Low Wages And Long Hours Persist At iPhone Factory

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How many times have we seen reports like this? Let's face it, as long as we all get our shiny new iPhones, consoles, electric toasters with internet access, no one really cares about improving conditions at these factories.

Complaints over the conditions at factories making iPhones and iPads aren't new, as Apple's manufacturing partners have long drawn criticism for the treatment and pay of its workers. It was a big enough controversy that the technology titan asked the Fair Labor Association to investigate one its suppliers in 2012 and has since been more proactive and transparent about enforcing guidelines for working conditions and pay.
 
Nothing will change, it's all just grandstanding to give the illusion that things will get better for Chinese workers. People at the top never want to give the people below them more money, they would lose their lifestyles and great vacations.
 
Nothing will change, it's all just grandstanding to give the illusion that things will get better for Chinese workers. People at the top never want to give the people below them more money, they would lose their lifestyles and great vacations.

Yet, according to my friends, if Apple produced their IPhone in Amercia, we would have to pay $1800 or so for what a $900 iPhone cost now. :rolleyes: Of course, that is a bunch of crap but, whatever.
 
That's because they have absurd profit margins on these phones, and isn't just apple. On average is 300-400% of cost! Though as long as people are willing to pay this much, they will keep charging. This reminds me of LCD TVs around 5 years ago before this price fixing seizes and things became more competitive.
 
Apple regularly audits its suppliers and releases its own annual reports on their compliance with standards.

By "audit" they mean Apple regularly send questionnaires to the managers at the factories who I'm sure are totally truthful about those things.
 
By "audit" they mean Apple regularly send questionnaires to the managers at the factories who I'm sure are totally truthful about those things.

That is about right. I hate dealing with chinese contract manufacturers. You tell them something and they agree with you and when you get off the phone I believe they laugh and go back to what they were doing. You switch to a different one and it pretty much is the same. And they source parts from wherever they want and you have to put measures in place to catch them otherwise your product reliability drops. Engineering is 40% design, 60% fixing others laziness/cheapness/fuckups.
 
This should come as no shock to anyone. What do you think is the whole point of Natfa and the TPP? It's to mass export as many jobs as possible to China, India, and other 3rd world countries without any tariffs or penalties for doing so. Instead of paying you a fair wage, your job will be sent to China or other slave wage societies like Vietnam where the average pay is $.55 an hour with no benefits of any kind and a corporate tax rate of 0-5%.

Say hello to falling wages (you will wish for the "stagnant" wages you use to complain about), greater skyrocketing inflation, REAL abysmal unemployment, rampant "underemployment", significant erosion of social safety net programs (social security, LIHeap, SNAP, WIC, etc) and higher taxes across the entire spectrum which will be shouldered almost entirely by the poor and middle class.

The income inequality is as greater than it's ever been before and the TPP has even gone into effect yet. It makes NAFTA look tame in comparison! Wake up and see the bigger picture and chess board in play before the dystopic future depicted in movies like the Hunger Games is the reality for our children and grandchildren. Stop getting wrapped up in the microcosm forest of details. Much bigger and more serious issues for us all are at hand and though better, still too few of us are awake and aware of the big picture.
 
Have no fear, within a few more years those phones will be assembled by industrial robots and there won't be any more low-paid / over-worked workers to worry about. This of course will work anywhere... even in the good ole USofA.
 
Well when you only have a 300% profit on your devices you can't afford to pay the proper people to put it together.
 
You mean Foxconn? The company that makes pretty much everything else besides iPhones?
 
They should use their iPhones to look for new jobs... I'm sure there's an app or three in the iTunes App Store.
 
Communist.

LoL, made me laugh.

Socialist Nation would have a potentially government crippling powerful Worker's Union and high wages... Not quite the same...

LOL, made me laugh laugh as well because China's government is listed as a socialist single-party state.

China's Constitution said:
The People’s Republic of China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants

Or more correctly "socialism with Chinese characteristics."

