Another Apple supplier faces criticism over labor conditions in China

[OhioChick]

Source: PCWorld

Nov 25, 2013 8:50 AM

A manufacturer of glass coverings for Apple is drawing accusations of worker exploitation from Hong Kong labor groups concerned with several employee suicides at its factory in China.

Hong Kong-based Biel Crystal Manufactory Limited is a listed suppler for Apple, and produces protective glass coverings used on mobile phones. The company's factory in Huizhou, China, however, has been the site of "numerous labor abuses," according to a report from Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM).

Employing about 40,000 workers, the factory produces glass coverings mainly for Apple, but also counts Samsung as a client. To be hired, employees at the factory are allegedly required to sign an application asking for voluntary overtime. As a result, workers tend to log 11-hour work days, including over the weekend, SACOM said.

The factory also allegedly denies injured workers proper compensation, and has set up a strict punitive system to keep employees in line, according to SACOM. Employees are fined for not reaching production targets, falling asleep at work or breaking the glass used in the manufacturing.

Read more: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2066880/another-apple-supplier-faces-criticism-over-labor-conditions-in-china.html

[grahamhgreen]

1. End the costly trade agreements.

[pampango]

3. The only trade agreements China has are with Switzerland, New Zealand, Iceland, Chile, Costa Rica,

Peru, Pakistan and the ASEAN countries (10 countries in SouthEast Asia). Norway and Australia are negotiating agreements with China, but no EU countries or North American countries have or are negotiating trade agreements with China.

http://fta.mofcom.gov.cn/topic/chinaasean.shtml

[OrwellwasRight]

5. The WTO is a trade agreement.

n/t

[pampango]

6. No, it's not. It's an international trade organization like the UN is an international political

organization, the WHO is an international health organization, etc.

The members of these organizations determine and change what rules they follow and what actions they take. The WTO is the successor to GATT which was an FDR creation to create multilateral control of international trade.

[OrwellwasRight]

12. Sorry, but the GATT was a trade agreement.

And so is its successor, the WTO. It's got trade commitments, tariff commitments, TBT commitments, service commitments. It's an enforceable trade agreement. The WHO has no binding agreements, no dispute settlement forum, and doesn't require us to change our laws or pay penalties to other countries--no enforceability whatsoever. The WTO does. If you don't think the WTO is a trade agreement, you just don't get it. The WHO is zero percent like the WTO.

GATT went into effect in 1947. FDR was dead.

[pampango]

14. When GATT was negotiatied and signed, FDR was very much alive. Ratification came after his death.

The (Bretton Woods) conference was held from 1 to 22 July 1944, when the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was signed and agreements were executed that later established the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The (Bretton Woods) Conference also proposed the creation of an International Trade Organization (ITO) to establish rules and regulations for international trade. The ITO would have complemented the other two Bretton Woods proposed international bodies: the IMF and the World Bank. The ITO charter was agreed on at the U.N. Conference on Trade and Employment (held in Havana, Cuba, in March 1948), but the charter was not ratified by the U.S. Senate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_Conference

The Senate was controlled by republicans then and they refused to ratify the ITO (which would have been more like the WTO than like GATT) on national sovereignty (and partisan) grounds.

FDR's ITO idea was very ambitious though it was never ratified.

The draft ITO Charter was ambitious. It extended beyond world trade disciplines, to include rules on employment, commodity agreements, restrictive business practices, international investment, and services.

http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact4_e.htm

I think it is right to call FDR an 'internationalist' ("globalist" had not been coined yet) since he believed in multilateral institutions to control many areas of international dealings which had been exclusively handled by national governments before.

[OrwellwasRight]

17. So your argument is that it's not a trade agreement because FDR was alive when it was conceived of?

Sadly, irrelevant.

[pampango]

25. Perhaps I mistook "GATT went into effect in 1947. FDR was dead" as implying that FDR did not support

it. That was the aim of my response.

If you want to define a global organization composed of 194 countries as a 'trade agreement' because membership involves negotiating and following the rules that every other member country follows, go right ahead. To me that is the essence of FDR's belief in multilateral governance of trade.

I suppose one could make the argument that the US is different (exceptional?) enough that we should not have to belong to an organization that requires us to follow the same rules as everyone else. We are big enough and strong enough to get along without the rest of the world. Let the small countries of the world join together if they want. We will go our own way without them and be better off for it.

Perhaps that is the rationale that the republican base uses in wanting to withdraw from the UN, the WTO and many other international organizations.

