Apple CEO Tim Cook Responds to Reports of Worker Mistreatment

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Whines about masses of spare cash in bank, still buys from questionable supplier.


Either they could source more ehtically (the US for example), or set about actually improving worker conditions.

Final point, if they had so much loose cash, why do they not buy / make their own assembly plant?

Probably because they cannot claim ignorance of their suppliers treating their workers so terribly.
 
What's really bothering me about this whole thing is that people are just HATING Apple for this when Foxconn has some 30+ clients including a lot of the brands we talk about here like Asrock, Acer, and EVGA. You either hate all companies who use Foxconn or you look like a huge hypocrite. It's time to put your money where your mouth is, so to speak.
 
[citation][nom]g-unit1111[/nom]What's really bothering me about this whole thing is that people are just HATING Apple for this when Foxconn has some 30+ clients including a lot of the brands we talk about here like Asrock, Acer, and EVGA. You either hate all companies who use Foxconn or you look like a huge hypocrite. It's time to put your money where your mouth is, so to speak.[/citation]

Yeah many company's are but like the fanbois use to say all day long is that they have a huge margin and tons of money on the bank so they could change it at anytime but they don't, not all company's have that possibility due to extreme (for the consumer beneficial - for the poor workers not so much) competition.

So in other words crapple could change that and they choose not to when they easiley could - and that makes them worst of the pack... so to speak as you put it!
 
[citation][nom]g-unit1111[/nom]What's really bothering me about this whole thing is that people are just HATING Apple for this when Foxconn has some 30+ clients...[/citation]
It may be a total cliche, but "With great power comes great responsibility." Yes, Apple is more culpable here. Especially while being so hubristic.
 
As a consumer in today's economy, if I am offered product choice A and B, and they are both of the exact same build and quality, just that product A is made in China and sells for $200 and product B is made in the USA and sells for $275, which product am I going to choose?

Given that choice, I could make the altruistic decision and buy American since I know the money spent to manufacture the product went to a fellow American. But, with what I know about the average American consumer...they will buy what is cheapest, no matter where it is made.

If we, as consumers, start voting with our wallets and stop buying products made in China, then the manufacturers will have their hand tied with Chinese-made products that won't sell at any price.

If you are concerned about the loss of American jobs, start putting your money where your mouth is and buy American. Cars, clothes, furniture...hell, even computers if you can find any such thing anymore.
 
I'm not sure we have the whole story on working conditions in China. I've read that many people quit their jobs when the Chinese New Year rolls around and head back to their villages where they live off of their earnings. If I had the opportunity to work a year and then take a year off, I'd seriously consider it. On the other hand, I spent 5 hours straight working on a repetitive detail oriented project over the weekend and it about fried my brain. How can people do that for 12 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week for a year straight? In any case, I think we need to take a serious look at labor practices in China and get the real story. If there are abuses, they need to be fixed. But if there are scenarios that look abusive, but are actually a benefit to the employees we need to be aware of that too. I wouldn't want to misinterpret anything and take perks away from workers. POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
 
The truth is, when you live in a grass hut and eat rice for most meals - $1 an hour for back breaking labor doesn't sound so bad. Lower wages go farther in China. If we get things from China for dirt cheap, imagine how much it costs there? No import/export tax, no transport costs...and these people are accustomed to working very hard in a field. When you put it into perspective it doesn't sound so bad. The problem is that we think that sitting around playing video games as children is "normal". I remember seeing this thing on tv about this 10 year old kid in Africa who had to go out and get dinner for the family. What he found was a nest of rats and it was a good day. I spent 10 days in Haiti in my youth, and I can tell you...we are very rich and as a result, lazy.
 
[citation][nom]jungleboogiemonster[/nom]I'm not sure we have the whole story on working conditions in China. I've read that many people quit their jobs when the Chinese New Year rolls around and head back to their villages where they live off of their earnings. If I had the opportunity to work a year and then take a year off, I'd seriously consider it. On the other hand, I spent 5 hours straight working on a repetitive detail oriented project over the weekend and it about fried my brain. How can people do that for 12 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week for a year straight? In any case, I think we need to take a serious look at labor practices in China and get the real story. If there are abuses, they need to be fixed. But if there are scenarios that look abusive, but are actually a benefit to the employees we need to be aware of that too. I wouldn't want to misinterpret anything and take perks away from workers. POWER TO THE PEOPLE![/citation]

As long as it isn't FORCED labor, then who are we to judge if they want to work in those conditions? Right? Opportunity is opportunity, and it seems to me that America began our industrial revolution in much the same way...
 
