserv...

This article is about Apple and a lot of commenters seem to be quite hung up on that fact but, let's be honest, pretty much every consumer device we buy will have had some or all of its components manufactured in a facility like this.

If that were true then reports of this sort would be much more common.

That seems naive. The more common something is, the less newsworthy it is

Anyone who expresses an ounce of concern about where all of these products are made is 'hung up' and 'naive', would seem to be your main point here.

Wow. Interesting way to completely miss the point.

"All the other manufacturers are doing it so there's no need to get hung up about it, and aren't I more chill that everyone else here" does seem to be a fair reading of your original post on this topic.

Like I said, missing the point. What I said was that everyone seems to be getting hung on it being Apple when actually it happens everywhere and that is the problem we should be hung up on.

These reports are common. Look at the entire fast fashion industry. The term sweatshop was not invented for Apple, nor did it originate in the last 100 years.

You don't hear about these things nearly as often because they are primarily seen by locals to whom this is normal (or at least not surprising).

"Companies come here because it's cheap and this factory/whatever is about the same or better than other opportunities in the area," is what I expect them to be saying among themselves.

There's some companies like Fairphone that tries to make a difference.

Sure, those are important, but they don't have enough scale yet to work for a large company.

Today, it's impossible for a company like Apple to take that tactic without building every piece of its logistics pipeline. It's why I applaud Apple's environment and sustainability initiatives. Arguably they are making a more significant impact than Fairphone due to scale. Still, on the other side, they're working within the existing exploitative systems, so only so much change can happen at once, and it's slow.

Taken together, Fairphone and Apple are closing the gap from both sides. And I respect that because even if it isn't enough, it's taking a position on the argument and further making changes toward the common good.

Did FoxConn expand into India because India now requires the phones to be made there?

There were no manufacturing companies in India?

India has huge tariffs for officially imported iPhones (to the point that most iPhones were being bought abroad or via the black market), so doing final assembly in India is the main way to avoid those tariffs and sell iPhones directly in India.

I'm pretty sure India and China are not on speaking terms.

Per the article:

The factory is central to Apple's efforts to shift its slave plantations away from China due to tensions between Beijing and Washington. Reuters reported last year that Foxconn planned to invest up to $1 billion in the plant over three years

I'm paraphrasing a bit, but only slightly.

This is weird to me. The initial line says per the article with the following block of text seemingly looking like from the article and then the last sentence says it’s paraphrased.

Why not just quote the article and add brackets to any words you decide to add? It’s borderline misleading.

Because it's time to start calling these plants that Apple runs what they are.

As the hint at the bottom indicated -- the substitution was obvious (assuming one read the actual article). And in that sense, not "really" misleading.

Call it dramatic license, if you will.

I wasn’t aware that the workers were prevented from quitting.

In real terms they have no choice.

Unless you think they're very, very stupid that is.

What are talking about. Why do they have no choice? Why would it be ‘stupid’ to leave?

Ok - since you have peppered this post with replies, I am going to assume you don’t have an answer to this because there isn’t one.

The baseline hygiene in India isn't much higher than what was found. Apart from the worms everything is kinda routine. Flushless toilets are common everywhere. Crowded doms is also the norm for people living in chawls and slums in urban India. Handwashing using soap itself is practised by only 2/3rd of the population (and this is when majority don't use tissue paper/bidet). Similarly deodrant is unheard of. Open defecation is still practised in villages. Sadly I could go on and on

Flush toilets use a lot of water, even wealthy people use buckets. Moreover squat toilets, which is how the human anatomy has evolved generally require the use of mugs and buckets, is the preferred and often cleaner method.

Soap usage is quite common these days except perhaps in the remotest and the poorest regions.

There is an obsession with western comodes and toilet paper, if you read up on their relatively recent history and a solution looking for a problem you would realise they they aren't great ideas. This is especially considering a warm country like India, where washing one's self with water and soap is the safest option.

There is in general a problem with most countries especially developing ones, where the ones using the facilities are far removed from the ones providing it. Often the builders/contractors provide substandard facilities, this includes public facilities like busses.

The food poisoning incident has brought out the other complains about other the facilities which has always existed.

Reminds of this clip from silicon valley- (upto 1:36)

https://youtu.be/EyyIrpf68SM

Absolute gold!