[OrwellwasRight]

26. No, one could and does make the argument

that NO nation should belong to an organization that puts commercial interests ahead of human rights, labor rights, a clean environment, food safety , consumer information, and other public interest objectives.

As I said before the GATT was about tariffs. It did not create a private right of action or an extrajudicial system to resolve disputes. It relied on diplomatic solutions, just as the UN does. The WTO, on the other hand, sets binding rules for a host on non-trade issues, including food safety rules, regulations of general application, regulations on banking and insurance, government procurement policies, intellectual property, etc. And if a country is accused of violating such rules, another country can bring a case. If a country is found to have instituted a law or policy that violates some other country's commercial interest, then the country must withdraw the law or regulation or else face increased tariffs or other trade penalties. The GATT did not have this, nor does the UN have this power, nor the ILO, the WHO, the FCTC, or other international instrument. Under this procedure, the US has had to rewrite the dolphin-safe tuna labeling law three times, rewrite the country-of-origin labeling law for meat three times, etc. (and note that these laws simply label products, they do not stop products from entering the country (the traditional definition of trade)). So, yes the WTO is a trade agreement, yes, it's destructive, and yes, it is preventing countries from prohibiting the import of goods made in violation of internationally-recognized labor rights as established by the ILO.

To compare the UN to the WTO is a red herring. The UN does not put property rights over human rights (quite the contrary), and its power is moral suasion, not financial penalties to enforce compliance.

But I suppose one could make the argument that property rights superseding human rights is a Democratic party value. But one would be wrong.

[grahamhgreen]

8. It's called PNTR!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_normal_trade_relations

And it's destroying my country, thank you






Rate The Torturer Movie at Netflix (if you dare)! http://thetorturer.com -- A Military Interrogator Returns from Iraq with Acute PTSD -- Shocking, Copmpelling, Intense! - Thom Hartmann

[pampango]

9. And it is a provision of FDR's GATT to promote international trade.

In 1948 the United States joined the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the predecessor organization of the World Trade Organization. In accordance with GATT provisions the United States agreed to extend what was then called Most Favored-Nation status (MFN) to all GATT member countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_normal_trade_relations

Trade is not destroying our country any more than it is destroying Germany, Canada, Norway or any other (more progressive) country. Weak unions (Taft-Hartley), regressive taxes and a shredded safety net are destroying out country.

[grahamhgreen]

10. Of course it's the costly trade agreements. How can an American factory worker compete with $10/day?

How can we provide jobs for Americans when we ship our industries overseas?

American shoes should be made by American workers.

Foreign produced goods should be taxed to support American industries.

It's the way it worked here for 200 years.


But I'm getting off topic. We can agree that America has a trade agreement with China, yes?

[pampango]

13. In the sense that we have a 'trade agreement' with 194 countries, yes we have one with China, too.

Not letting China into the WTO (which would mean keeping 1/4 of the world's population out of the 'world' body) would not have been a miracle cure for our trade deficit with them.

There are a some countries not in the WTO and we have a trade deficit with all of them. Percentage-wise our trade balance is worst with non-WTO countries, next-worse with WTO countries and best (almost balanced) with 'free-trade' countries. Just because a country does not belong to the WTO does not mean that we have a trade surplus with them.

We are not going back to the republican tariffs of the 1920's. FDR did not want that. Most Democrats do not want that. The republican base would love to see that.

[grahamhgreen]

15. So how do we get our high paying manufacturing jobs back?

[pampango]

16. The way that Germany (and many others) does it - high/progressive taxes, an effective safety net and

health care system and strong unions. One can, of course, say that those policies are impossible in the face of trade with poor countries. Perhaps they are 'impossible' but they are 'real'.

Now republicans are unlikely to go along with any of these. Is that surprising? Does that make them 'bad' or 'unworkable' policies? High tariffs are certainly popular with a large segment of the republican base, so that is perhaps a more 'achievable' policy goal than the ones I listed earlier. I suppose, if the argument is that we have to do 'something', tariffs are the most likely 'something' to get through Congress than are progressive taxes, single-payer health care or a repeal of Taft-Hartley.

Tariffs did not create a prosperous, equitable society in the 1920's in the US. That is why FDR campaigned against them and reversed them as president. And he wanted a post-war world in which high tariffs did not return. Progressive countries today do not use high tariffs. They still live by FDR's trade policies even if some Democrats have moved on to other ideas.

[grahamhgreen]

18. The way Germany does it is to have a law that requires 50% of the board of directors to come from

The workers!

I'd go for that law.

Also, they do a VAT, which is an effective tariff of 19% on imports.

