Apple taken to task for reporting partners' child labor violations - Page 2

It is good that they are cracking down. It is not good that they use companies that treat their employees like slave labor.

It would be great if they used American factories. Maybe some of the $40,000,000,000 could be used for bringing more manufacturing in-house? ISTM that there may be additional benefits to doing so beyond being able to avoid using slave labor.

There are plenty of good reasons apart from the good reason you identify. I think that many Apple stockholders, customers and employees would try to avoid exploiting others, for their own sake, and not for the sake of the others.

Agreed.

You do know that Apple does not "employ" all of the 300,000 workers at Foxconn that was mentioned in the report, that other companies are using the services of the same workers in the same factories.


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Why would stockholders care about or even want to know about "exploiting others" for that yields the highest returns?

So which other companies are doing the same thing as Apple, Microsoft with X-Boxes and Zunes made by Foxconn, Sony with Playstations made by Foxconn, Nintendo with Wii's made by Foxconn, Nokia with phones made by FoxConn, etc, etc?


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Bravo Apple.

This is one of the reasons that my wife and I decided to join the ranks of those switching to a Mac. We have been thrilled with our subsequent purchases and pleased with Apple's approach to the environment and conditions in their factories.

So when a senator criticizes Apple (among other companies) for their practice of near-slavery by paying BELOW minimum wage to their workers with atrocious working conditions, Apple fans go "They're bullying Apple because they're jealous..."

Now the reverse happens and Apple fans sing the same tune "They're bullying Apple because they're jealous..."

Looks like everybody is out to get Apple. The slightest bit of criticism is bullying. When it (criticism) happens to Microsoft, Google, Amazon, or any other company, "OMG they're evil! I hope they go bankrupt" and "LOLOLOL Apple #1".

Apple zealots obviously LOVE Apple or they wouldn't be called Apple zealots but the hypocrisy is hilarious.

okay so Apple works with suppliers overseas that pay horrid wages, knowingly hire children, don't pay overtime or give breaks etc and the company is bashed for it.

They audit and do something to stop all this and they are bashed for trying to police their suppliers.

damned if they do, damned if they don't.

I would still rather they bring production home. or at least spread it out so the goods meant for each area are made in that area but I get why they don't so at the least, requiring some level of 'proper' conduct is, in my book, a great thing.


oh, I thought he said he wanted to be flashed. my bad


which for many is the appeal

I know it's not a huge deal as eveyone does it and some of the kids really want to work. For example, child actors are watched very closely but they can still, at times, work very hard. For us (music/editing studio), we miss the made in the USA as well as all the atention that used to be given for the pro apps such as Logic, shake, FCP today the whole crowd is different and o remember great FREE CLASSES, TIPS AND TRICKS as one to one was also part of Pro care, all for $99'dollars but it still amazes me how some people still don't get the laptop pricing model which goes something like this, you go in and know you can get a mini or for a litte more an iMac or laptop. Then you decide, laptop but for just a little more you can get the anti glare on the 15", but no express port anymore so for a little more you can get everything you want on the 17" but now your wondering about the bigger iMacs and realize you can get a mac pro for less then of course there is the AppleCare and PronService for justb a little more and suddenly you remember you want the laptop so you went in planning on spending $999 and leave spending almost triple. Its preety amazing that many do this as you hear will this computer do this? No but this one wil, ok we'l what about this, no butthis one will an so on and so on this is why I'm surprised at the low end ipad. But will be excited to see what the osc86 team and other under ground will do with it.

He found a report, was too lazy to do any comparative studies with similar companies or any investigation of his own on child labor practices. He sat at home with a beer and made things easy on himself by banging out a story in short order. He's a lazy sod who should be fired for printing crap... but hey... it's the Telegraph for heaven's sake, it's about par with the News of the World...

not entirely true. there's always the good press.

but hey if they get some good press off of doing something that actually helps people and not just the stock price, what's the harm



they still have the free classes and stuff. I'm about to attend week 4 of a 4 week totally free workshop series on Final Cut

and the whole one to one thing is still around. yes they added the whole only with a computer bought at Apple but at least in my area the demand was insane so I can understand them doing something to limit it. As for ProCare, what was the big deal about that. you get a tuneup on your system once during that year and you could see more than the next 3 days of the appointments. Doesn't seem like much. Especially when they replaced it with a data transfer of your old system to the new computer. I priced a PC to Mac transfer for my brother in law at Best Buy and it was going to be $400 for the amount of stuff he had. The guys at the Apple store didn't care. And had it back to him in 24 hours.


and when you go to Best Buy to get that $500 laptop will you really pay just $500. Not if they can help it. You'll buy an optimized system, get the Geek Squad stuff, pay large for a data transfer, and so on.


probably not that much. or at least that much new and exciting. the sim is unlocked so once anyone else (ie T-Mobile) picks up the micro you can switch. so no need for unlocking. they might jailbreak it for some of those porn apps and such but that's really nothing new since the same programs they use on the iphone could work on the ipad. and as for anything else, why bother, it's not a computer after all. it's a 'toy'.

Whenever anyone uses Flash, an underage worker overseas has to work an extra hour with no pay.

even if he did, something like 5 folks have quoted it and those copies are still visible.

which is why when someone acts in such a nasty way, you ignore them. either for the moment by not replying (especially with a quote) or literally ignore list them. either way, the troll was not fed.



you forgot that also an angel loses his wings and a fairy falls down dead

What is the minimum wage in China? To assume the blame is on Apple you must be assuming that Apple is forcing the factories not to pay their employees minimum wage. How are they doing that?



