Apple comes out and says it

[kpete]

Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/22/1057295/-Apple-comes-out-and-says-it?via=siderec

[valerief]

1. Apple loves slaves. nt

[ohnoyoudidnt]

2. Of course, how else could they amass over $80 billion.

Not by paying Americans real wages and benefits to make their products.

[emulatorloo]

4. FOXCONN also manufactures amazon kindle, playstation3, XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii.

This is an excellent discussion to have, but it is going to be a dishonest one unless DU stops pretending that Apple is the only vendor using FOXCONN

Or ignoring Apple's initiative to make the working conditions better

[valerief]

5. Right. Apple and other U.S. corporations love slaves. nt

[emulatorloo]

7. Not just US. Taiwan, Finland, Switzerland, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden

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

Major clients


Acer Inc. (Taiwan)
Amazon.com (United States)[24]
In 2011, Amazon and Foxconn formed a joint-design manufacturing company. The move was meant to produce an Amazon branded smartphone sometime in 2012.[25]
Apple Inc. (United States)[26]
ASRock (Taiwan)
Asus (Taiwan)
Barnes & Noble (United States)
Cisco (United States)
Dell (United States)
EVGA Corporation (United States)
Hewlett-Packard (United States)[27]
Intel (United States)
IBM (United States)
Lenovo (China)
Logitech (Switzerland)
Microsoft (United States)
MSI (Taiwan)
Motorola (United States)
Netgear (United States)
Nintendo (Japan)
Nokia (Finland)[26]
Panasonic (Japan)
Philips (Netherlands)
Sharp (Japan)
Sony Ericsson (Japan/Sweden)[28]
Toshiba (Japan)
Vizio (United States)

[valerief]

9. Yes. Apple and other corporations love slaves. nt

[emulatorloo]

11. Ever seen a Du thread about any of those other corps?

I agree with you that it is a big issue. But DU is fundamentally dishonest about it

[valerief]

12. Yes, that makes Apple less guilty, I suppose. I just don't understand how. nt

[emulatorloo]

13. Don't put words in my mouth.

My point is that DU is very dishonest on the topic because of some bizarre obsession with Apple.

[valerief]

17. I'm waiting for your explanation. No, actually, I don't care.

I'm waiting for your threads on the other corporations.

[emulatorloo]

20. How many FOXCONN products do you own and use?

[AtheistCrusader]

60. Their shit is in everything.

Open up your generic computer. Look at the components on the motherboard. The connectors on your hard drive. Your power supply.

You'll find their logo everywhere. Inside TV's. Radios. etc.

[Sherman A1]

32. Precisely

Well Said!

[Scuba]

30. I have seen others, but fewer. Thanks for helping keep all these slave-masters in the light.

[ObServer2012]

76. Tenth worker at iPad factory commits suicide

Tenth worker at iPad factory commits suicide.

Yes, in FoxConn factory, BUT will ipad factory manufacture devices to Vizio?, Sony?, Panasonic? Intel? Dell?

[emulatorloo]

78. Xbox 360 assembly workers in China threaten mass suicide

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/12/xbox-assembly-workers-threaten-mass-suicide

You are entitled to pretend this is an "Apple Problem", but not your own set of facts.

This is way bigger than Apple.

[1monster]

27. Isn't that the company where the employees threatened mass suicide if they

didn't get better wages? And the company who promised serverance pay if they quit but no pay raises -- and then didn't come through with the severance when a large number accepted the deal?

I was thinking of buying a Barnes and Noble Nook. Who manufactures those?

I just read the post below. So B&N is a FoxxConn customer as well. Sigh. No Nookbook for me, then. I like real books better anyway. (It's just that my floor is sinking under the weight of them.)

[TheMadMonk]

36. Difference lies in how Apple and fanbois present the company.

And its products.


As for their "initiative" it's a lot like Nike's when they were busted using child and slave labour.

Only done at all, because they've had their noses forcefully rubbed in the facts. Minimalist, mostly cosmetic, and entirely begrudged.

