Apple CEO calls Times supplier report "patently false and offensive"
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Now Apple is getting attacked and people are using the facts from their own report as ammunition. Other companies that either don't care at all (don't audit their suppliers) or don't publish this kind of information are safe from this kind of bad publicity.
I don't think this kind of activism is very productive. I would like to see more focus on the things Apple has managed to improve within their suppliers. Some people seem to demand Apple to stop working with suppliers not complying with the regulations. Is this really the best way to improve workers conditions there? The logic seems to be that if Apple is no longer buying from that supplier, it must do some improvements to stay in business. What if it doesn't, what if it just finds another client that does not care?
We insist that all of our suppliers provide safe working conditions
Notice the word "insist". How about requiring it? There is a massive difference between insisting and requiring.
And this is after five years of these reports...
Hate to sound like a fanboy, but the very fact that Apple has addressed this issue has put them above and beyond the entire industry.
It isn't as sexy as Apple and it is a problem in the US, but everyone needs to eat. The other electronics companies are probably pretty happy Apple is taking all the heat. It should be interesting when the Brazil plant opens.
To be fair, this isn't an Apple problem; it's the tech industry's dirty little secret. From massive environmental damage as a result of rare earth metal extraction, to deplorable conditions at the factories that make our consumer electronics, to the health calamities at the places where electronics are stripped and recycled for their valuable metals, ours is not the clean industry we like to pretend it is. So again, it's not an Apple thing, but Cook's crocodile tears and affected "outrage" at someone airing our dirty laundry is pretty transparent.
Even a long-hours factory job with some safety risks could be better than facing starvation. Not saying conditions couldn't be improved, but, just to think about the situation in the bigger picture.
Apple may be a multinational and it may not have customers just in the US -- but you have 60 some odd billion dollars in your bank accounts and you turn to people suffering, starving and dying (out of house and home and not looking for free hand outs but a chance to work hard) and say "we aren't here to solve your problems."
Do you not comprehend the arrogance of such a statement?
If you are so against it all (basic economics, the history of the world, etc), then don't buy products from Apple or any other company that uses Chinese manufacturing.
Apple has done far more for people than what you will ever do and you have the audacity to critique them. Do you not comprehend the arrogance of your statements?
You're arguing for companies to use US manufacturing and that's a naive view in the long run. Any student of economics will understand that it's a GOOD thing for the market to not be controlled the way you want (arbitrary limits on where Apple should and should not go). Placing restrictions would make the market not as competitive as it could be and just result in greater inefficiency.
Foxconn makes everybody's stuff. Yet I don't remember ever hearing about how the Xbox is made with "Slave labor". Nor have I ever heard about Microsoft publishing a public report on auditing the conditions of workers in its supply chain.
I'm not bashing Microsoft. I'm just pointing out that the people who keep bringing up this issue are also the same people who use any excuse they can find to claim that Apple is evil, or Apple is going to fail, or whatever.
Frankly, I think the "Supplier Responsibility" report was a mistake. It is Apple giving in to the nonsense from people who are just throwing mud.
Foxconn's jobs are better than most in China, and when they have openings they have massive numbers of people who apply to fill them. These people are not masochists! Obviously Foxconn is offering them a better job than they would get elsewhere.
ITS JUST POLITICS
I think the bottom line on all this is that it is the political left in america, and american unions, picking a target that is high profile and raking muck to try and punish them for using nonunion workers.
We've seen this before-- Target and Walmart have nearly the same policies, but Target is more unionized, while Walmart is less so, and thus we've had a decade of attacks against Walmart from unions.
You don't see the NYT criticizing Sony for using the same workers. You don't see the NYT attacking Target. Or Dell, or HP, or Cisco, or Motorola, or Nokia, or RIM. But, Walmart, Apple, and other high profile company can expect to be regularly smeared.
BUT DON'T POLLUTE HACKER NEWS
But really, is union mud throwing appropriate for Hacker News? Scratch that. Is ANY mud throwing appropriate for Hacker News? Every time Apple comes up some jackwagon is going on about "stupid sheep buying the iThings made with slave labor."
It doesn't belong on Hacker News. This has nothing to do with hacking, startups, or even technology.
It's a purely political issue, and it only servers to pollute the environment here, making discussion of things relevant to hackers less prevalent.
Its getting rare to find stories on HN on hacks, engineering techniques, etc. About the best I can regularly find are "8 ways something helped my startup" and "heres what's happened with my startup" and the occasional "here's a new open source package relevant to hackers." But the least relevant to me of any of those type articles is an order of magnitude better than this "apple uses slave labor" BS.
EDITS
Edit: RE: Unions. Took out an editorial comment about unions because I don't really mean to start a debate about them. But when it was in, I was not talking about cost differences, they're going to be there always between countries. Unions however make manufacturing more rigid. You can't improve efficiency without risking some segment (generally the workers whose steps are eliminated) striking and the whole workforce walking out. If you can't improve your plants domestically, you're more likely to move them abroad.
Apple, for instance, radically changes the way iPhones are manufactured from generation to generation. Even going so far as to buy large numbers of rare machines. The workforce in china is pretty fluid. They aren't striking because their job changed.
Edit2: I'm not going to rebut claims. To prove me wrong, show me articles attacking other prominent technology companies, then show me how they've been promoted on HN. Show me evidence that the people applying to Foxconn are desperate, not people who have other jobs. All I know is that there are a lot of them applying for each position.
The real point is-- this is Hacker News-- Politico News.
I know to expect downvotes, and this article, as predicted, is collecting a lot of "righteous" outrage that Apple would dare defend itself. But look at those comments.
Even if you agree with them, is this the Hacker News you want?
I don't. Karma be damned, I'm going to take a stand.
Please, just stop with political crap!