As an Indian I can assure you that there are only a handful of bus stop in any major city which have the bus number written on them.

There is a general apathy of service providers to the users.

Dormitories for workers is a relatively new concept and not very common, it is quite possible that it was quickly built, was a penny pinching contractor or an all in all general apathy which is not that very uncommon.

Also to note that these are remote dormitories managed by subcontractors, this abuse is very common (even reminds me of a case of foreign berry pickers in Sweden).

There is probably no evil hand except these did not not figure highly on their priority list.

> There is a general apathy of service providers to the users.

>There is probably no evil hand except these did not not figure highly on their priority list.

Sorry, but how is this NOT evil? "[G]eneral apathy of [someone] to [others]" IS my definition of evil. To me, evil is carrying out your will without (or against) the will of others regardless of the consequences. The only missing piece is that the level where society places that deed in the morality spectrum. Lawful evil is still evil.

There is some relativity involved, as a child growing up in the 90s even for someone from a comfortably middle class family the safety standards were very poor.

Students on cycle sharing roads with industrial trailers, leaky electric poles, light poles, I have had several near death incidents including falling off of a crowded bus.

The standards have certainly improved quite drastically, busses with doors that close is a big improvement indeed.

Some of this lack of empathy is global especially if it is not your problem, there is nothing evil but few greedy people who thought they could get away with cutting corners but got caught with their pants down.

It is good, hopefully something good will come out of it. I am sure the conditions will improve once it is brought to light.

I was also trying to make the point that we get much worse services from the government and we have no way to provide feedback, especially if it is the fault of bureaucrats (safe permanent job with a fat pension) and we do not vote for bureaucrats.

From memory Foxconn India assembly is done by all (predominantly?) women work force because they're easier to hire since most Indian manufacturers prefer men. I'm pretty sure I read this was a feminist move inspired by head operations mother or whatever feel good PR soundbite. Cynic in me now thinks maybe Foxconn feels it's easier to abuse rural Indian women after Winstron iphone riot that escalated to breaking shit last year.

For women with relatively little education or skills, a job in an apple assembly plant is a god send. The alternatives are manual labour in the farm or construction, as maids or in textile factories where the pay as well as work conditions are worse.

I have personally visited factories in India which are neat and clean, and better than many college campuses.

Good that they forced change but this is why India will never become industrialized.

Apple will just move manufacturing back to China if more negative news makes it out of India.

You may be surprised to hear that India is already industrialized... and has been for decades.

Half of India's population are still working in the agriculture sector. That is not normal in 2021 not even for developing countries.

>Agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for about 58% of India’s population

https://www.ibef.org/industry/agriculture-india.aspx

India needs a bigger manufacturing sector.

India's manufacturing sector is about 13% of GDP and the US's manufacturing sector is about 11%. There are a lot of people living in rural India but they don't interfere with or detract from the Indians living in urban India.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.ZS?location...

US's manufacturing sector was 28% 1955, it went down post industrialization.

What makes you think India is _not_ industrialized?

I would say: if its Tier 1 cities like Mumbai do not have a reliable supply of electricity and running water (infrastructure necessary for industry), then it is not industrialized.

What can we as consumers do to pressure Apple to have better working conditions?

You could vote with your wallet it’s literally all you have to do lol.

I dont think voting with your wallet was how any of the labour issues of the 20th century were solved.

Well sure, then, just keep feeding the beast. Good luck.

I'd suggest that the best thing we as consumers could do is speak to our state legislators about creating requirements for cellular devices to be sold in the state. Apple could do better, or they might just try to counter the legislative effort. Either way costs are imposed on Apple for evil. When it's less expensive to do better than it is to be evil, consumers will see change. Just look at what California legislators have been able to do to vehicles.

I love this idea for blue states. For red states, it would be DOA.

You might be surprised at the amount of bipartisan support you would find for legislation that favors American manufacturing and morality. The opposition in red states would be from an enlightened industrialist's view that even these terrible jobs are still jobs that lift Indian families out of poverty and that this is part of the hard road to the middle class. Furthermore, this proposed legislation might harm constituents by increasing the prices they pay for phones.