[Leopolds Ghost]

56. Good point. Some times the best poster boy is the "untainted" "hip" company everyone loves

Like Nike in the 1990s (remember??)

[emulatorloo]

64. Textbook case of Apple Derangement Syndrome

[TheMadMonk]

69. Early Apple Fan, but dumped as it went more and more proprietary.

And less and less expandable.

[harun]

46. 80 billion of unpaid labor.

[KurtNYC]

74. iSlaves

[emulatorloo]

3. Deplorable. FOXCONN major clients

Just to keep the discussion honest:



[edit]Major customers

Foxconn manufactures products for companies including:
(country of headquarters in parentheses)

Acer Inc. (Taiwan)
Amazon.com (United States)[23]
In 2011, Amazon and Foxconn formed a joint-design manufacturing company. The move was meant to produce an Amazon branded smartphone sometime in 2012.[24]
Apple Inc. (United States)[25]
ASRock (Taiwan)
Asus (Taiwan)
Barnes & Noble (United States)
Cisco (United States)
Dell (United States)
EVGA Corporation (United States)
Hewlett-Packard (United States)[26]
Intel (United States)
IBM (United States)
Lenovo (China)
Logitech (Switzerland)
Microsoft (United States)
MSI (Taiwan)
Motorola (United States)
Netgear (United States)
Nintendo (Japan)
Nokia (Finland)[25]
Panasonic (Japan)
Philips (Netherlands)
Sharp (Japan)
Sony Ericsson (Japan/Sweden)[27]
Toshiba (Japan)
Vizio (United States)

----

See also Apple's initiative to improve factory conditions:

http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/

As far as I know, none of FOXCONN's other clients are doing anything

[Muskypundit]

24. The reason there is not so much outrage about the other corporations doing the same thing

Is because, frankly, our generation worships Apple. And Apple doesn't deserve it.

[tridim]

35. And only Apple has massive profit margins that our generation pays without question.

They have a 60%+ profit margin on the iPhone 4, none of which goes back to the people who build their products. It is hoarded by billionaires to make the billionaires richer.

It is disgusting.

[emulatorloo]

67. Seems rather hypocritical.

[Confusious]

26. People who own the other items

Don't constantly tell us how cool it is to own the the stuff.

Apple put itself front and forward, so it gets the brunt of criticism.

[emulatorloo]

73. So Samsung, Amazon, Dell get a free pass because somebody told you they liked their iPod?

Seriously?

That seems odd.

[Confusious]

75. The squeaky wheel gets the oil

Or the criticism in this case.

It's not just one person, as you would like to make it (which is a disingenuous argument BTW), it's the commercials, it's all you hear on the radio, it's the thousands of people saying "look at how cool we are because we own apple!"

You're in the lead, you get the brunt of the criticism. It's how it's always been, and unless humans change, it'll how it will always be.

It also puts apple at the top of the pack in having the power and responsibility to change it. Don't like it? Take apple back to where it was in the 90's, and people will look to some else to change it.

[joshcryer]

47. I don't recall entire websites dedicated to HP, with fans running around the internet...

...posting in every thread critical of HP in HP's defense.

[emulatorloo]

65. I guess that means HP doesn't use FOXCONN then?

What is your point, you hate Apple and and have an obsessive hard-on for Apple users, so HP is blameless?

Does not compute. You know it as well as I do.

[joshcryer]

70. Nah, more that Apple is the largest "feel good" consumer of Foxconn.

The other companies downplay if not outright slither through the cracks as far as consumerism is concerned. There are no major ad campaigns for ASRock motherboards for instance.

I don't hate Apple, I hate all electronics manufactures, if you can call it "hate," in any event.

No one who uses Foxconn is blameless, the question is more about whether Apple is using bullshit justifications to advocate Foxconn business. And they're clearly doing it and have been doing it. Other companies, of course, could be expected to do the same.

But other companies don't have the same fanbase, that constantly tries to "justify" their exploitive behavior.

You can feel free to "justify" it, or even dismiss it, but that doesn't change the fact that the exploitive behavior exists. It just means, when informed of it, you're more likely to overlook it because it benefits you more.

