Apple Launches Fair Labor Inspections of Foxconn

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
How much do you want to bet that the conditions found by the Fair Labor Association are significantly different than what is actually happening at Foxconn? It's not like the FLA is going to have completely unrestricted access. Is it really this difficult for Apple, Microsoft, Dell and everyone else to find a different damn company to make their stuff? :rolleyes:

The iPhone maker announced today that it has asked the Fair Labor Association (FLA), an organization "dedicated to ending sweatshop conditions in factories worldwide," to investigate Foxconn facilities in Shenzhen and Chengdu, China. The first inspections began this morning in the Shenzhen factory known as Foxconn City.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
This makes my head spin.

I lost my job.

Our jobs go overseas.

Overseas jobs are cheap

Cheap overseas jobs make our stuff cheap

Cheap stuff makes us buy.

Us buying makes our companies money.

Our companies make money by making the thing we buy for little money.

Little money, makes the companies that make our stuff pay little

Paying little, makes the people that make the things jump off buildings.

People jumping of building makes us upset that our companies that make the things we buy cheaply dont do anything about it.

Maybe they should just build it here for more money.

Wait, something is missing from my logic.
 
My question is: What took them so damn long to do this?

Also, the FLA will find conditions being 'substandard', but not as deplorable as they can get, and everything will get swept under the rug.
 
Steve said:
How much do you want to bet that the conditions found by the Fair Labor Association are significantly different than what is actually happening at Foxconn? It's not like the FLA is going to have completely unrestricted access. Is it really this difficult for Apple, Microsoft, Dell and everyone else to find a different damn company to make their stuff? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Regarding the bolded question. Yes.

FoxConn does OEM for everyone including Asus, Samsung...lots of big brands....Oh, and Intel too.And any other OEM company in China will have as bad a rep or worse in terms of labor conditions.

It really is hypocritical for people to be griping about labor conditions of OEM computer parts...when you consider their computers were by and large made by these companies, as are the servers that drive [H] and every other website.
 
They bought them lunch? That was rather nice of them.

Steve said:
Is it really this difficult for Apple, Microsoft, Dell and everyone else to find a different damn company to make their stuff? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Yes. It really is that difficult.
 
You can pretty much thank the union thugs here in the USA that forced this to happen.

They want these companies to use the US for labor, want them to pay ridiculous prices for it, but also want the end consumer price to remain low.

It doesn't happen that way. Standing on a manufacturing line shouldn't cost the company $15/hr.
 
Steve said:
Is it really this difficult for Apple, Microsoft, Dell and everyone else to find a different damn company to make their stuff? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Honestly Steve I think you'd know that the answer is yes. Foxconn is in EVERYTHING. They are the largest electronic parts manufacturer in the entire world, by far. There is no close second.
 
XvMMvX said:
You can pretty much thank the union thugs here in the USA that forced this to happen.

They want these companies to use the US for labor, want them to pay ridiculous prices for it, but also want the end consumer price to remain low.

It doesn't happen that way. Standing on a manufacturing line shouldn't cost the company $15/hr.
Click to expand...

It ain't just labor costs. It is the environmental regs, both @work and outside. Companies in China operate in ways that openly dare dust fires to happen, as well as dump carcinogens into the ground and atmosphere. In a few decades, China will regret their laissez-faire attitude to environment safety.
 
As a customer of Foxconn, this is really all Apple can do other than pull it's business. That would be quite difficult.
 
SpeedyVV said:
This makes my head spin.

I lost my job.

Our jobs go overseas.

Overseas jobs are cheap

Cheap overseas jobs make our stuff cheap

Cheap stuff makes us buy.

Us buying makes our companies money.

Our companies make money by making the thing we buy for little money.

Little money, makes the companies that make our stuff pay little

Paying little, makes the people that make the things jump off buildings.

People jumping of building makes us upset that our companies that make the things we buy cheaply dont do anything about it.

Maybe they should just build it here for more money.