That said, you really only need one state in the entire country. With one state the options available to Apple become: eat the fines, change, refuse to sell in that state, or create an entirely new SKU for compliant devices.

Like bring up to Amazon level conditions or actually something humane?

Not defending Amazon or anything, but bringing factories like this up to Amazon warehouse standards would be a massive win for labor globally. These conditions are the norm.

An immediate month-long boycott of all stores would be a good place to start.

How much more would it cost to manufacture iPhones in the US?

Depends on what you mean by manufacture. Print the PCB and assemble it? Probably not that much more given the scale of operations.

Assembling it in the US is however a security risk for anyone not aligned with global US interests.

Isn't the software a security risk for anyone not aligned with global US interests? Isn't manufacturing in China a security risk for anyone not aligned with global PRC interests?

The keys that sign the software are probably located in the US, or are otherwise within reach of US jurisdiction. That’s as much a risk as assembling hardware in the US would be.

Initially a lot since the entire supply chain is in China/Taiwan/Korea/Japan. Those glue stickies that hold the batteries? Nitto Japan makes them. Lots of small things like that also needs to be brought on shore. Overtime, it can get to a point where it would be maybe 30% more expensive. That number doesn’t ring well with investors. Only government action (which are puppetted by Apple lobbyists) can solve this problem.

It’s weird that with interest rates at all time lows and huge amounts of money sloshing around looking for something to invest in, it’s all ended up in overpriced houses and NFTs rather than attempting to compete with these overseas manufacturers. Like surely Nitto doesn’t have some indefensible moat around making battery glue?

Also while Congress is up in arms over tech monopolies… why isn’t anyone going after ASML? This is a literal monopoly that’s choking the entire world’s supply of semiconductors. Their patents prevent any competition. The US isn’t shy about taking unilateral action and fucking over entire countries when strategic interests are at hand, why not pull the trigger on a little-known Dutch company that the public doesn’t care about?

Because the purpose of investing one's money is to attempt to preserve wealth. Dumping a bunch of money into a domestic factory with way higher variable costs that are structurally never going to improve is a surefire way to lose money. In contrast housing prices literally only go up and NFTs have non-zero chance at not losing all your money, which is better than a commodity factory in the US.

I think we'll see more onshoring if robotics ever gets to the point where factories can be cheaply fully automated.

"structurally never going to improve" seems to overstate things. Working standards in India and China will eventually improve (China is already pricing itself out of the clothing market). The era of cheap overseas labor will eventually dry up.

I think the bigger problem is that you couldn't invest in such businesses even if you wanted to. Nobody is even bothering to start them. The US still has a lot of advantages - a looser regulatory environment than Europe, less subject to the whims of politics than China/Russia, the best research institutions in the world, and essentially infinite dollars. But all this is to produce a managerial elite that decides it's cheaper to just print money and buy stuff elsewhere.

I don't think cheap overseas labor will dry up for at least another 30-50 years. There is still all of Africa for factory owners to exploit and underpay. And most of Southeast Asia and parts of Central Asia.

> managerial elite that decides it's cheaper to just print money and buy stuff elsewhere

Hah, that doesn't even begin to touch the moronic stuff that gets taught in b-schools.

The entire point of patents is to give companies a monopoly for a period of time in exchange for not keeping the information secret. The utility and merits of the system is certainly not without debate, but if you want the answer as to why governments are okay with it, it's probably because it was their idea.

Headline:

>At an Indian iPhone Plant (implying it's an Apple plant)

Article:

>a Foxconn plant in southern India

>Venpa Staffing Services, a Foxconn contractor that runs the dorm where workers were sickened by food poisoning, declined to comment.

So it's Venpa Staffing who's responsible, but the headline implies Apple.

I'm all for holding people accountable, but this is irritatingly deceptive journalism.

Apple is paying them money to make iPhones (according to the article). Apple is surely aware of this sort of behavior; maybe not the specific instance but the general fact. This makes Apple complicit. Similar to how buying factory farmed meat makes one complicit in factory farming.

Exactly - "follow the money". It's very clear where the responsibility lies.

With the people who purchase iPhones? That's where Apple's money comes from.

Both the consumer and the manufacturer are responsible -- on an abstract, ethical level.

But in practical terms the manufacturer has infinitely more leverage over the situation.

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