Apple goes to war with the BBC | Hacker News Reader

Apple goes to war with the BBC

telegraph.co.uk

49 pointsdnetesn83 comments

>Williams countered that Apple has tracked the weekly hours of over one million workers within its supply chain, and that its suppliers have achieved an average of 93 per cent compliance with the 60-hour workweek limit this year.

60 hour workweeks... plus "93% compliance" is not exactly reassuring.

> In an email to around 5,000 staff across the UK, Apple senior vice president of operations Jeff Williams said both himself and the chief executive were "deeply offended by the suggestion that Apple would break a promise to the workers in our supply chain or mislead our customers in any way".

Well, that makes 7% being lied to. Did I understand this correctly?

Clearly Tim Cook and senior management are in a bind.

They keep telling people they're geniuses ('only Apple could do this') and industry leaders in environmental practices.

The BBC film has shown this to be false so either Tim Cook is a pathological liar or he doesn't have a clue what goes on in the supply chain. Meaning he's not the genius the fawning press like to make him out to be.

The best quote in the film is when an Indonesian supplier is asked what he thinks of Apple's envieonmental policy. His response: "Apple bullshit. Bullshit Apple.". The subtitles make this an instant internet meme.

It would be nice to compare those numbers to that of other companies or organizations.

But even if you stay strictly with US companies, is it possible to find the compliance rate for Microsoft, Google, Twitter, Red Hat, etc., much less the various game studios known for overworking their employees?

A 60 hour work week for wage laborers should not be baseline in any country in 2014. Apple is doing what they can to exploit these workers in a PC fashion.

* as any other company that outsources manufacturing.

So should we not also look down on those companies? Why do we give companies a pass to exploit workers because other companies do as well?

I don't know if a 60 hour work week counts as exploitation. If you options are 400$/month and 40 hour weeks or 600$ a month and 60 hour weeks a lot of people are going to chose the second option. IMO, when it comes to exploitation pay, working conditions, and irregular work schedules can be far more exploitive than simple hours worked.

Also, dorm style housing next to a factory dramatically cut down on commute times which changes the work life balance equation. It's much like a 50 hour work week with a 1 hour commute which is fairly common in the US.

PS: IMO the US trucking industry is probably more expletive than most Chinese factory's. The hours are often comparable but the risk of death is much higher. And the industry often increases peoples risk of death for just a little more profit.

> I don't know if a 60 hour work week counts as exploitation. If you options are 400$/month and 40 hour weeks or 600$ a month and 60 hour weeks a lot of people are going to chose the second option.

And that is why it is exploitation: They are in a position where they don't realistically have a choice, and hence don't realistically have power to negotiate higher salaries for more reasonable hours.

This is the basis for e.g. EU working time regulations that makes 60 hour work weeks illegal within the EU with few exceptions.

Bear in mind that the salary these workers get is probably less than half that. Last year, according to the Daily Mail (yeah...), they were being paid £180 ($300) per month [0]. The salary these workers get is a small percentage of the retail price of these devices, it's not like Apple can't afford to pay them a decent salary and provide ethical working conditions.

[0] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103798/Revealed-Ins...

> it's not like Apple can't afford to pay them a decent salary

Well, Apple doesn't pay them any salary at all—they're not Apple employees.

Yes but they are deeply offended , if they're not their employees is not their problem, why feel offended? .

I get offended by plenty of things outside my direct sphere of influence, that aren't my problem. Most of them, I can't do anything about. But it's still upsetting.

Of course, but naming only Apple is misleading.

however nothing should prevent workers from performing a 60 hour work week should they choose.

The problem there is preventing coercion. I've heard a number of stories of people working at startups who get in trouble for "not being a team player" or "lacking dedication" because they don't want to work super-long hours.

That'd be great assuming both sides held equal power.

Both sides don't hold equal power, which is the reason it took nearly a century of demonstrations, strikes and violent confrontations to get down from 60 hours+ work weeks to ~40 (EDIT: in the US and Europe)

I think your argument equates to "Everyone else is doing it mom, why can't I?". It was as much bullshit when you were a kid as it is now.

