HardOCP News
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It's obvious what the problem is here...quit doing labor audits and you'll quit finding stuff. Problem solved. 
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Apple Finds Underage Workers After Labor Audits
- Thread starter HardOCP News
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leSLIe
Fisting is Too Mainstream for Me
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Well you know, child labor is more exotic, ergo more expensive... that's why Apple products have high prices
Apple can audit all they want but when they are done and leave the plant the Chinese bosses will just put the kids right back to work. They're dealing with a country that will do whatever they want to do. What is Apple going to do, find a new country to build their shit? No matter what supplier Apple uses in China, kids will be put to work there building their shit because kids are cheap labor. Money talks and the less of it Apple has to spend on manufacturing, the more they have to stuff in their coffers and pay out in dividends.
No matter the number of violations, Apple will stay in China until they can find somewhere cheaper to build their shit.
No matter the number of violations, Apple will stay in China until they can find somewhere cheaper to build their shit.
Does anyone else not care? Why should we insist what we consider normal apply to that of another country and culture where it may not be? We assume kids should just frolic and play all day. Other cultures, including ours not all that long ago, put kids to work on family farms and other jobs. Maybe that's why kids these days are all spoiled lazy miscreants.
Outamyhead
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So what are the local authorities doing about the problems found (I'm guessing nothing).
Man, stories like this piss me off. Years ago I used to go to my mom's work over the summer to make some extra cash. She worked near a government building, and my job was to take documents she needed to file with the government and just sit in this office watching television or talking to people while I waited for the government employee to call my name and file my documents. It was so easy, and I made a lot of friends (both young and old) while I sat there. Plus I was paid for my time.
This had gone on for decades. Some of my older cousins had done it when they were younger, and most of the other businesses in the area had kids in their families doing the same thing. Well one day the government peeps go "yeah we can't have kids working in here, so you need to get out unless you're 16 years old." Thankfully I had a work permit and was allowed to continue, but a few of the friends I made were a year or two younger than me and not old enough for permit, so they had to go home.
I understand how some child labor is forced and against the child's will, but it's not always a bad thing when children work, especially if they want to do it for the money it brings in.
This had gone on for decades. Some of my older cousins had done it when they were younger, and most of the other businesses in the area had kids in their families doing the same thing. Well one day the government peeps go "yeah we can't have kids working in here, so you need to get out unless you're 16 years old." Thankfully I had a work permit and was allowed to continue, but a few of the friends I made were a year or two younger than me and not old enough for permit, so they had to go home.
I understand how some child labor is forced and against the child's will, but it's not always a bad thing when children work, especially if they want to do it for the money it brings in.
Exactly what these guys said. I would love to know if they took the extra step and asked whether or not that it was for or against their will.
Metrocall
Gawd
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Seems weird to mention this story but not mention how they dropped/fired a factory or two that they found doing this.
DeathPrincess
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You mean the ones they put "keep" on?
Benzino
[H]ard|Gawd
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There's a difference between having your kids do chores in order to instill a work ethic and sense of discipline vs. exploiting children for cheap labor.
Could Apple bring their manufacturing in to the US or at least a country with better work conditions and still make money off of their products and keep their billions in cash reservces without raising prices on their products? I'd like to see a cost-benefit analysis of manufacturing in the US versus China.
DarkStar_WNY
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Yeah, I've always been torn on this issue myself.
The developed world was largely build on the backs of child labor, sweat shops, indentured servitude, and some truly horrific working conditions. Thankfully we, as a society, have grown beyond those, but does that give us the right to require underveloped countries to live by our standards?
Before you say yes consider this, how would you react if say Saudi Arabia decided "If you want to do business with us ou have to live by our standards" and said we needed to not allow women to vote, drive, etc?
Also it's worth pointing out that US still allows child labor in agricultural jobs and few of the rules most of us know as child labor laws don't apply in those agricultural. For example a 14 year old getting a job at the mall couldn't work more then 3 hours hours on a school day but on the farm the hours they can work, both before or after school, are unlimited (at least at a federal level, although some states might have limits that I am not familiar with.)
