Chinese Factory Workers Write to Steve Jobs

[distanted]

[citation][nom]Cirdecus[/nom]I think it is beyond every company's scope of responsibility to try and "parent" the internal practices of other companies. It is impractical to suggest in any business environment, that the "client" is responsible for the internal practices of its business partners. Thats like me being responsible for wal-mart's scheduling and payroll practices just because I buy soap from their stores.[/citation]
I wasn't suggesting Jobs should be actively involved in day-to-day operations of a factory that provides on component of his product. My point was that they are writing Jobs because they knew it would get more publicity for their cause than writing the head of the Chinese factory. Even though Apple's involvement is indirectly related to the incident, they have the deepest pockets and, good or bad, any story with the word Apple in it is going to get a lot of media play.

I think all employees should be able to work without being poisoned by their workplace, and I'm sure U.S. factory workers are probably better protected, but safety failures are not limited to China. I'm sure you could find similar incidents occuring today in U.S. factories, so I think it's hypocrical to single Jobs out because the factory his company buys from made a mistake, and later fixed the mistake.

 

[YeZ]

[citation][nom]hotelromeo[/nom]Jobs wrote backear China,I am terminal[/citation]

 

[wizardprang]

Wintek used n-hexane in the production of touch-panels, but has since stopped when it found out that it was making its workers ill. Now the plant has switched back to alcohol, which achieves the same result but slower.

They stopped using n-Hexane more than 18 months ago. This pretty much renders the story un-newsworthy. Nothing to see here, folks, move along...

The only question remaining is whether they took steps to protect the health of the affected workers. Since this is China, the answer is probably "no".

 

[Guest]

@fracture

no apple products would not cost more, apple would make less profit but the products would not cost more, the iPad raw material cost at best around 300, labor cost at rough estimate is like 2/hr (and that's being conservatively high), at worst a decent wage and some health benefits would probably add 20 to the cost of making each iPad. The reality is that sure electronics would get an itty bit more expensive but we not going be seeing the 2 to 4 fold increase but companies like Apple and Foxxconn hell yeah they going get hard hit by it, 20 less for every iPad considering they have sold over a million of these beauties they easily lose over 20 million there and then, are they going pass that onto the consumer, no, they just do as they always do and setup shop in another third world country with human capital to exploit

ethics is driven by the bottom line, only when it cost more to be unethical will they begin to act ethical

 

[tonydu]

[citation][nom]Cirdecus[/nom]I think it is beyond every company's scope of responsibility to try and "parent" the internal practices of other companies. It is impractical to suggest in any business environment, that the "client" is responsible for the internal practices of its business partners. Thats like me being responsible for wal-mart's scheduling and payroll practices just because I buy soap from their stores.[/citation]

Ironically, Wal-Mart does police many of its vendors. I know of food manufacturers that have yearly visits from Wal-Mart and have lists of process requirements that they must meet. I also know that Wal-Mart is very lenient about abuses, since their major consideration is profit and not the public interest. Things go wrong that shouldn't, and you never hear about it unless it happens to effect you. So corporate "quality control" is no replacement for real regulation.

We, as a society, can decide what standards we want to hold and who we want to hold them. We can legally prevent any company or any person or any product from having any presence the United States. I think every country should exercise this right.

 

[vinnywong]

[citation][nom]Belardo[/nom]Who cares?This is why Unions suck which prevents America from competing with China and other such countries! Those pesky worker rights, work hour limits, safety requirements, minimal pay all get in the way of progress.We also should go back to 1950s tax rates too![/citation]
Well, they are doing the labor part which most American won't do. The technology comes from US. It is a win win situation for both US and China. I can't imagine the nowadays Americans will stay quiet in a factory for 16 hrs making iPad.

 

[tonydu]

[citation][nom]vinnywong[/nom]Well, they are doing the labor part which most American won't do. The technology comes from US. It is a win win situation for both US and China. I can't imagine the nowadays Americans will stay quiet in a factory for 16 hrs making iPad.[/citation]

When I started my career I almost went into robotics/automation. But an MIT "robotics" professor explained that most of his consulting resulted in less automation. After analyzing and optimizing the workflow, options for lowering costs with low cost labor were evaluated along with the costs of automation. Almost always, it was cheaper to use low cost labor.

So it is the existence of low cost, environmentally destructive, and impoverished labor that creates these jobs. We have options that will improve life for everyone. We just have to be willing to look at our real options -- not the false options presented by moneyed interests.

 

[StuMan]

The whole reason that apple allow those screens to be made in China is because of the labor costs and no working compensation, if it looks like apple is going to have to pay more to get the job done they will just move to another place of manufacture.

 

[tonydu]

[citation][nom]StuMan[/nom]... apple is going to have to pay more ...they will just move to another place of manufacture.[/citation]

Yes. Unless we create laws that force companies that market, sell, or operate in the US to consider the values of the public. We could pass laws that restrict marketing in the US (e.g. limit ads, commercials, sales calls) if the company ignores our community's values. This doesn't have to be all or nothing. We could decide, for example, that outsourcing that results in the loss of 100 jobs of 1000 jobs would result in a 10% reduction in marketing channels, a 10% reduction in US distribution, and a 10% increase in tax rate.