, of course. I’ve read about factories in Thailand employing seamstresses that sounds like truly grinding work that will eventually take your hands and eyesight…but if the factories pack up and leave because they’ve found lower labor costs somewhere else, the women literally have no way to avoid starvation besides prostitution. It’s kind of a soul-sucker.
And if you think those “inspectors” weren’t 1) company plants, or 2) corrupted with kickbacks within minutes of being on the job, or 3) threatened with jail/death for reporting anything substantial, I’ve got some beachfront property in Somalia to sell ya.
The report press release does state that Foxconn has 1.2 million employees.
That’s one helluva large unionized labor force.
Oh, and that Foxconn has agreed to take 15 months (until July 2013) to attempt to rectify wrongs cited.
@jibeaux: It never ceases to amaze me how so many people can blithely justify to themselves (‘I’m a writer! I was being creative! I was helping the story!’) things that if I were in their same positions, I could never justify my doing them.
@jibeaux: China, last I read, still has a population of peasants (small-holding farmers primarily engaging in small-trade production, subsistence, and self-industry, but, still, you know, peasants) numbering somewhere around 700 million people.
If the Chinese workers want to be treated like human beings, they are going to have to fight for it. They are going to have to get shot, they are going to have to risk everything. If they are hoping a bunch of guilty white people are going to save them, they are not only doomed, but not worth saving.
Eventually(over the next 10-30 years) growth in China will drive up wages there, to “second world” levels, at which point foreign employers will relocate to countries with cheaper labor. Of course, world population growth is also supposed to stabilize/flatten later this century, which will have interesting effects on growth rates. I wonder what companies would do in a world where no ultra-cheap sources of labor existed?
I am not so sure Apple can change Chinese labor practices. I suspect attempts to do so are likely to lead to broad push-back from the Chinese 1%. Maybe Steve Jobs could have pulled it off, but I have doubts about Apple’s current management. China is just a century away from being the last, largest, and strongest of the old iron-age empires, and their idea of class is more deeply entrenched than anything anywhere else in the world.
Oh, noes! Apple might have to do business somewhere where workers are treated half-way decently.
They would create it. All you need are overbroad laws, selective prosecution, and a surfeit of jails.
Do you think we have so many prisons in this country because our citizens are so much more criminal? Or because prisoners are cheap labor?
@Gin & Tonic: I left out an “Supposedly” at the start of the sentence, I added it in. That’s the argument given when you say “move the supply chain back to the US”.
“If Apple created a well-paid corps of independent inspectors ….” They do, and those are the FLA inspectors. The FLA isn’t the answer to everything, but they do provide independent analysis of wages and working conditions.
But for the moment, cheers to Apple, and here’s hoping the rest of electronic manufacturers follow in their wake.
Somebody over Twitter, I forget who, pointed out that it would actually make good business sense for Apple to push for higher labor standards. They have a high profit margin, and can afford to lose a little. On the other hand, their competitors can’t, particularly if they were trying to get, say, a competitor to the iPad off the ground. I don’t if they’re aiming that way, but the optimist in me hopes that’s why a report they paid for about Foxconn labor conditions gives such a negative portrait.
Why do these headlines always say Apple? Foxconn also makes HP, Dell and a few other company’s goods.
Yea, I understand.  But damnit, pointing out only Apple is wrong.
Yeesh — should have included this above.
Assuming that the safety and overtime issues can be met, improving wages shouldn’t be much of a problem. The NYT calculated that it would only cost $65 per iPhone to bring Chinese wage costs in line with those in America. The cost of a 32 GB unlocked iPhone 4S is $750, so we’re talking about less than 9% of the retail cost.
If — and these are guesses — a fair Chinese wage would result in a $40 increase, then Apple could split the costs with its customers and raise the price of the iPhone to $770. That seems like an eminently workable solution.
Chines will happy push trash out the door as fast as possible if you let them. That is why Apple has such a huge staff of well paid inspectors. Not because Apple is so concerned about their employees.
Steve Jobs always wanted to see product design changes implemented on the double, because if Nokia or Samsung beats us to market then some fucker’s head gonna roll. Or you, Mr Contract Manufacturer, give us the lowestest manufacturing cost per unit or we go to the next factory down the road. It’s not just because Foxconn is greedy that Chinese working people sre getting screwed over. Their customers squeeze them all the way on costs, so they squeeze their cost centers too: wages, labor health safety and welfare, suppliers, compliance, whatever’s there to be squeezed. That goes deep in the DNA of the industry.
You want Foxconn to ease up on tbeir workers, quit stealing their labor, making them sick, driving them to suicide? Even if Foxconn’s customers start policing it (or start making a show of policing it), someone’s got to police Foxconn’s customers too. Make Apple, HP, Dell, whoever else, legally responsible if they profit off labor abuses by their contractors. That has to happen in the home countries of those corporations. Is it going to happen in America?
Better yet, why not bring iPod, iPhone and iPad production here?
Oh yeah, it’s cheaper the other way.
Words which will be engraved on America’s tombstone.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I see that someone else here has some real-world experience with doing business in Asia.
Best and worst years of my life, dealing with the Chinese.
The global wage curve does move up over time. Even as the cost curve of automation goes down over time.
So smartphone makers, to provide an acceptable return to capital, exploit horrible labor conditions. OK. Do we really want to keep rewarding that behavior with our wallets? Do we really need smart phones? Are they really so awesome a part of our lives that they’re worth the immense human suffering involved?
The question, once raised, answers itself. Smart phones are a tawdry luxury. They’re basically just entertainment gizmos that deliver ads to us, tracking our preferences to research us cheaply in hopes of delivering ads more efficiently in the future. The smart phone lifestyle is an Omelas that’s extremely easy to walk away from.
@Amir Khalid: A lot of Dell equipment sports FoxCon parts.
Is it going to happen in America?
 Much less about foreigners of a different hue.
(But I suspect that your question was rhetorical).
@Schlemizel: The assumption…that’s made by a lot more than corporations, let me tell you, this is a mainstream, common assumption made by a lot of even good people..is that college graduates will always continue to make good wages and as such will always provide a large enough market for consumer goods.
That’s the assumption that all this is based around. I personally disagree with this assumption, for a variety of reasons. I think companies are going to realize that they’re paying a premium for work that doesn’t require that level of education, and as well that level of education will become so common-place that it becomes basically worthless. And in fact they are starting to realize these things.
Like it or not eventually we’ll all be making minimum wage, without major economic reforms.
Neither. Both the state controlled and for profit prison industries are huge cash cows. Prison labor may be cheap to the eventual employer, but it certainly isn’t to the taxpayer or society.
Then the question becomes, would you pay more for the part to be manufactured at a JIT location? And would that make the repair job still profitable for you? As a balance of opportunity cost and total cost.
I’m just tired of this argument. It’s a cop out.  Apple et al created it, or at best, nurtured it into what it is.
The massive construction zone had demand, and the demand was for cheap labor.
Anyone who has ever worked for a global or international company understands what this is about. Businesses strive to locate and take advantage of lowest cost jurisdiction. It doesn’t matter what their product or service is.
This audit isn’t going to “fix” anything. This has happened multiple times before with Foxconn. Some councelors will be brought in, nets will go up, a minor raise will be put in place, and hours will be scaled back. People will cheer and then… more overtime, more work and it all goes back to where things were.
Apple