Can we agree on a VAT on imports?

Also note the 50% duty on Chinese bicycles, lol!

Import duty & taxes when importing into Germany
Overview
Import duty and taxes are due when importing goods into Germany from outside of the EU whether by a private individual or a commercial entity. The import duty and taxes payable are calculated on the value of the imported goods plus the cost of importing them (shipping and insurance).

Duty Rates
The duty rates applied to imports into Germany typically range between 0% (for example books) and 17% (for example Wellington Boots). Some products, such as Laptops, Mobile Phones, Digital cameras and Video Game consoles, are duty free. Certain goods may be subject to additional duties depending on the country of manufacture, for example Bicycles made in China carry an additional (anti dumping) duty of 48.5%.

VAT Rates
The standard VAT rate for importing items into Germany is 19%, with certain products, for example books, newspapers and magazines, attracting VAT at the reduced rate of 7%. VAT is calculated on the value of the goods, plus the international shipping costs and insurance, plus any import duty due.

Minimum thresholds
When importing goods into Germany, duty is not charged if the total value of the goods (excluding shipping charges and insurance) does not exceed €150. Neither duty nor VAT is payable if the total value of the goods (excluding shipping charges and insurance) does not exceed €22. If the amount of duty plus VAT payable does not exceed €5, it is waived.

Other taxes and custom fees
Excise duty is payable on for example tobacco and alcohol.
Additional custom fees can be charged to cover the expense of performing any required examinations, verification and or testing of the imported goods.
Local Customs office and contacts
More information on import declaration procedures and import restrictions you can find at the German Customs website.

http://www.dutycalculator.com/country-guides/Import-duty-taxes-when-importing-into-Germany/

[pampango]

20. I certainly agree with the required union representation on the board. As for the VAT,

of course, that applies to domestically produced goods the same as to imported ones. It serves as a tariff on imports and as a tax on domestic goods.

We could certainly enact a VAT in the US. A 19% VAT would raise the price of things made in the US and to imports by that amount. That would be a hardship for many but, if we are willing to use the funds generated to fund the safety net as they do in Europe, it might be a good idea.

Of course, republicans hate the concept of a VAT so it won't be enacted any time soon.

[brentspeak]

19. A history of Pampango's misuse of invoking FDR

on DU to promulgate corporatist "free trade" agreements:

(in reply to Pampango's posts)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=653430

Related: Pampango's history of invoking the GOP/Tea Party here on DU to do likewise:

http://sync.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3218994

[pampango]

21. FDR opposed high tariffs and supported GATT, the IMF, the World Bank and the ITO

(the International Trade Organization). The ITO was not ratified by the republican senate due to "national sovereignty" concerns.

I think it is fair to say that he opposed high tariffs and supported the idea of multilateral governance of international trade and finance over those solely sovereign decisions of national governments. Beyond that it is impossible to know what FDR would have thought of current "free trade". (Woodrow Wilson was a big "free trade" advocate but that was before 12 years of Coolidge and Hoover.)

Republicans had raised tariffs and reduced trade (and created horrible income inequality) so much from 1921 to 1932 that he had a long, long way to go for anything approaching "free trade". He did make progress in reducing tariffs and increasing trade. I believe he would have favored negotiations and multilateral control in trade negotiations, rather than focusing on national sovereignty.

[brentspeak]

22. More bull$hit

Beyond that it is impossible to know what FDR would have thought of current "free trade".

As the one who enacted the Reciprocal Trade Agreement, we already know FDR would have opposed NAFTA, CAFTA, KORUS, and (especially) granting MFN to China.

[pampango]

24. The Reciprocal Trade Agreement was certainly FDR's first step away from republican high tariffs.

Given his later support for GATT and the ITO, I am not so sure it would have been his last.

[grahamhgreen]

7. It's called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_normal_trade_relations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_normal_trade_relations

And it's destroying my country, thank you.

[Ezlivin]

2. Glad that the new Mac Pro is built in Texas

My first Macintosh Plus I got back in 1985 was built in California.

I hope the bad reports from China continues to spur reinvestment in stateside manufacturing.

http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/

[onehandle]

4. They also supply Samsung and dozens of other top tech and watch companies.

But it wouldn't be a headline without the jealous lust against Apple, an American company.

[Dreamer Tatum]

23. and it wouldn't be a thread without your slavishness to Apple. nt

[tenderfoot]

11. I need to know where PCs are made?

A shop full of happy elves no doubt.

Not that I am defending Apple but I find it hard to believe that they are the only computer/electronics company that abuses cheap labor.

Something smells.