Wait, something is missing from my logic.
Click to expand...

All of the above = management problem at Foxconn.
 
XvMMvX said:
You can pretty much thank the union thugs here in the USA that forced this to happen.

They want these companies to use the US for labor, want them to pay ridiculous prices for it, but also want the end consumer price to remain low.

It doesn't happen that way. Standing on a manufacturing line shouldn't cost the company $15/hr.
Click to expand...

I don't agree with this. Unions favor workers, not the corporations. The way I see it, time is money, and anyone on a manufacturing line should get paid just like anyone else. Your job is no more difficult then any other job.

Here's a look into the future. Right now Chinese workers get treated like the way they do now, but eventually things will change. As their living standards increase, so too will their expectations. Not even the Chinese want to be treated like robots forever. They'll better pay, and the ability to have a life.

When it gets too expensive to manufacture in China, the companies will pack their bags and move their shops to another poor country. Should sound familiar, as this sort of thing happened all over the US in the past. Paterson NJ comes to mind, as it was once the silk capital of the world, and now it's the slums. It's nothing but a shadow of it's past. Companies are pretty good at packing up and moving.

So long as there's poor countries, there will always be a home for corporations.
 
I have no expectation that this will tun into any more than a "Yep, they're ok over here" type of deal. You really think the factories are just going to open up and let the inspectors see everything that's going on? If they really wanted a fair assessment, they'd have undercover employees who report back on working conditions.
 
Ashbringer said:
I don't agree with this. Unions favor workers, not the corporations. The way I see it, time is money, and anyone on a manufacturing line should get paid just like anyone else. Your job is no more difficult then any other job.

Here's a look into the future. Right now Chinese workers get treated like the way they do now, but eventually things will change. As their living standards increase, so too will their expectations. Not even the Chinese want to be treated like robots forever. They'll better pay, and the ability to have a life.

When it gets too expensive to manufacture in China, the companies will pack their bags and move their shops to another poor country. Should sound familiar, as this sort of thing happened all over the US in the past. Paterson NJ comes to mind, as it was once the silk capital of the world, and now it's the slums. It's nothing but a shadow of it's past. Companies are pretty good at packing up and moving.

So long as there's poor countries, there will always be a home for corporations.
Click to expand...

The thing you're missing is the massive cultural gap between US workers and Chinese workers. Do the people at Foxconn work in what US workers consider awful conditions? Yes. Would US workers consider living in an 8-person dorm room, and having 12 hour/day shifts? Heck no. For many Chinese these conditions are an improvement from having only a hole in the ground to go to the bathroom in, and needing to go down to a polluted river for water. No matter how awful Foxconn may treat its workers, it is at least slightly better than what many of them come from.
 
TechLarry said:
As a customer of Foxconn, this is really all Apple can do other than pull it's business. That would be quite difficult.
Click to expand...

They should pull their business from Foxconn. Even if it is quite difficult. They have the money and the means, it's not like this would cripple Apple and they'd go out of business.
 
Buckus said:
They should pull their business from Foxconn. Even if it is quite difficult. They have the money and the means, it's not like this would cripple Apple and they'd go out of business.
Click to expand...

What other OEM has the flexibility to completely redo its assembly like in a matter of days? Oh, and produce the volume Apple needs? Oh, and work at the marginal profits Apple unwillingly hands to OEMs?

Goog luck finding other candidates that do better to their workers and can do the above.
 
Buckus said:
They should pull their business from Foxconn. Even if it is quite difficult.
Click to expand...
I don't believe you fully comprehend just how difficult that would be for Apple. Have you not seen the volume of products Apple moves every quarter?
 
SpeedyVV said:
This makes my head spin.

I lost my job.

Our jobs go overseas.

Overseas jobs are cheap

Cheap overseas jobs make our stuff cheap

Cheap stuff makes us buy.

Us buying makes our companies money.

Our companies make money by making the thing we buy for little money.