[emulatorloo]

71. I'm not here to "justify" Apple. I am here to learn how DU'ers "justify" denying the larger issue

and their own culpability in it.

So far I get is a version of "it is ok to pretend HP, Samsung, XBOX360, etc don't use FOXCONN because I hate Apple" Or "Apple users are mean to me" "My XBOX doesn't bother me because I like Microsoft's TV ads and I hate Apples." "It is ok for me to pretend I don't use FOXCONN products as long as I can get my rocks off on bashing Apple.

Josh, basically what I am seeing is people who have some psychological fixation on Apple and their straw men version of Apple users. These folks apparently versions of what we used to call Mac Haters.

An irrational obsession with trashing Apple, making up shit about Apple because of their bizarre obsession, and the odd weird persecution complex they feel about over "Strawmen Apple Users" who choose to use Apple products over Dell, Samsung etc.

This group has always been around, I have tons of real life experience with the irrationality of it and the FUD they spread. And I can tell you most of their talk about "mean Apple users" is a lot of projection.

To me these types cannot be honest with themselves or have a honest discussion about outsourcing, why all the electronic companies have moved to FOXCONN, and our own culpability in the cycle as consumers.

============

P.S. It is almost impossible to find an electronic device that FOXCONN has not had a hand in, and I appreciate your acknowledgement of that and that all these companies are culpable.

[think]

6. America's military protects the corporations that outsource our jobs

to communist countries.

But remember we can't afford to cut defense. We need to cut taxes so we can outsource more jobs and exploit the American military superiority to make sure no one disagrees.

[Atman]

8. OH NOES! Everything is Apple's fault!

Jesus, these threads are getting old.

[emulatorloo]

10. DU is fundamentally dishonest on this issue. Where are the Samsung threads?

The Dell threads, the Microsoft threads, the Amazon threads, the Barnes & Noble threads etc etc.

[valerief]

16. Why aren't you posting them? nt

[emulatorloo]

19. I am not your research assistant

I've provided a list of their vendors, go knock yourself out.

Have you figured out yet how many FOXCONN products you are using?

[brentspeak]

50. I did the research for you

And discovered that you haven't posted any threads concerning Samsung. Dell, Microsoft, etc. and their use of FOXCONN near-slave labor.

I did, however, discover that you have posted several replies on Apple-related threads indicating that you'd prefer people to shut up about Apple's use of FOXCONN near-slave labor.

[emulatorloo]

68. Brent, your speciality is putting words in other people's mouths and creating Strawman

I am so thrilled I get to experience the BrentSpeak magic first hand.

If you want to make up shit about me and claim I said something I didn't say, then knock yourself out.

[HuckleB]

81. Nice red herring response.

If that's all you can offer, then one has to wonder about motives.

[HuckleB]

79. EXACTLY!!!

DU seems to be heading down a road of lame bizarro BS.

[think]

14. Correct the blame needs to be shared by all the multinational corporations

that sold America out. Not just Apple.

[Atman]

25. Exactly.

By most measures, my fellow DUers would (and do) call me a fanboi. Apple obviously has not always relied on Foxconn. But I'm not about to change my whole way of doing business because of political incorrectness. I'd rather do what I can to pressure Apple to change rather than just blindly bash them and switch to a product I don't like.

[HuckleB]

80. +1,000,000,000,000

[Ilsa]

15. Then all of the execs should be required to live in China.

If the execs are going to ship all jobs overseas, they should be required to live there all of the time.

[caraher]

18. If we're brutally honest, it's "we love slaves"

Sure, Apple etc. all use this kind of manufacturing. But don't we enable this, wittingly or not? (I do not exempt myself from this criticism; I'm typing this on my MacBook Pro.)

What kind of consumer boycott would it take to make something change? As I understand it, labor costs are such a trivial portion of the cost of the gizmos we love that we should be able to pay the incremental cost of a humane workplace.

