Apple Improving Working Conditions, But Some Employees Still Face Harsh Conditions

[Guest]

Apple recently performed an audit of its workforce with the goal of improving working conditions for its employees.

Apple Improving Working Conditions, But Some Employees Still Face Harsh Conditions : Read more

 

[Ben Liu]

Most of the problems isnt with employees working directly under Apple per se, but its a flow on implication with so-called "Partners" such as Foxconn (manufacturing), SMC (chip fab) that is the issue. Apple puts unrealistic time frames, low profit margins for these "partners" (ie. screw everyone policy) that forces the other companies to bottom out at cheap and underaged labour. No point checking Apple directly since they arent the factory workers who do suffer these conditions.

 

[Shankovich]

Why is Apple getting the spotlight for this issue only? Samsung, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, almost everyone really, uses Foxconn and similarly terrible companies to do their manufacturing and assembly. That, and the Chinese government supports and encourages it (big surprise). It's terrible. If you're still not very aware of this, watch "Santa's Workshop" documentary.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

1.6 million employees means .0229% of people on earth work for Apple.

 

[getreal]

.

 

[falchard]

WHAT ABOUT THE APPLE EMPLOYEES WHO HAVE TO WORK WITH A MAC?!?!

 

[iam2thecrowe]

I think the fact that Apple is considered a "premium product", and that they are making more profit on their devices than any other company, they can afford to help out some of the unfortunate, and give some reason as to why their products cost so much more.

 

[Suiton20]

They need to head to Flextronics in Austin TX. Forced overtime there. They make the employees work every single day with no days off, then have a massive layoff 3 months later on the Macpro line just to save money despite the fact that the orders are behind. 1 month later they hire a new set of people to rinse and repeat the same thing.

 

[swagatrath]

@FailDroid - not every damn topic is apple vs samsung... grow up...

 

[Ben Liu]

Why is Apple getting the spotlight for this issue only? Samsung, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, almost everyone really, uses Foxconn and similarly terrible companies to do their manufacturing and assembly. That, and the Chinese government supports and encourages it (big surprise). It's terrible. If you're still not very aware of this, watch "Santa's Workshop" documentary.

Actually Apple gets singled out because I know how much Apple squeezes on every bit of the supply chain in order to maximum profits whilst screwing everyone else over. Foxconn has already come out to say that the Apple margin IS by far the lowest of all of the OEM jobs it does (Sony, Nokia, Nintendo whoever else you want to add to the list) AND has the worst time frames possible to do (ie. We give you the designs 3 months in advance of the launch and expect 50 million units thank you). Hence why the main suicides that are happening within it ARE workers who are on the Apple production line as opposed to the others. In order to meet the time frames, they will pull in school kids to do the jobs in order to meet their targets.

You can argue that the Chinese Government is allowing for this to happen but the main cause is the unrealistic demands Apple has.

 

[Tanner Fredrickson]

I love that some people automatically make this "Apple versus Samsung". As if all they care about is "winning" the debate about whose phones are better. It's infantile. These are people's lives, not an excuse to start a goddamn fanboy war. The first world privilege is so thick in these sorts of threads you could cut it with a knife.

 

[bin1127]

so 4 million in compensation? a glass of steve job's piss is worth more than that.

 

[Marcus112]

16 child labour cases in 1,6 mio workers is 99,999% not 99,99999!

 

[ldun]

"Apple found that 4,500 people are being forced to work under these conditions, but has vowed to end this practice, forcing guilty suppliers to repay a total of nearly $4 million to the victims"

quick math points out to under $900 per person. "Sorry you were essentially a slave for all those years... heres $900... now get back to work!!!!!!"

 

[Michael-E]

@Idun
The average hourly wage for a Chinese factory worker is $1.36

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/08/average-cost-factory-worker_n_1327413.html

That means that "quick math" would indicate they were paid for just under 662 hours of work. At 60 hours per week they were paid for 11 weeks of work or nearly 3 months. At 40 hours per week that would be over 4 months pay.

The second point is there is no indication how long this impacted the average person whether that is 2 months or 20 years. So what am I saying? From our western bias it doesn't look like a penalty that discourages the behavior but I can't really say and neither can you, since you didn't cover the finer points at all. It really may have been a very significant penalty though.