Well, not really. http://xkcd.com/1170/

Is this reddit?

My argument is as to how angry I should be specifically towards Apple, vs. towards the industry as a whole, the BBC, and us as people, and to inform my decisions on how to improve international working conditions. (Admittedly, that's low on my list.)

If Apple's claim is correct, and "no other company [does] as much as Apple does to ensure fair and safe working conditions, to discover and investigate problems, to fix and follow through when issues arise, and to provide transparency into the operations of our suppliers," then the solution is to push for a change to the laws.

If Apple's claim is completely inverted, and everyone else requires a maximum 40 hour work week with a livable wage, with 100% compliance, then it's time I boycott Apple.

On the third hand, if no one else can report any numbers like this, then attacking Apple for being the first to be transparent about these numbers means that other companies are less likely to publish, or even track, these numbers, because the tall poppies are cut down first. If so, then the BBC is making things worse by attacking Apple for being the only one to be so honest. (This is the one I happen to believe, but have little evidence for.)

On the fourth hand, if Apple is the middle of the pack, then certainly it could be an "Everyone else is doing it" arguments. Except that Apple highlights how they don't think they are in the middle of the pack, and stress why they think that, for example, working with the Indonesian tin mining industry is overall better than not sourcing Indonesian tin.

Of the alternatives, I don't see why you thought I was suggesting the one least supported by the evidence.

While admittedly, I know nothing about Apple's internal policies and how it tracks these workers and the hours they're working, I wonder how real those numbers are. What I see often (very often) is that people see data and they take the numbers at face value. Could it possibly be that in order to appease Apple, the suppliers are cooking the books on the hours their employees are working? Obviously, in terms of profit margins, they want to squeeze out every penny of labor they can.

What type of data integrity system does Apple have set up to make sure that these are truly the case? With 1 million workers and multiple companies (and all the suppliers) does Apple truly have an independent employee (unaffected by any pressure from factory management) at every factory to watch over the labor standards? I kind of doubt it.

But yes, 60 hour work weeks, how noble of Apple. "Thank you sir, may I have another?" Personally, this really does make me rethink buying an Apple product.

It should make you rethink buying any electronic product whatsoever, since Apple's supply-chain audits are, though insufficient, by far the most thorough of any company (since they face the most scrutiny).

Rather, I would say, "it should make me rethink buying any electronic product _not manufactured in the US or other developed world countries that have much higher, stricter standards on labor conditions_..."

Not everything is manufactured in China (though I certainly don't know of any laptops not made in China, and only a select few phones.)

edit: oh, and also, my main point was "how good are those audits?"

The audits are probably pretty bad, but also probably better than the audits that less scrutinized companies do.

What consumer electronics products are manufactured in the US... not counting "final assembly" in the US where the PCBs come in fully populated from China and are screwed into the enclosure in the US?

Yes, the suppliers are faking the hours. They show this in the film.

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It's worse.

The documentary shows how Foxconn and Pegatron fake payroll slips so that long hours don't show up.

93% compliance is rubbish. Workers are forced to sign forms saying they consent to night shifts and overtime, when in fact overtime is mandatory.

Apple's required reporting is nothing more than window-dressing; lipstick on a pig.

Apple's release schedule of one big yearly event and 10 million units ready to ship on day 1 must bear some of the blame. Near impossible demands are being placed on manufacturers desperate to keep a lucrative contract, who in turn drive workers like slaves.

The problem with Apple criticism is a lot of it seems full of cheap shots and unfair framing, like this Panorama report.

That makes it more difficult to tell when a criticism of Apple is genuine, because every idiot journalist looking for a controversial story can write a story about something Apple is doing not well enough and get away with it, since everyone seems to love to hate on Apple.

So if Apple really is up to no good in some area of their business, we won't have a clue, because it's drowned out in tripe like this.