Little money, makes the companies that make our stuff pay little

Paying little, makes the people that make the things jump off buildings.

People jumping of building makes us upset that our companies that make the things we buy cheaply dont do anything about it.

Maybe they should just build it here for more money.

Wait, something is missing from my logic.
Click to expand...

This is the thing that's missing from your logic: money. Chinese sweatshop workers who work for pennies on the dollar are the cheapest source of labor. Apple's obligation is not to the American people, it is to the shareholders. Practically speaking, Apple has no choice in the matter.

I'm not saying it's right (it's not, it's an abomination and an affront to humanity), but that's how the priorities have been set up, and in that sense, they're doing an A+ job. They have the highest market cap in the world of course, it's not like they can slip to become #2 or something.
 
Buckus said:
They should pull their business from Foxconn. Even if it is quite difficult. They have the money and the means, it's not like this would cripple Apple and they'd go out of business.
Click to expand...
Why would a company that has never cared about its staff, its workers or its customers do that? The only thing Apple cares about is control and the bottom line. This gesture of involving the FLA is an utterly pointless exercise in spin control. Even if they find that conditions are atrocious, does anyone honestly believe it will motivate Apple to do anything? If they were that concerned about it they would have changed by now.
 
XvMMvX said:
You can pretty much thank the union thugs here in the USA that forced this to happen.

They want these companies to use the US for labor, want them to pay ridiculous prices for it, but also want the end consumer price to remain low.

It doesn't happen that way. Standing on a manufacturing line shouldn't cost the company $15/hr.
Click to expand...

Please follow this link, and look at the two graphs titled "you have nothing to lose but your gains" and "labor pains". Then read my comment below where I put things into perspective.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-americans-working-harder-charts

Giving workers a collective voice where they can (at least try to) balance the needs of the big corporation is not unfair. When the average American worker has seen his wage stay practically the same over 30 years, unions are allowing American workers to get what they deserve. I always thought one aspect of the American Dream was absolute mobility, where as the pie gets bigger, we all get a bigger piece of the pie, not only the CEO (who has had his income grow by 6x over the past 30 years). Union members earn about $800 more per month more than non-union workers, now if you think that's a fortune, you're entitled to your opinion, but I call it fair capitalism, and rigged capitalism.
 
Buckus said:
They should pull their business from Foxconn. Even if it is quite difficult. They have the money and the means, it's not like this would cripple Apple and they'd go out of business.
Click to expand...

Money, yes. Means, no. Foxconn would be very difficult to replace. There's no one else quite like them.
 
XvMMvX said:
You can pretty much thank the union thugs here in the USA that forced this to happen.

They want these companies to use the US for labor, want them to pay ridiculous prices for it, but also want the end consumer price to remain low.

It doesn't happen that way. Standing on a manufacturing line shouldn't cost the company $15/hr.
Click to expand...

Those jobs would have gone overseas with or without union influence. You would have to remove or lower the minimum wage in the US to the same levels as China to retain those jobs here.
 
Cobalt35 said:
Why would a company that has never cared about its staff, its workers or its customers do that? The only thing Apple cares about is control and the bottom line. This gesture of involving the FLA is an utterly pointless exercise in spin control. Even if they find that conditions are atrocious, does anyone honestly believe it will motivate Apple to do anything? If they were that concerned about it they would have changed by now.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:
 
40% of all consumer goods are made by foxconn..so yes..it is very hard to find another source. Well if the jobs had not moved to china it would be a no brainer!!
 
XvMMvX said:
You can pretty much thank the union thugs here in the USA that forced this to happen.

They want these companies to use the US for labor, want them to pay ridiculous prices for it, but also want the end consumer price to remain low.

It doesn't happen that way. Standing on a manufacturing line shouldn't cost the company $15/hr.
Click to expand...