FragMagnet
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The biggest saving is in the lack of environmental laws, and the low taxes. Labour was always used as a scapegoat to justify the cheap offshore manufacturing. That way they diss the unions, rather than openly admit to polluting the fuck out of the environment and not wanting to pay their fair share of taxes. Really, if it takes more than 30 minutes of human "labour" to assemble most electronics these days, you're only changing the products end price by less than $10-$15, then subtract the shipping costs from half way around the world.
wonderfield
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Yes. The United States.
DarkStar_WNY
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Your partially correct, although you lost me totally with your "not wanting to pay their fair share" crap as that is classic entitlement thinking.
As for the added cost of labor your only looking at the finished product and forgetting that there would be increased labor cost for every single component as well.
Also there is a cultural aspect which many, not in manufacturing, don't recognize. In China, as in Japan, the emphasis is on the group/whole where in the US it's on the individual. While this might seem meaningless at first glance it's vitally important when it comes to quality. In China if a worker is taught to do a job they will put their effort into doing it exactly as they were shown, to results in every single person doing the task virtually indentically. In the US on the otherhand workers tend to feel they know better and there will be far greater variation in how something is done between different workers and this variation introduces unknowns into the manufacturing process which often results in quality issues.
leSLIe
Fisting is Too Mainstream for Me
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You've never seen what real poverty is? don't ya? geez!!!
It's far different from parents teaching their kids what hard work is.
It's about necessity... They need to work, they were "lucky" to be "hired" by Foxconn. If they don't work, their families (who lives far away in poor provinces) most likely won't have anything to eat...
bloodhawke83
I Strike Fear into the Hearts of the Masses
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Kids need jobs too, what you think summer vacation is for?
They likely did. They found the agency that recruited the workers and forged the documents, dropped them and the plant and forced them to pay for the child's education at a school of the parent's choice AND match the income they were paying the child. That's pretty through to me.
LeninGHOLA
Vladimir Hayt
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How young were they?
Only problem, though, is that then you have to define "their will" and if they are old enough to have an appropriate "will" lol..
Is it their will or their parent's will to work? Which one would you take to court? Is the child old enough/mature enough to know what is best for them or their families? Where would you draw the line?
All these things is what people will use to fight/defend child labor - its simply easier to say they shouldn't work.
Thank you!
Apple's whole 'problem' is self-inflicted. With their profit margins, they could easily afford to source and assemble at least some of their junk here in the US.
Sympathy-O-Meter [\.......]
Metrocall
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http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/_news...lans-to-manufacture-mac-computers-in-usa?lite
He says an entire line but not which, but if I had to guess I'd say the Mac Pro.
wonderfield
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The Mac mini.
Apple inherited their problem from other causes. The study of this would be called logical inheritance. Paradoxically, if you trace it all back to its point of origin (like CSI style), then you end up at a point in time equal to about 13.7 billion Earth years ago.
What I mean is did the company force them to work or did the kids/parents seek employment themselves. The issue here is the company that's hiring kids so whether it was the parent's or kid's idea is irrelevant.
Or that coulda just been the coverup because SOMEONE has to get thrown under the bus when the company is found in the wrong.
I'm going to assume the first part was sarcasm and just respond with, lol. I agree with the last part though. When all the US citizens were crying about how many hours foxconn employees were "forced" to work, they didn't realize that the workers needed those works to make more money to send home. And when the hipsters won and Foxconn started shorting hours, the workers got upset.You've never seen what real poverty is? don't ya? geez!!!
It's far different from parents teaching their kids what hard work is.
It's about necessity... They need to work, they were "lucky" to be "hired" by Foxconn. If they don't work, their families (who lives far away in poor provinces) most likely won't have anything to eat...
I co-sign this and also believe this is one of the root causes of a good amount of the culture clashing ideals between the two nations when discussing various topics.
From what I read alot of these kids come from vocational schools - basically the company hiring these kids paid off some school officials and in turn they supply the factories with students to work under the guise of 'education'.