I am by no means an Apple fan anymore, but I feel the exact same way.

Reminds me a little of how people somehow don't believe McDonalds when they reveal their food sources. Because people love to hate on them, McDs and Apple have higher standards than their competitors.

See also: Facebook and security/privacy

Or Google and privacy/surveillance. A lot of criticism is just fashion or signalling.

Confused about these two comments. Are you both literally arguing that Google has higher standards for privacy/surveillance than its competitors and that facebook is better than its competitors for security/privacy?

Per TazeTSchnitzel's remark on Apple & McDonald's, also Facebook and Google seem to be held by public to a higher standard than other companies.

Ah, I understood that comment as saying that MacDonalds actually do have higher food sourcing standards because of the public scrutiny.

There also seems to be an implied complaint here that the public are being hypocritical, however it makes perfect sense that the larger the example, the more people would be interested in holding them to a high standard. This doesn't seem like a bad thing at all.

Is a rational posture, when companies became that BIG they get above the law. I don't trust that companies neither the controls organisms in charge.

Foxconn has an anti-suicide policy. There's a reason.

Foxconn's suicide rate turns out to be lower than the Chinese general population's suicide rate. They've got the population of a good sized city. Per Wikipedia:

> Although the number of workplace suicides at the company was large in absolute terms, the rate is still low when compared to the rest of China. (However, the country has a high suicide rate with over 20 deaths per 100,000 persons.) In 2010, the worst year for workplace suicides at Foxconn with a total of 14 deaths, the total employee count was a reported 930,000 people. The average workplace suicide rate for Foxconn that year was 1.5 per 100,000 making it well below the national average suicide rate (around 7% of the national average).

America and most other nations have no-suicide policies, too. Try it and you'll likely find yourself detained and treated involuntarily. I'm not sure why you're considering such a thing to be a shocking fact.

Congratulations for proving the parent post's "The problem with Apple criticism is a lot of it seems full of cheap shots and unfair framing" statement, though.

The Foxconn suicide rate is (often significantly) lower than the rate of every US state, let alone China's.

Did you see any numbers that compared it to employed people of similar age?

(Per http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/chin.pdf suicide rates in China are significantly higher above the age of 60)

I think you need to review your position in support of sweatshops and exploitation of people in developing regions.

Also, we are talking about statistics posted in China. Are you fucking kidding me?

If you're contending Foxconn has a dramatically higher suicide rate than reported, is there any evidence for the accusation?

I would contend that Foxconn employees' overall suicide rate is likely to be larger than their reported workplace suicide rate, for reasons that are presumably obvious.

Edit: Looking at http://www.wellness.com/news/6427/us-workplace-suicides-jump... , it looks like in the US workplace suicides are less than 1% of overall suicides. Doubtless different in China, but hopefully makes the point that comparing the two statistics is likely to be problematic.

My understanding from news reports - correct me if I'm wrong - is that Foxconn employees tend to live in dorms and spend most of their time on company grounds.

Even if they're all going home and committing suicide there, the only evidence I've seen put forward for the supposed wave of suicides is the workplace ones. The stats there don't back up the claims.

Uh, does the fact that these employees tend to live in company owned dorms (ever heard of Mill Villages, "Company Store") and spend most of their time on company grounds not within and of itself something to question? Or even the fact that this has something to do with a (possible) higher suicide rate? Can you imagine living within a few hundred feet of your 60 hour manufacturing job with 3 other people in a 10 by 10 room, no time to visit family or have fun, enjoy yourself?

I think it's both a problem companies like Apple can do a lot more to address and likely to be significantly better than the alternatives most of the employees have available.

People aren't joining Foxconn from jobs where they've got 40 hours a week and vacation time. They're often joining from rural areas with subsistence farming, poverty, shittier jobs, etc. International attention on Apple and Foxconn likely prevent at least some abuses that are rampant elsewhere in China.

All that said, there's no reason we in places like the US can't pay $20 more for an iPhone.