Skripka said:
It ain't just labor costs. It is the environmental regs, both @work and outside. Companies in China operate in ways that openly dare dust fires to happen, as well as dump carcinogens into the ground and atmosphere. In a few decades, China will regret their laissez-faire attitude to environment safety.
Click to expand...

While I would agree that unions share a part of the blame for jobs moving overseas, as do all the US rules and regulations but your forgetting two major parties in this and they are the US consumer and the US worker.

We the US consumers showed companies that we were unwilling to pay a premium for US made goods and thus companies needed to move overseas to compete with the lower labor costs.

The US worker shares the blame because for a long time they showed consumers, in the US and abroad, that quality wasn't a concern and thus the US became known for substandard goods. US car makers have been fighting to recover from that impression for decades. Yes some will say this is the fault of unions, and to a certain extent they are right, but you see the lack of interest in quality in many industries in the US to this very day even in non-union shops.


Skripka said:
The thing you're missing is the massive cultural gap between US workers and Chinese workers. Do the people at Foxconn work in what US workers consider awful conditions? Yes. Would US workers consider living in an 8-person dorm room, and having 12 hour/day shifts? Heck no. For many Chinese these conditions are an improvement from having only a hole in the ground to go to the bathroom in, and needing to go down to a polluted river for water. No matter how awful Foxconn may treat its workers, it is at least slightly better than what many of them come from.
Click to expand...

This is an excellent, and overlooked, point. We want to judge everyone by US standards and it doesn't work because many areas of the world don't have our standard of living and it wasn't that long ago, historically speaking, that cheap imports made in US sweat shops were putting Europeans out of business.

In this case, those who think companies should stop doing business with Foxconn I have to ask, do you think these workers would be better off if Foxconn closed down?

Finally I find it ironic how people in the US will rant about working conditions, wages, or whatever in China and demand that the issue is corrected and yet many of those same people would rant and rave if another country tried to tell us what labor, evironmental or business rules we needed to follow in the US.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Those jobs would have gone overseas with or without union influence. You would have to remove or lower the minimum wage in the US to the same levels as China to retain those jobs here.
Click to expand...


nah they calculated it out, an ipad would cost a whole 30$ more if it was produced in the U.S.A. there are a ton of costs hidden besides just labor costs when producing in china. If the stuff we buy was produced where we live america would be in a much better place, course china would be in a much worse place and it's already pretty bad over there soo i dunno. Humanity as a whole needs to move forward, not just one country. Though robots will soon replace all those no skill labor jobs, so maybe could move the robot factories back to USA when labor is a non issue.
 
thyshallsmite said:
nah they calculated it out, an ipad would cost a whole 30$ more if it was produced in the U.S.A. there are a ton of costs hidden besides just labor costs when producing in china. If the stuff we buy was produced where we live america would be in a much better place, course china would be in a much worse place and it's already pretty bad over there soo i dunno. Humanity as a whole needs to move forward, not just one country. Though robots will soon replace all those no skill labor jobs, so maybe could move the robot factories back to USA when labor is a non issue.
Click to expand...

Exactly, out of the 1.4 million jobs Foxcon provides, 1.2 million will be replaced by robots by 2014, it was on the front page a couple of month's ago. The fact that Foxcon manufactures for so many tech companies, yet the suicides are in the Apple division, go figure. Go to an apple store, pick a product, and I doubt there was more than 15 mins of human labour put into any of them, so 30 cents an hr vs 25hr, means less than $6 per item in actual labour costs. Offset that by the shipping cost and it's probably a wash. What doesn't happen in China, is any pollution regulation, and for every worker on the floor there are not 3 middle managers pulling in 6 figures, f**king around on facebook 80% of the time
 
XacTactX said:
Please follow this link, and look at the two graphs titled "you have nothing to lose but your gains" and "labor pains". Then read my comment below where I put things into perspective.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-americans-working-harder-charts

Giving workers a collective voice where they can (at least try to) balance the needs of the big corporation is not unfair. When the average American worker has seen his wage stay practically the same over 30 years, unions are allowing American workers to get what they deserve. I always thought one aspect of the American Dream was absolute mobility, where as the pie gets bigger, we all get a bigger piece of the pie, not only the CEO (who has had his income grow by 6x over the past 30 years). <b>Union members earn about $800 more per month more than non-union workers, now if you think that's a fortune, you're entitled to your opinion, </b>but I call it fair capitalism, and rigged capitalism.
Click to expand...