Source: Constitution of the People's Republic of China
 
If these factories are not owned by Apple, the watchdog group telling Apple to improve conditions is a waste of time and breath. :rolleyes:
 
Ahh american consumer hipocracy at its finest. Believing that the world needs to work like it does here in america...

they get low wages compaired to what we think they should be paid do they complain no they just commit suicide. At least they have employment just think your advocating having the iPhone assembled state side that would reduce the profits from 300% to 250% and all of those foxxconn people would loose the job putting food in thier bellies.
 
Wow! Low wages and long hours at a factory in a socialist nation? Shocking!!!

That would be about the same in any country, even the USA. The value of work has been diminished so much due to an oversupply in workers and automation.
 
really, who gives a shit.
Your android phone is made with the same cheap labor.

shut up and enjoy your phone already.
 
That would be about the same in any country, even the USA. The value of work has been diminished so much due to an oversupply in workers and automation.

and a large attitude shift specifically with large employers viewing and treating their workers as little more than paid cattle automatons. A hostile attidude seeing as a necessary evil until automation and "free trade: wnd the need for you.

For visuals (as if most of you would need it) imagine a "politically correct" modern version of Ebenezer Scrooge. All the flowery talk about workers being a valued member of the "family" in the press, newsletters, and meetings. All the while cutting back in every conceivable manner that directly benefits you (the worker) that they feel they can get away with.

The only thing that truly matters is making the 1% shareholders happy. Fewer things put a bigger smile on the shareholders face than slashing "expenses" (that's you) and taking your $20-30 a hour job with benefits and moving it to a "free trade" country like Vietnam (ie can import back into the U.S. with no tariffs or fee's) where their new "family" workers are paid under $1 a hour with little to no benefits and a Corporate tax rate 1/5- 1/7th the U.S. has.
 
Nothing will change, it's all just grandstanding to give the illusion that things will get better for Chinese workers. People at the top never want to give the people below them more money, they would lose their lifestyles and great vacations.

You could say this about people in the 1% anywhere in the world, not just in China. Look at what happened when all the factory work done in the States was outsourced elsewhere.
 
I couldn't give less of a fuck about how shitty the conditions are for workers in China and their low pay. They decided to go all in with their "labor force" to effectively fuck the rest of the world out of these manufacturing jobs that could do a lot of good in the countries where these companies are based out of. So seriously, fuck them. They want to effectively underbid the world, then they need to deal with the shitty payout.
 
Robots are going to replace all factory workers in a number of years anyway. Then people will start complaing about the lack of jobs - which, they'll actually be pointing out the lack of child labor - and whatnot.
 
That's because they have absurd profit margins on these phones, and isn't just apple. On average is 300-400% of cost! Though as long as people are willing to pay this much, they will keep charging. This reminds me of LCD TVs around 5 years ago before this price fixing seizes and things became more competitive.

You do not that the average retail store does exactly this for any products being sold, sure there are exceptions, but overall a retail store can't stay in business without a huge markup and it's typically just like this 200% to 400%.
 
This should come as no shock to anyone. What do you think is the whole point of Natfa and the TPP? It's to mass export as many jobs as possible to China, India, and other 3rd world countries without any tariffs or penalties for doing so. Instead of paying you a fair wage, your job will be sent to China or other slave wage societies like Vietnam where the average pay is $.55 an hour with no benefits of any kind and a corporate tax rate of 0-5%.

Say hello to falling wages (you will wish for the "stagnant" wages you use to complain about), greater skyrocketing inflation, REAL abysmal unemployment, rampant "underemployment", significant erosion of social safety net programs (social security, LIHeap, SNAP, WIC, etc) and higher taxes across the entire spectrum which will be shouldered almost entirely by the poor and middle class.

The income inequality is as greater than it's ever been before and the TPP has even gone into effect yet. It makes NAFTA look tame in comparison! Wake up and see the bigger picture and chess board in play before the dystopic future depicted in movies like the Hunger Games is the reality for our children and grandchildren. Stop getting wrapped up in the microcosm forest of details. Much bigger and more serious issues for us all are at hand and though better, still too few of us are awake and aware of the big picture.