Perhaps you should present data in support of your own point instead of make accusations about the sources presented without backing them up.

> Foxconn's suicide rate turns out to be lower than the Chinese general population's suicide rate.

Foxconn employees' workplace suicide rate. In general I'd expect the workplace suicide rate to be a small fraction of the overall suicide rate. Maybe Foxonn employees never leave their workplace and the figures are the same, but that's not great either.

> Maybe Foxonn employees never leave their workplace and the figures are the same,

They don't—their workplace is an entire city, pretty much.

> but that's not great either.

It's not, but it's a very different issue, and conflating the two is harmful to handling either.

Nobody would even be commenting on this if Microsoft or some other company [were] unfairly framed.

Anyway, there seems to be plenty of data that working conditions at Foxconn are harsh. https://www.google.com/search?q=foxconn+site%3Achinalaborwat...

Stop defending Apple just because you are totally in love with them people...

> You wouldn't even be commenting on this if Microsoft [were] unfairly framed.

Yes, I would, and that's actually one of the problematic parts of the Foxconn reporting - they make components for Microsoft and many other companies, but for some reason coverage focuses on just one of their clients, Apple.

Foxconn's working conditions are indeed harsh by developed-world standards, and I'd happily pay a bit more for a phone in order to improve them. At the same time, I can acknowledge that working for Foxconn is likely better than the subsistence farming of the Mao days, and that Foxconn is probably fairly similar to other companies in China doing similar work.

Perhaps you would give your attention to this if it were Microsoft, but about 90% of the people here would not. So, my point is - if Apple, as the single most profitable venture that uses slave labor, is sacrificed for getting attention on this topic, what does it matter?

Why nitpick the journalism when there is a much larger issue at stake? Besides that - Apple is the most profitable company in the world. People look at them as an example. So, I think it's perfectly fair that journalists target them.

> The problem with Apple criticism is a lot of it seems full of cheap shots and unfair framing, like this Panorama report.

Well given Apple insane margins,and other tricks they pull(like tax avoidance in Europe),Apple case stands out more than other brands because of the company reputation,"success" and wealth.

> because every idiot journalist looking for a controversial story

There is no controversy here.Apple(and other brands) are clearly taking advantage of poor working conditions in China and other Asian countries.Nobody in the west would accept these conditions.I'm talking about the slavery like working conditions that existed in the west at the dawn of the 20th century before workers rebelled against it.

In China,well,it's just impossible for such a movement to exist.China is a bloody dictatorship.Western PR just succeeded in convincing us it wasn't.

And frankly,that story isn't really about Apple.Judging by the comments below the article,it's more about us and our denial to accept the fact that the comfort we live in is built on the pain and suffering of others on the other side of the planet. And that's how most wealth have been created through history,exploitation,through colonies,slavery, or other means.

Some people are fine with it,some people don't care,others think it doesn't exist,others think workers "are treated what they are worth",and have no problem spending insane amounts of money in the end product because of its marketing,and a last group understands that effective modern capitalism is just "rationalized predation".

edit: I edited my last sentence because I want to dissociate what thinkers like Adam Smith and others "described",and what we have today.

> And frankly,that story isn't really about Apple.Judging by the comments below the article,it's more about us and our denial to accept the fact that the comfort we live in is built on the pain and suffering of others on the other side of the planet.

I agree. But the problem with framing it in terms of Apple (like these articles often do) is that it provides people an easy out: "Oh, those Apple people are bad eggs, I would never buy something they make!". But it's not just Apple, it's our entire economy, and we as a culture won't ever have to face it if it's pinned on one or two companies.

There are more idiot Apple apologists than there are idiot journalists, so it should equal out.

Sleeping publicly in asian cultures is perfectly normal.

I remember seeing these asian students just passed out on university benches once I started studies abroad.

The journalist says 'it seems that they have no choice'. So he just displayed his cultural unconsciousness and publicly alleged Apple of wrongdoing.

One could easily speculate that people working in western societies are pumped up with caffeine, sugar or other drugs, freely available by their profit-hungry bosses.