Meanwhile the kids getpaid next to nothing, with most of it going into corrupt officials pockets. And the hours aren't typical school hours - more like 11/12 hr days spent working.
Exploited? Quite a leap there. Why, because they're children and working? Are kids mowing neighbors lawns being explioted then? How about ones working a paper route? Getting up to feed the animals on a farm? Doing odd jobs at the local store? Should I report the kids who work at the family's Italian resteraunt who help seat people and put orders together as being exploited?
Or are they only exploited because they work at a factory, in China? Which last I checked those factory jobs were actually highly desireable over there with a lot of competion to get hired. A family or even child themselves might want to get in there to get a leg up over everyone else for their futures. You assume incorrectly that children all over the world just want to sit around and play video games all day and beg mom and dad for money. They have over a billion people living there and only so much work to go around. The sooner one can get started the more valuable they will be on down the road.
Sure, and we can completely ignore the fact that if a child is working 8-16 hours a day, s/he has zero chance of achieving a meaningful level of education. Thus, this poor child who is working to support the family will end up having no options at all other than working an assembly line. Even better, since the child has no chance to save any money, the cycle is likely to continue indefinitely, entrenching his/her descendants into the lower class because they'll probably have to go to work instead of school, too.
There are many reasons child labor is illegal/strictly controlled in the US, and I'll offer a few for you and yours to chew on:
1. Education is important. Being pigeon-holed in a career from birth ain't how we do it anymore and it's apparent that US society is better for it.
2. Since children are, obviously, uneducated they are only qualified for jobs requiring little to no education. These jobs tend to be in manual labor which is, again obviously, more dangerous than thinking, writing, and talking. Even on an assembly line, there is great risk for repetitive stress injuries that could end in a child being crippled early by damage to their still-developing body.
3. All child labor is compulsory. Even societies that have banned/strictly limited child labor don't tend to give children things like voting rights. Thus, they are at the mercy of their families and societies. Even when it seems voluntary, a child taking a job because the family may starve otherwise isn't truly exercising free will. S/he is a slave of circumstance.
Now, all that said, if you want to argue "so what, it's up to each child's society to decide," then I guess you're right. However, when labor is being outsourced, it's also up to the controlling company and its customers (and maybe the home government of the company as well).
That's an argument to fix problems, not to replace one problem with another.
You're forgetting half the forum members here want to do away with unions. Of course they don't care.
wonderfield
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Better.
Ah, no. Yes there's corruption in unions, but I was referring to unions pushing for child labor laws, health care, 8 hour 5 day week, vacation time, and equal opportunity employment.
Of course we could argue all night about the cons of union, but don't bother because I already know about about it. This particular article was discussing child labor, and that's one of the good thing about unions.
precisely! why, some of these kids even reject paying mandatory fees for services they choose not to use. what incredible cheek!
/sarcasm
i'm actually with you when it comes to employing youth, but 'normal' in the first world applies to a whole lot more than just the acceptable age range of employable persons. there's a whole host of real problems affecting 3rd world manufacturing which aren't so easy to excuse or rationalize.
This probably deserves its own front page article, but:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/b...ail-to-keep-up.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&_r=4&
In which we find out what happens when Chinese kids get educated instead of working in factories. The ones with college degrees are four times as likely to be unemployed as those with elementary school educations. With factory work, you get double-digit annual pay increases and benefits, and the pay is three times that of an office job.
The social aspects are also entirely different than they are here in the US. A college degree there does not get you any respect or social status like it does here. The pay and benefits at Chinese factories are only going to get better and better, as Chinese youth grow increasingly hostile towards factory work.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/b...ail-to-keep-up.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&_r=4&
In which we find out what happens when Chinese kids get educated instead of working in factories. The ones with college degrees are four times as likely to be unemployed as those with elementary school educations. With factory work, you get double-digit annual pay increases and benefits, and the pay is three times that of an office job.
The social aspects are also entirely different than they are here in the US. A college degree there does not get you any respect or social status like it does here. The pay and benefits at Chinese factories are only going to get better and better, as Chinese youth grow increasingly hostile towards factory work.