EDIT: OH, right. You're telling politically motivated lies about Apple because "hackers have a social conscious". Bullshit.
Basically, working in one of those factory's sucks more than any job you ever had and pays a lot less. But, in that economy your still far from starvation. If you want a real eye opener just compare how long it takes to buy a lifetimes worth of food in the US. 70 years * 2$ a day * 365 days a year = 51,000$. Clean water is so cheap in the US it's hard to fathom, in much of the world and most of most of history it was a major issue.
So you think wrong.
The problem are hazardous working condition and excessive over-time, in the end of course repetitive jobs that have no way up.
ex: new recruits would get 1,350 yuan http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/work-j17.shtml
taxes: http://www.beijingobserver.com/income-tax-calculator-china.h...
Not around these parts.
No. It's more likely that there is an undersupply of jobs/oversupply of workers.
If the jobs were better @ Foxconn, you'd see more currently employed people applying.
Yes, other companies are doing it but it's not the point of the article.
What I think me and many others are starting to wonder is why is it almost always Apple that's singled out? I could probably find 20 items in this room that were made by Foxconn et al and don't have an Apple logo on them. But there seem to be constant articles, radio news segments, one-man plays, etc criticizing Apple's labor practices specifically and nearly none about any other company's products — when there are non-Apple-specific discussions of unfair labor practices, they tend to refer to broad generic terms like "the electronics industry".
My guess is that at least a part of it is because many of Apple's users have such an emotional connection with their Apple devices that go everywhere with them — it "hurts" in a way to hear about one's iPhone being morally questionable in a way that it doesn't to hear the same about your Xbox.
Edit: I am not making any judgements or criticisms, this is just an observation on why people feel the need to criticize.
This is really easy to reason out-- why would people work under these "appalling" conditions? Why wouldn't they just stay home or work somewhere else?
Simple: They are vastly better than these alternatives.
The core argument of these people who criticize giving third worlders jobs is that they would rather see those third worlders starve.
If these "sweatshops" weren't significantly better than the alternatives, they would not find any workers.
Of course, that simple truth is irrefutable, so you'll hear all manner of rationalizations about how these people are really masochists.
Of course the really ironic thing about this is, the same people making the "sweatshop" claims are often the same people who supported the brutal regimes (aka "workers paradise") that ultimately lead to the economic destruction that resulted in the "sweatshop" being a vast improvement.
Edit: Unless of course, you consider using giving foreigners jobs instead of local unionized workers to be a "particularly egregious" offense. In that case, nike was.
Maybe I'm wrong though. Any examples of labor markets magically transforming from 'sweatshop level' to 'McMansion/Country Club level' without going through the intermediate steps?
The reason we see so many articles about Apple or Walmart mistreating their workers isn't because of any union mudslinging. Unions have plenty of their own problems to take care of, with basic labor rights being called into question and the right to unionize slowly being taken away in states across the country, but that's besides the point. Any company that makes it big and becomes popular with the public will have its practices scrutinized by the media, by socially-conscious individuals, and by competitors. That we haven't heard much about HP or Dell mistreating workers isn't so much because the media is biased, but because those companies have lost mindshare and the public is less incensed when lesser-known companies take advantage of workers in other countries.
While I'd love to work for Apple and have an iPad, iPhone, and MacBook, I also would like to see them help the workers' living and work conditions at Foxconn and their other suppliers. Unfortunately, I also like having great products, and know that I'm a hypocrite for being bothered by the poor conditions in Foxconn factories and yet not caring enough to change or inconvenience myself. This doesn't mean that there aren't others who won't be bothered by this behavior, and it's important for the public to be aware of living and working conditions in the US and elsewhere so that companies are forced to at least respond to the problems that are exposed.
Apple started doing these reports after they got a lot of bad press about these same kind of things back in 2006 for iPod manufacturing by FoxConn. Over five years ago. Same problems. Same oppressed China workers. How dare people single out Apple, right?
Granted, most stories revolve around Apple but that's probably because they try to portray themselves in a certain way and the reports from Foxconn contradict that image. For example, I don't see many stories from Microsoft talking about their image as a good company that cares about overseas labor so reports out of Foxconn wouldn't be much of a gotcha to blast the company with.
Well, when a company pushes toward making roughly $1M profit per employee per year, a reasonable person would expect that all people in the supply chain are reasonably well taken care of. Anything less would reek of blatant greed, wouldn't it?
And therein lies the root of the problem: The workers have choice but the entire 'job choice space' is rigidly controlled.
As a country, as a people and especially as business owners that might take advantage of the current climate it is important to realize the full cost of the decisions we make.
Also, when you're on top, there's no place to go but down.
In stories about Foxconn, people see a dichotomy between the images of children reading Winnie the Pooh and the sausage factory behind the iPad.
Other companies don't receive the flack in large part because the have not marketed their brands by implying their products are as wholesome as mother's milk.
"Everybody does it" doesn't make it right.
All the other companies will simply continue to do what they are doing while everybody is distracted by Apple.
Apple may be singled out because the contrast of the scandal and their lofty position as market leader makes for a compelling story.
And it seems odd that for someone who calls for a non-political HN chooses to so fierily push his/her own political views.
so we should turn our eyes the other way. really?! it's like saying "everybody does slavery, let's not care"... amazing...if what everybody does is good, great!!! but when it's bad, it should be brought to light in order to stop it.
"ITS JUST POLITICS"
if it's about bad practices being brought to light, i don't care if it's politics or not
"DON'T POLLUTE HACKER NEWS"
don't try to find a "getaway reason" to dismiss an uncomfortable discussion, hackers are not "robots", the more you know about our geopolitical world, the better hacker you are
that being said, good that those bad practices are being shown to the world, it will push Apple and co to do something about it, which in the end will better for everyone