Yea, and somehow through all this my life hasn't changed significantly since I was a kid. Amazing ain't it?
 
and a large attitude shift specifically with large employers viewing and treating their workers as little more than paid cattle automatons. A hostile attidude seeing as a necessary evil until automation and "free trade: wnd the need for you.

For visuals (as if most of you would need it) imagine a "politically correct" modern version of Ebenezer Scrooge. All the flowery talk about workers being a valued member of the "family" in the press, newsletters, and meetings. All the while cutting back in every conceivable manner that directly benefits you (the worker) that they feel they can get away with.

The only thing that truly matters is making the 1% shareholders happy. Fewer things put a bigger smile on the shareholders face than slashing "expenses" (that's you) and taking your $20-30 a hour job with benefits and moving it to a "free trade" country like Vietnam (ie can import back into the U.S. with no tariffs or fee's) where their new "family" workers are paid under $1 a hour with little to no benefits and a Corporate tax rate 1/5- 1/7th the U.S. has.

Do you know what the purpose of tarrifs and fees are?

Basicly they are put in place to offset trade imballances that are not in our favor. If we export more to a foreign country then we import, then we are getting the better trade deal and therefor the other country might wish to even the deal a little with tarrifs. Another reason is that we want to buy more from country A then country B, in order to see that happen and to meet trade agreements with said countries, tarrifs can be used to make both countries' products cost approximately the same to buy, or even give one a slight advantage in order to meet those agreements.

We export far more to Vietnam then we import from them. This is why there are no tarrifs imposed on most of their products. It's because we are the ones making the most money from the deal.
 
I couldn't give less of a fuck about how shitty the conditions are for workers in China and their low pay. They decided to go all in with their "labor force" to effectively fuck the rest of the world out of these manufacturing jobs that could do a lot of good in the countries where these companies are based out of. So seriously, fuck them. They want to effectively underbid the world, then they need to deal with the shitty payout.

Pretty much exactly my view as well. My daughter thinks we should take the moral high ground and refuse to buy Apple until they stop trading with foreign companies that have bad labor practices.

I see it as a Chinese problem, not an American one. My points are below;

It's China's business, I don't want China tell us how to handle our business so I think we should keep our nose out of theirs.

One Chinese Legislator in the National People's Congress has far more power to make a difference then the buying power of Americans who buy from Apple.

Why hurt an American company and give an advantage to a Korean one. Who profits when we put the screws to Apple, their competition does that's who. We could refuse to buy from them as well, but would Nokia be any different, how far can you take this.

And what if it makes no difference, what if all we accomplish is to ruin a healthy American business.

What effect did Hillary Clinton's message to China have for Chinese women's rights?

In 1995 she scolded them in public.
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/06/world/hillary-clinton-in-china-details-abuse-of-women.html

Today it continues.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/28/world/china-xi-clinton-womens-rights/

Agree that China has problems, I just think it's China the needs to find their own solutions.
 
Pretty much exactly my view as well. My daughter thinks we should take the moral high ground and refuse to buy Apple until they stop trading with foreign companies that have bad labor practices.

I see it as a Chinese problem, not an American one. My points are below;

It's China's business, I don't want China tell us how to handle our business so I think we should keep our nose out of theirs.

One Chinese Legislator in the National People's Congress has far more power to make a difference then the buying power of Americans who buy from Apple.

Why hurt an American company and give an advantage to a Korean one. Who profits when we put the screws to Apple, their competition does that's who. We could refuse to buy from them as well, but would Nokia be any different, how far can you take this.

And what if it makes no difference, what if all we accomplish is to ruin a healthy American business.

What effect did Hillary Clinton's message to China have for Chinese women's rights?

In 1995 she scolded them in public.
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/06/world/hillary-clinton-in-china-details-abuse-of-women.html

Today it continues.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/28/world/china-xi-clinton-womens-rights/

Agree that China has problems, I just think it's China the needs to find their own solutions.

My stance has always been that you can't just avoid it by buying from another company that gets their stuff from the same factory. Apple just ends up getting picked on for this way too much.

I never thought of it that way but thank you for your point about how would we feel if china came here and told us how to handle our labor conditions and regulations. We would probably get all "MURICA!!!!" about it and continue doing what we have been doing.
 
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