Petition Targeting Apple's Factory Conditions Reaches 163K+

[alidan]

[citation][nom]boiler1990[/nom]It's not entirely the cost of labor. Realize the US has NO technological manufacturing contractor-owned plants (companies like Intel have plants, but own/operate them all). We lack both the years of experience that Asian factories have, the vast number of workers (hundreds of thousands in total), and the factories that are needed to churn out products in a highly competitive market. It'll take us years to get up to speed to today's standards.It also doesn't help that China has most of the rare metals that are needed for manufacturing these hardware components. We'd have to import a significant amount to make manufacturing here feasible.[/citation]

those rare metals aren't rare at all, they just don't have large deposits like iron or copper do, they are harder to get because they aren't all in one place.

we dont have the factories, but we sure as hell have the workers... actual assembly of the products is VERY easy, to the point that a robot could do it better and faster, china doesnt do it because a robot may cost 1 million+ when they pay far less for 1000 workers. that 1 robot would output so much more than them its not even funny though...

but lets assume that robot isnt involved... my mom had a job like this over summer as a temp, it was 7-10$ an hour, it would be fairly easy to off set the costs...

didn't the us basically create the assembly line? now the factory... that is the only problem, and that is a 1-6 month solution.

 

[CKKwan]

Foxconn is not only producing apple product, and Foxconn is not Apple.

In general, the US companies like Wallmart, Apple etc are pressing on the price, the price is too low that it is very difficult for the manufacturer to provide better working condition for their workers. And at the same time it draws the US government attention and taxs on the goods imported from China, because they believe it is below cost.

 

[Guest]

hah! 168k you say? big whoop.

nothing substantive is going to change unless first world consumers petition with their wallets.

 

[Guest]

Is 168k even more then the number of employees Foxconn has working on Apple products?

 

[razzb3d]

[citation][nom]mrmaia[/nom]Apple is such a shitty company that even when you're bashing it, you have to praise it in order to have a slight chance of success.Were it in a different company, the owners and whoever responsible for such a situation would be already in jail.[/citation]

what planet do you live on? I hate crApple as much as the next guy but don't think for a second that ANY manufacturer gives a rat's ass about working conditions. All they care about is lowering production cost.

 

[K2N hater]

[citation][nom]boiler1990[/nom]It's not entirely the cost of labor. Realize the US has NO technological manufacturing contractor-owned plants (companies like Intel have plants, but own/operate them all). We lack both the years of experience that Asian factories have, the vast number of workers (hundreds of thousands in total), and the factories that are needed to churn out products in a highly competitive market. It'll take us years to get up to speed to today's standards.It also doesn't help that China has most of the rare metals that are needed for manufacturing these hardware components. We'd have to import a significant amount to make manufacturing here feasible.[/citation]
Apple (among others) could actually assemble the products in the US without raising the cost considerably. Also it's well known American quality standards are still ahead of anything Chinese. Same applies to European labour. For the sake of comparison Swiss mechanical clock movement is still far more accurate than the Chinese movement despite the similarity of their projects.

While assembling the final product is not the same as manufacturing all its parts it's absolutely reasonable to do it in the US. It's certainly not a hit in cost and some patriotism is never a bad thing.

 

[Guest]

I pity the fool who thinks Apple products changed the world. I also pity his life if Apple products managed to change it.

 

[soundping]

Blame Steve Jobs. He started Apple down the dark path.
The people their are only following the Jobs plan that made them all rich.

If these products where made in the US the plants would be fully automated. The China plants are not automated, all the work is manually done.

 

[danwat1234]

signed

 

[law shay]

The problem here is all OEMs (Apple, Acer, Dell, HP, Asus) uses Foxconn. Agree ?

The difference here is Apple products are getting super duper high profit margins while the rest do not.

That means for other products the savings is in (our) customers' hands. Samsung would say we pay $10 for the labors, R&D etc is $250, supply chain is like $30, our profit is like $10. So that you get your phone at $300.

Meanwhile, Apple would say your phone is $1,000. we pay $10 to the workers, R&D etc is $150 (Apple's using less R&D budget than Samsung). Supply chain etc is $40. Our profit is $800 ha ha ha.

That's the point. That's why I say "Apple is cruel both to the workers and the customers" while "Samsung etc is only cruel to the workers."