[think]

22. The situtation is very complex. However, complacency will not resolve the situation.

There are many ways to expose and shame corporate America for their implicit involvement. These corporations are not "innocent victims" but rather willing participants in exploiting the poor working class in undeveloped and communist countries.

As long as the American people turn a blind eye to the exploitation of the third world by our corporations the conditions for these people will continue to deteriorate.

Union leaders in these countries are being assassinated on a regular basis once again and America should not support this. A recent example:

An oil union leader and his wife were killed Tuesday in front of their children in southwestern Colombia.

Mauricio Arrendondo and his wife Janeth Ordoñez Carlosama were assassinated during the night by two hitmen on January 17, at their home in the southwestern department of Putamayo, according to a statement released by the petroleum trade union USO.

Full article:

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/21624-oil-union-leader-and-wife-killed-in-southwest-colombia.html

http://www.icem.org/en/3-Energy-Oil-and-Gas/4847-ICEM-Condemns-Assassination-of-USO-Leader-His-Wife-in-Colombia

Although these assassinations may not be directly connected to US corps and or their subsidiaries and partner companies as I've not had time to research this particular incident, there are other more blatant examples of the involvement by US multinational corporations in the assassinations of union leaders like the Coca Cola company.

Coca Cola has a long history of violence against unions especially in Guatemala and it is starting up again:

In a 1987 booklet, "Soft Drink, Hard Labour," the Latin America Bureau in London said:
"For nine years the 450 workers at the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Guatemala City fought a battle for their jobs, their trade union and their lives. Three times they occupied the plant — on the last occasion for 13 months. Three General Secretaries of their union were murdered and five other workers killed. Four more were kidnapped and have disappeared. Against all the odds they survived, thanks to their own extraordinary courage and help from fellow trade unionists in Guatemala and around the world.
"A huge international campaign of protests and boycotts was central to their struggle. As a result, the Coca-Cola workers forced concessions from one of the world's largest multinational food giants and kept the Guatemalan trade union movement alive through a dark age of government repression."
What happened at the Coke bottling plant in Guatemala in the '70s and '80s is happening again in Coke bottling plants in Guatemala and continues in Colombia....


Full article:
http://killercoke.org/lawsuits_2010_guatemala.php

Coca-Cola Accused of Using Death Squads to Target Union Leaders
By Garry Leech · July 23, 2001 · Save & Share
A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Florida accuses the Coca-Cola Company, its Colombian subsidiary and business affiliates of using paramilitary death squads to murder, torture, kidnap and threaten union leaders at the multinational soft drink manufacturer’s Colombian bottling plants. The suit was filed on July 20 by the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund on behalf of SINALTRAINAL, the Colombian union that represents workers at Coca-Cola’s Colombian bottling plants; the estate of a murdered union leader; and five other unionists who worked for Coca-Cola and were threatened, kidnapped or tortured by paramilitaries.

Colombia has long been the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists with almost 4,000 murdered in the past 15 years. Last year saw 128 labor leaders assassinated. Most of the killings have been attributed to right-wing paramilitaries belonging to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), who view union organizers as subversives and, therefore, “legitimate” targets in their dirty war against Colombia’s guerrilla insurgents. Three out of every five trade unionists killed in the world are Colombian. The most recent killing of a union leader at one of Coca-Cola’s Colombian bottling plants was June 21 when Oscar Dario Soto Polo was gunned down...

Full article:
http://colombiajournal.org/colombia73.htm

[dreamnightwind]

63. +1

Thanks for that info. And you bring up a great point. Labor does attempt to organize, but there are ruthless forces dead set against it.

Much of this traces back to our country and the corporatists who run it, so the American people do have a role to play. We have to change that role from passive consumer to active protectors of labor anywhere the multinationals setup shop.

Getting the money out of politics would possibly get it done. The politicians, the ones we'd elect anyway, could/would end this whole system of labor exploitation if they weren't dependent on campaign contributions from the multinationals.

Other course of action (boycotts, occupations, citizen to citizen worker alliances with other nations, etc.) are also worth pursuing.