[citation][nom]rantoc[/nom]Yeah many company's are but like the fanbois use to say all day long is that they have a huge margin and tons of money on the bank so they could change it at anytime but they don't, not all company's have that possibility due to extreme (for the consumer beneficial - for the poor workers not so much) competition.So in other words crapple could change that and they choose not to when they easiley could - and that makes them worst of the pack... so to speak as you put it![/citation]

That's true that a smaller manufacturer like EVGA or Asrock won't have the resources and logistics to change OEMs the way Apple would, I get that. But if they could they should.
 
[citation][nom]ubercake[/nom]This isn't a problem limited to Apple. The whole world is exploiting the Chinese population. The Chinese government is communist. These people are owned by the government. The Chinese government allows this. Our governments write policies to promote this exploitation because our politicians make money directly and indirectly through these short-term profits. If they did not, it would not be advantageous for our corporations to produce anything there.And so a few people jump off the roof... big deal. The Chinese government probably views this as supplemental population control.Blaming consumers is a cop-out. Just about everything we have a choice to buy has some components built in China.[/citation]
It's true that this isn't just a problem with Apple, but with with almost all large tech companies since most of them have hardware manufactured in China. Those who think is just a problem related to Apple are fan-boys.

Even though consumers usually don't have alternatives to technology manufactured in china, some of the blame falls on our shoulders, including my own.
 
The NY Times story is worth reading for anyone who missed it. Among the points they made are the additional cost of manufacturing in the US (estimate: +$65 for an iphone) may not even be the most significant hurdle. Even more scary is that certain industrial technical skills are essentially not available in any volume and are not even taught here. If true, we're probably past the point where any one company can make a change on its own -- they would be destroyed by competitive forces (not able to get the right product ready for production soon enough), or by lack of capability, or both.

Its easy to bash Apple who makes for a sexy hook for any news story, but anyone who's serious about overall improvement here needs to be willing to tackle both a) why the current Foxconn jobs are seen as attractive, aspirational jobs compared to other opportunities available to local labor (if your main interest is in improving global working conditions), or b) how incentives or other forces can be applied to all the industries involved, not just a single player (if you're specifically interested in being able to buy products made in the US or with US labor standards).

Apple's flying high today but it was not so long ago when they were doing quite poorly (and also, manufacturing in the US.) If they handicap themselves and their competitors don't, it will not be long before they are back at the bottom of the barrel. And if their jobs leave China but nothing else changes, the overall working conditions there will not have changed much at all, except an insignificant fraction of some of the "better" jobs will have disappeared.
 
- ... recognized by the slight sheen of your hair aluminous and corners of the eyes.”
 It is negligence not improved aluminium polishing factories*,
The same philosophy, doing business with the education tablet when Immoral aluminium dust jobs will have disappeared.
 
It is indeed true that the social, cultural and economic value of these workers are different than from what we're used to in this side of the world. But they're still humans. What happened to equality for all?
 
[citation][nom]eddieroolz[/nom]It is indeed true that the social, cultural and economic value of these workers are different than from what we're used to in this side of the world. But they're still humans. What happened to equality for all?[/citation]

That applies in America. Why is it our job to police the world? People have to want to be free.
There will always be a need for someone to do really crappy jobs. Hence, why we allow immigrants and why we have tolerated illegals in the past. Apparently, only white people should be butchers, sh!t shovelers, etc.
 


I wasn't searching for factory-scorecard info specifically about Google, but rather, using Google (obviously?). Even though Google is the world’s fourth-largest 'maker' of computer servers. Apple's self-righteous supplier reality distortion field does not diminish their competitors' wrongdoing, although I would agree that it makes Apple more disgusting. My point is that it's hard to find objective supplier comparisons regarding worker conditions, instead of company statements that are as trustworthy as politicians, trying to convince us to condone slave labor with our dollars. Interesting reads: http://www.chinalaborwatch.org and http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1691&context=globaldocs
 
hey tim you are a rotten liar like steve you have children working for apple
and they get treated like your crappy products they the workers are getting cancer
from making ur shit
 
[citation][nom]psychotek71[/nom]hey tim you are a rotten liar like steve you have children working for apple and they get treated like your crappy products they the workers are getting cancer from making ur shit[/citation]
Yeah All ur worker r belong to us
 
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