If I recall, in Japan if you're not seen sleeping at your desk then you've not been working hard enough.

And it's perfectly acceptable to beat your domestic help in the UAE.

Let's not confuse 'accepted' with 'acceptable'.

Well, that's about as ridiculous a leap as I can imagine.

Some Asian nations have culturally integrated the fact that naps boost productivity[1][2][3] but we should impose our own cultural standards on them because they might actually be a bunch of uncivilized mongrels and it's our responsibility to teach them the error of their ways.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/07/24/why-you-...

[2] http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/america-its-ti...

[3] http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Health_Let...

> Sleeping publicly in asian cultures is perfectly normal.

So is sleeping on the job after 12 hour shifts. The issue isnt sleeping publicly but the 12 hour shift thing. Your argument is a big strawman,even the best spin doctors wouldnt dare using that argument,unless maybe those on fox news.

What is wrong with 12 hour shift?

And what's up with ad hominem?

What is wrong with 16 hour shift?

I recommend everyone to subscribe to China Labour Watch [http://chinalaborwatch.org].

Reports of workplace abuse are so recurring that you end up dying a little inside from reading about one huge company after the other pulling this shit - but at least it'll stop you from reverting to an automatic defensive response to bad news about companies like Apple.

fwiw, I still agree that it's generally counterproductive to do reporting focused on Apple, because although they're the most obvious company to scrutinize, it makes it seems as if the issue is specific to Apple and not the systemic rule across corporations.

PS: Consider donating to CLW while you're at it; it's Christmas, after all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVaTl2kW6YU

The full documentary by BBC.

For those of us in the UK (or with access to a UK-based proxy)...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04vs348/panorama-apple...

I wouldn't quite call that war, more a disgruntled sigh.

That wouldn't generate as many clicks...

Agreed. One of the more egregious examples of hyperbole in an articles title, for the purpose of being clickbait, that I have seen. A better title would be; "Apple refutes BBC documentary"

Would that we aspired to that definition of "war", in which a country's response to an attack was: "I'm deeply offended. Here are the statistics concerning the behavior to which you object. Here is our program to improve."

Genuine question: Which large companies do supply chain auditing to the same or greater extent than Apple do? Do they make the audit publicly available as Apple do? I'd like to compare.

Walmart does a fair amount of supply chain auditing.

http://corporate.walmart.com/global-responsibility/ethical-s...

This is a good place to mention Fairphone, a dutch foundation who make phones and document their supply chain in public, improving various things about it

I would love to see if they could find a multinational company WITHOUT issues like this in their supply chain - I imagine none exist.

(I still support "exposé" programs like this since people need to be reminded what the actual cost of their toys are - but they should cast a broader net)

I don't know why "everyone is doing it" somehow mitigates the problem.

Because they blame one company. From what I've read Apple has done more than anyone else to improve the situation and yet they're the ones that constantly receive blame. Do a report on the supply chain as a whole and how the entire tech industry has workers that are being exploited. They select one company (a popular one) because it'll generate more clicks regardless of the fact that it makes the reporting slightly biased.

They don't blame one company. They did an expose of one company. And one of the companies with arguably the most popular product.

The company who's also arguably doing the most to improve the situation. If the journalist actually cared about what was going on they would expose all offenders and highlight the worst, not expose the one who's already been exposed by several other journalists and is working to improve the situation.

My heart bleeds for the plight of Apple.

It absolutely doesn't, which is why I put in that disclaimer. But focusing on one company will just make people say "well Apple products are made with slave labor, so I'll buy a Samsung instead" when the Samsung stuff is made in the same factory with the same raw materials, and it solves nothing.

Apple is the biggest to it must be taken down first. I prefer focused attack on apple than watered down on many fronts.

Apple is the biggest what? They certainly don't make the most anything. Oh, you mean the most headline grabbing.

Biggest by market capitalization.

Which large companies take supply chain auditing as seriously as Apple?

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