We can't let this stand, no way, it's an evil system that knows only environmental destruction, inhumane working conditions, and obscene profits for those at the top.

[HuckleB]

82. Yup.

[Odin2005]

21. "efficiency" = "how can we justify our psychopathy"

Any system that turns human beings into mere TOOLS is evil.

[MannyGoldstein]

28. Only our government can stop this

If Apple doesn't use the cheapest labor available, its competitors will and will undercut Apple's pricing. Only tarrifs and other regs that apply to all goods sold in America can stop the hemmorhaging of jobs to microwage countries.

[RufusTFirefly]

33. Tariffs?!! NOOooo!!! The free market is our only true path to prosperity!!

Thing 1: There is no such thing as a free market

The free market doesn’t exist. Every market has some rules and boundaries that restrict freedom of choice. A market looks free only because we so unconditionally accept its underlying restrictions that we fail to see them. How "free" a market is cannot be objectively defined. It is a political definition. The usual claim by free-market economists that they are trying to defend the market from politically motivated interference by the government is false. Government is always involved and those free-marketeers are as politically motivated as anyone. Overcoming the myth that there is such a thing as an objectively defined "free market" is the first step towards understanding capitalism.

[tridim]

37. Apple's competitors ALL undercut Apple's pricing.

Because Apple products are grossly overpriced.

That is why the get all the heat from me.

[emulatorloo]

39. Apple's Airbooks cost the same as the Samsung equivalent

Verison offers the iPhone 4 for $99.00

You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to lose your bargain hunting skills and pretend that Apple's prices are out of line with mainstream quality vendors. When their prices are quite competive to other vendors with similarly speced gear.

So let's put this canard to rest.

[tridim]

42. It isn't a canard, it is a fact.

No commitment Iphone 4s Retail:

16gb $649.99
32gb $749.99
64gb $849.99

But go ahead and add 12 months of service to the price and pretend your phone only cost $99.00. Everyone knows what Apple realy charges.

[emulatorloo]

66. Who pays retail?

Plenty of Mac price trackers out there for bargains.

[quakerboy]

83. That doesn't provide any reference point comparison

Per apple.com, A 16 GB Iphone 4S is 649.99
Per Samsung.com, a 16 GB Galaxy S II Skyrocket is 649.99

Per Apple.com, a 16GB Ipad 2, Wifi is 499.99. A 32 GB is 599.99
Per Samsung.com, a 16 GB Galaxy Tab 10.1 is 499.99. A 32 GB is 599.99


There are some areas where the pricing seems less proportional. I-products do seem to cost more in general. Moving to the tablets with cell data, the Ipad version ends up a hundred bucks more. And I-laptops and Desktops do cost more, in my experience. But they are not as priced out of the market as you seem to imply.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

43. Forget tariffs.

There should be an outright ban on all goods that come from countries that allow those kinds of abuses. We must demand at very least some minimal worker protections. Most of all, it should be absolutely prohibited to deal in any way with countries that do not protect the rights of collective bargaining.

[MannyGoldstein]

44. I think we need to ban them here, as well

A friend of mine took a low-paying job in a call center of a major financial institution, temporarily while her husband was laid off. She was not allowed sick days. If she was out sick, she'd be fired.

How fucked is that?

We now eat and breath at the whim of the 1%.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

49. I too have worked such jobs.

A few years ago I was working at a job where if I was out sick for one day, if I was late even one minute, I was fired. There was a guy there whose - well, baby mama, I guess - gave birth in a city 300 miles away. He had to go there to see his son the next day, and when he asked for the day off, they told him, "It was a pleasure having you work here, but if you don't come in tomorrow, don't come in the next day." We never saw him again.

That kind of thing doesn't happen in most developed countries. The United States is alone among advanced countries in not required any paid sick or vacation days by law. Of course, it's far worse in nations like China, which has staked its claim as the sweatshop state. This is the fruit of the death of organized labor.