$800 is a hell of a lot of difference a month. At minimum-average wage, the typical person makes between $1160 to $1600 a month. You are basically saying being in an union automatically entitles these people to an extra 50-80% than their non-union counterparts. Why? Do they work any harder or are they any better than non-unionized employees? No. In fact, union workers often have less hours, more benefits, and less stringent requirements than their non-unionized counterparts. So what exactly entitles them to this extra cash?

If some guy who knows how to turn a screw in a hole is getting paid more than someone with a college degree, then I'm not surprised unionization has killed America's manufacturing sector.
 
Foxconn hires a few hookers for the team, some thugs to search out the company rats, a month from now they'll find absolutely no problems at that factory.
It the same lip service from Apple every year. We looked into it and found no problems.
 
[H]ocusPocus;1038379191 said:
I think maybe "Lunches" should be "Launches" ;)
Click to expand...

I just thought Apple was a bit peckish and needed to snack on some inspectors....
 
Tsuyoi said:
$800 is a hell of a lot of difference a month. At minimum-average wage, the typical person makes between $1160 to $1600 a month. You are basically saying being in an union automatically entitles these people to an extra 50-80% than their non-union counterparts. Why? Do they work any harder or are they any better than non-unionized employees? No. In fact, union workers often have less hours, more benefits, and less stringent requirements than their non-unionized counterparts. So what exactly entitles them to this extra cash?

If some guy who knows how to turn a screw in a hole is getting paid more than someone with a college degree, then I'm not surprised unionization has killed America's manufacturing sector.
Click to expand...

You realize that earning minimum wage, you can barely afford to make ends meet in the US given the near requirement of owning a car, and all the associated expenses. In addition to the fact that lots employers love only letting you work 39 hrs/week to avoid paying benefits. The cost of living in the USA is sky high even in the cheap areas. Cost of living in China is dirt cheap.

Rant about unionization if you want. There's a reason we developed organized labor in the USA. Because CEOs in offices didn't care about worker health, or safety, or paying employees a wage they could live off of. They cared only about their bottom line and their share holders. Kinda like why we have a CPSC to see if children's toys are covered in lead paint, or imported food has toxic levels of chemicals/hormones. Unions did a great many good things in this country, these days there are good unions and bad unions.

The off-shoring and outsourcing of US manufacturing came courtesy of laws like NAFTA, that had massive GOP approval that CEOs wanted to reduce expenses.
 
Skripka said:
What other OEM has the flexibility to completely redo its assembly like in a matter of days? Oh, and produce the volume Apple needs? Oh, and work at the marginal profits Apple unwillingly hands to OEMs?

Goog luck finding other candidates that do better to their workers and can do the above.
Click to expand...

If no other manufacturer agrees to do the work, they'll be forced to spin up their own factory or find another contractor. Unfortunately, there are millions (Billions) in China willing to ignore the environment and worker safety to chase these kinds of contracts, and if it's not in China, then it will be some other up-and-coming country willing to mortgage their their future for the right to make iPhones.
 
Skripka said:
You realize that earning minimum wage, you can barely afford to make ends meet in the US given the near requirement of owning a car, and all the associated expenses. In addition to the fact that lots employers love only letting you work 39 hrs/week to avoid paying benefits. The cost of living in the USA is sky high even in the cheap areas. Cost of living in China is dirt cheap.