[lunasun]

77. Seen that too I had a friend who worked as a 'sub contractor' at a warehouse

since they were not "employes" somehow (whether legal or not),they could work them 7 days all the time.
..he showedme a big sign over the entrance to the work area that said- " If you dont show up on Sunday-do not bother coming in on Monday!"
I still think 7 days with out a break over a month is illegal and told him and the other guys that but noone there ever looked into it becuz......they were too busy working!!!

Oh yes someone is mumbling right now -why didnt they just quit if they didnt like it - but most needed to eat etc.and yes my friend left after awhile but the thing is the revolving door always had someome desperate to work comning in and the way the talk at the coffee shops is in a lot of places now tis better to be more like China then socialist Europe anyway

[kurtzapril4]

29. Article from Alternet vis a vis Apple

http://tinyurl.com/888gzn3

[Blacksheep214]

34. What about HTC?

Any horror stories with my phone?

[marmar]

40. Sniff. Leave Apple Alone.....

[2banon]

41. Story on This American Life this past week.. really well done.

If you're already familiarwith and enjoy radio program "This American Life", you should find this story informative and entertaining.

Mr.Daisey and the Apple Factory

[ChadwickHenryWard]

48. Thank you so much for posting that.

That was a truly spectacular piece. That story by Mike Daisey was so beautifully done, and so illuminating. I really loved the way he blew away that smokescreen at the end about how it's all okay. We don't accept those conditions for ourselves, and it's not right to push them on others. Further, it's just not true that the only way to prosperity is to work under slavery conditions - it is through organized labor and the constant struggle for better conditions. It is by refusing to accept these conditions that prosperity arrives.

[2banon]

72. You're welcome, I thought it was really well done too.

I learned some things about how these electronics are manufactured there, generally speaking. Though I gotta say, trying to wrap my brain around the size of Foxcomm's factory, and the tens of thousands of people working, sleeping there was really seriously challenging. I don't own an iphone or droid simply because I can't afford it, not just the product but the monthly cost of service for anything more than just a basic mobile phone service. But I would have been be an owner/user if my income had allowed for it all, without giving a thought to what manufacturing the product involved. As it is, I do use a samsung mobile, and a small LCD tv. Gonna have to seriously think about the sources of these products in the future.

[progressoid]

51. Listening now.

Wow

[unapatriciated]

58. Thanks for the link.

It is one think to know in the back of your mind that these conditions exist, Daisey's words paints a vivid picture of reality that can not be ignored.

[usrname]

45. If Apple is beholden to overseas, that's not necessarily good for Apple

Sure, they may have contracts with Foxconn, et al. But it's a monopsony, with Apple being the buyer of their services. If Foxconn as a corporation decides to go on strike and ask for more money, Apple can't fight back. What's Apple going to do? Go through the chinese court system to sue for breach of contract? I'm sure Apple understands that the chinese government owns at least 12.5% of every chinese corporation. So why would the chinese government help Apple in any way, especially if there's no alternative for Apple? I think Apple, Dell, H-P, Intel and other major computer manufacturers should really contemplate creating a joint manufacturing system here in the US. It may not be as draconian as the chinese system with its dormitories and 12-hour shifts. (And, according to the NYTimes article, labor is only a small portion of the costs. So if the shifts are returned to 8-hours and laborers are paid more per hour than in China, the overall increased costs would be only marginal.)

The point is, a corporation needs to not be held beholden to a singular supplier. Apple was wise to build all their Mac OS X's to run both on PPC and G3/G4 chips from Motorola and Intel chips. (The Mac OS X was designed and written to run on both RISC and CISC chips.)

An investment by Apple and other computer/electronics company for a Foxconn-like plant, or several such plants, would keep the competition for manufacturing available and to help these corporations maintain viable competitive contracts. And, if there's any breaches in contract, I think the US courts are slightly more balanced (at least the courts won't be in the pockets of either side).

It would be a 5 to 10 year process to establish a viable high-end electronics manufacturing base in the US. Could be shorter, who knows.

[MADem]

52. A biscuit and a cup of tea.

Is it no wonder they say "Kill me now?"

Geez--can't we make a fucking robot that will do that instead of forcing eight thousand people to do stupid, repetitive labor like that?