Rant about unionization if you want. There's a reason we developed organized labor in the USA. Because CEOs in offices didn't care about worker health, or safety, or paying employees a wage they could live off of. They cared only about their bottom line and their share holders. Kinda like why we have a CPSC to see if children's toys are covered in lead paint, or imported food has toxic levels of chemicals/hormones. Unions did a great many good things in this country, these days there are good unions and bad unions.

The off-shoring and outsourcing of US manufacturing came courtesy of laws like NAFTA, that had massive GOP approval that CEOs wanted to reduce expenses.
Click to expand...


It is not that the cost of living in China is dirt cheap compared to the US, it is that the workers in China are willing to settle for much less. I'd like to find one American worker willing to live 6 people to one bedroom without water, electricity, heat, or a bathroom. To buy a comparable house in cities such as Beijing or Hong Kong actually costs more than it would in a US city such as LA or NY.

I'm all for raising the minimum wage and seeing workers paid more. But unions aren't the way to do it. Unions only look out for the best interests of their own workers, not for the greater good. Unionization has affected many industries negatively. Look at our educational system. Professors who are 70-80 years old are still paid to fall asleep in their classes, while new teachers can't even hold on to their job for a year.

Look at the MTA in NY. They now work less hours, charge more, and offer less services than 4 years ago. But whenever the city tries to intervene, the union just declares a working ban, and they shut down the entire citie's transportation infrastructure, costing millions of people time and money.

If you want fair treatment and higher wage, work to earn that for all employees equally, not just a small portion of employees who think they deserve more than their fellow workers simply because they belong in an union.
 
Exactly...problems like this would be greatly reduced if our government hadn't been bought off by big business. If we taxed/placed a tariff on these kinds of goods, you know like most every other country does, then it would no longer be so profitable to move manufacturing off-shore.

Part of the problem now is that our society is like a spoiled brat. Every one thinks that they should be able to have every cool toy that comes along just because they want one. Heaven forbid if a person actually has to, gasp, save up for something they want.
 
TechLarry said:
Money, yes. Means, no. Foxconn would be very difficult to replace. There's no one else quite like them.
Click to expand...

There's no place quite like Walmart, either, but people seem to find ways to do without them. If Apple cared enough, they'd do more than send in FLA inspectors...they'd stop production - and payment - until working conditions improved or they'd move production.
 
Tsuyoi said:
It is not that the cost of living in China is dirt cheap compared to the US, it is that the workers in China are willing to settle for much less. I'd like to find one American worker willing to live 6 people to one bedroom without water, electricity, heat, or a bathroom. To buy a comparable house in cities such as Beijing or Hong Kong actually costs more than it would in a US city such as LA or NY.

I'm all for raising the minimum wage and seeing workers paid more. But unions aren't the way to do it. Unions only look out for the best interests of their own workers, not for the greater good. Unionization has affected many industries negatively. Look at our educational system. Professors who are 70-80 years old are still paid to fall asleep in their classes, while new teachers can't even hold on to their job for a year.

Look at the MTA in NY. They now work less hours, charge more, and offer less services than 4 years ago. But whenever the city tries to intervene, the union just declares a working ban, and they shut down the entire citie's transportation infrastructure, costing millions of people time and money.

If you want fair treatment and higher wage, work to earn that for all employees equally, not just a small portion of employees who think they deserve more than their fellow workers simply because they belong in an union.
Click to expand...

In China it is a combination of workers being grateful that they have income to send back to their families back in Polluted NoWheresville...combined with the fact that any attempt to unionize for better conditions is met with a government crackdown with the Army being called out. Those workers have no choice.

Like I said. There are good unions and bad unions.

Out here there are several unions that don't do members that much good. I know of several that are the exact opposite. The educational system of the USA can't be blamed on unions so much as a combination of political infighting of policy as well as 200 years of unplanned for chaos and flying by the seat of our pants.

For how awful we talk about the US school system being, kids from all over the world come to the US to study because many of the top programs are in the USA. Most of my institution's physics department is made up of immigrant students. Most of the top music schools and conservatories are in the US.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top