Then, shift working robot repair mechanics can hang out on stand-by, just in case they break.

What torture. There's gotta be a better way. Hell, we don't hand roll the cheetohs, why do we have to hand-assemble iCrap?

[me b zola]

53. If your business model relies on slave labor you should not be in business n/t

[fasttense]

54. When one corporation is allowed to use slave labor, and use labor controls that are crimes,

then it forces every other competing corporation to use those same criminal methods. We have a race to the most brutal and corrupt labor practices that can be devised. It's only going to get worse. Look how Newt wants to turn poor 2nd graders into janitors.

If these same methods of forced labor were used in the US, the people involved would go to jail. Just because computer corporations do it in a communist country, does NOT make it any less of a crime.

Allowing one corporation to get away with this sort of slavery, guarantees all the corporations will pursue the same methods. Criminal activity is an advantage in business. The other corporations must follow the same criminal model or lose in the market place. Hence the race for the most corrupt and abusive labor practices ever devised.

[Blacksheep214]

55. American prison labor

is being forced to work under these same to worse conditions.

That's why they want to build even more prison factories. Right CCA?

[Leopolds Ghost]

57. Only labor tariffs can solve this issue. And only a country ruled by middle/working class can do so!

[Blue_Tires]

59. kick

[thelordofhell]

61. Apple executives say that using Slaves, at this point, is their only option

One former executive described how the company relied upon Slaves to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately whipped 8,000 Slaves inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each Slave was given a hardtack and a cup of water, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames.


There......fixed it for you

[dreamnightwind]

62. Great article about global capitalism

Apple is used as an example (and they are a perfect example), not as the whole problem, so being hung up on Apple, good or bad, is missing the point.

This long article does a great job of laying out the whole situation. Some of the comments on the Times' site are good too. If anything, I thought the article was too easy on the whole system. Its strength was in painting the picture, its weakness was in interpreting the picture, and there was no attempt to do the analysis of how do we create a better picture in the future. But that's the New York Times for you.

It paints an amazingly dismal reality for the American worker. We're all living it, so no surprise, but it shows that we need radical change, not better management of our current system.

Productivity has never been higher. And, given a company's ability to offshore much of product development and manufacturing, taking advantage of controlled and desperate labor forces overseas, productivity has never been cheaper. Profit margins have probably never been higher. So, the privileged few get richer, the Asians get to live in forced work encampments, and we, if we can get any job that gives us enough money, can buy the products they make. No way is this a workable scenario for the future of this country.

I believe the corporate charter mandates maximizing shareholders' value. There's a real problem with this. What if a company wants to provide good wages, benefits, and good LIVES for their employees, at the expense of huge profits, and makes that their company's priority? They can be sued by their shareholders, that's what. That HAS to be changed.

Apple used the Chinese factory's ability to wake several thousand people in their dorms during the night to immediately begin work on the iPhone glass screens when Steve Jobs decided to wiggle his finger and demand the change in weeks. That's totally sick in so many ways.

Soon they'll just keep large pools of trained workers in suspended animation in tiny hibernation pods, only to be awakened when their services are needed for a job, then back to sleep they go, into a chemically induced comatose state. Worker drones. Count on it, that's where this road leads, and it's evil at its core.

I like the idea of tariffs. I've always liked the idea of a labor exchange rate, too, similar to a currency exchange rate. Or how about using monetary policy to enable us to make $17/day and live well on that amount of money in this country?

Ultimately I think we need to reject this whole business model, and make it either illegal or super expensive to buy products from companies that use it. It's why the trade agreements (supported by most all of our Dems as well as the Republicans) suck, they do nothing to address concerns of the workers, only concerns of the capitalists.

We want lives, not jobs. The two are not mutually exclusive. The story told in the Times' article is the story that results when the capitalists are running the show.

[quakerboy]

84. At some point

the workers will get irritated and become a liability. Then it will be cheaper to have someone make a robot to do it. And then we will have a hell of a situation, because they wont need hardly any workers, just a few techs. And we will still be increasing our population.