From a personal standpoint I agree as I wouldn't car if I paid 4x as much for the same product, but if I was running Apple there is no way I could see doing it from a business perspective.

if they could get Apple, Brangelina and Robsten in the same headline the hit counts would crash their servers.

how about "Brangelina and Robsten confess they love Apple, iPad".

that hints 4 major link baits in one.

I did my bit and the offending portion has been removed now, so good point there (see #17).

I am not sure that ignoring is always the best policy: sometimes, people need to be called out on their nonsense.

[CENTER]Interesting...[/CENTER]

you've got me laughing at myself. I went to best buy earlier this month, bought a $449 PC for my sister who's sick, and whose work required it or i'd have gotten her a mac. I knew better than to buy a more costly unit to get RAM or CPU speed i knew her tasks wouldn't require. Still, by the time i bought virus protection software plus a 3 yr virus-ridding contract, plus whatever they call their three year hardware protection plan, they were into me for more than $500 extra. Maybe i shouldn't have bought all that, but i'm trying to assure that when something goes wrong for my sister it's a no-brainer, call the store and it'll be fixed. Just like the what, $249 apple care? so yep, prices add up.

After living in the UK for almost 14 years I've learned a few things about newspapers

1. Only a fool man believes what he reads in the newspapers

2. Only an idiot believes british newspapers

3. Only an a**** believes the Telegraph

4. British Journalism is a joke. And it is all English humour.

Ha ha! Very funny!

It does give you something to talk about at work at lunch times though if your company provides papers for your reading pleasure. You take bets on today's `Daily Fail' headlines or the `Daily [s]Express'. You even get amusing headline generator sites. `HAS THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT GIVEN HOUSE PRICES SWINE FLU?'

It's fun to tear them apart; but at the same time you can't help but worry that there are a significant number of people in the world that take `The Sun' as gospel truth. There again there are a significant number of people that take AI as gospel truth too... ^_^;

i am sorry my friend but the child abuses in the far east are legend .

IF YOU COMPARE USA CHILD LABOR LAWS TO ASIAN CHILD WORKING CONDITIONS THE FOLLOWING HAPPENS ALL TOO OFTEN
<<< it is not so bad as the 1860's english coal mining child abuses ... OK ? >>
but until apple put 2 APPLE employee's on every shift in every factory

women will be sexually abused and raped AND FORCED TO .....

children under 14 yrs old will work and not go to school among other child working rights abuses
<<many children are at times not paid at all >>

children under 18 work with AND ARE EXPOSED toxic items slowing their mental growth

THE SLAVE labor camps of red china from the 1950 's never closed ...

YOU will never ever ever ever see children in the usa working in factories like they do in the far east

SHAME ON APPLE
MOVE THE JOBS TO THE USA

You mean Wal-Mart's bottom-shelf goods aren't made in Mayberry by union labor??
I never woulda guessed!

</sarcasm>


Altruistic motivation is one thing, the guy holding the gun is another. What happens when the Chinese government decides it doesn't appreciate Apple's concern (ala Google)?

While I certainly applaud Apple's efforts, I do hope Apple understands the waters they're swimming in.

Isn't the Nexus 1 made in the same Foxconn factory complex?

Remember this, if Apple didn't say anything at all there'd be no story, they'd just fly under the radar like everyone else.

The factories under the scrutiny of Apple, will just shift their underage workers to the X-Box building, the Playstation building, the Nokia building, the Motorola building etc, etc, ad infinitum and it will be business as usual.

And the press won't bother with stories from concerned NGO's who don't have the drawing power of Apple in the headline.

Meanwhile we can keep consuming the cheap crap filling our shelves and some people in China won't starve to death because they have employment.

your first sane post >>except the the 40 BN is apples money !!!
the over seas factories have to pay their workers more and then charge APPLE ACCORDINGLY


I will say that apple is far better at protecting its contract workers that most companies .
AND THE Type of job is a higher skilled >more educated higher paying job than the sweat shop type of job .
yet the worker protection rights enjoyed by americans cost money
in the race to the bottom overseas 'companies cheat

bring the jobs back to NORTH AMERICA

I'm sorry, what "industry" remains in the United States?

Another first post genius. Apple's environmental strategy is typical and a marketing ploy. Apple is more concerned about energy efficiency because of the dollars they save, not the effect on the "worrrld"

Apple knows there is sub-culture of manipulated morons that care more about the Earth (something they have no knowledge of) than about Humanity, and they take advantage of it. Just like the despicable people who love watching people get tortured and shot to death in movies, but cringe and cry when a dog is harmed.

Sick, backwards culture.

Yes, Apple could be worse, but it could also be better.

Apple, like the rest of the tech industry, relentlessly tries to cut labor costs with as little investment as possible. Manufacturing labor costs are now typically some 2% of product cost.

Unless guys like Jobs and Dell believe in the tooth fairy, they simply have to know that this is the result of overwork and underpayment. It is also the result of manufacturing in countries where environmental controls are lax.

They know this, but they choose to continue. Worse, they have so effectively shipped jobs overseas that our economy has a balance of payments deficit to the tune of $600 billion a year. This is not to be confused with the budget deficit. Balance of payments means more dollars are going out than coming in, so as a nation we grow deeper in the red.

Why is Apple special? Well, Apple set it self up for special scrutiny not by being successful, but by claiming to be a leader, by claiming to think different, and by charging much higher prices. Jobs has said Apple was out to change the world.

I have long accepted the higher prices. I am aware that cheap products are costing both us and laborers dreadfully in the long run. I hate disposable junk. So I even welcome high prices, and the intelligence of a company unwilling to pursue a mindless race to the bottom.

But many of us expect these higher prices to be reflected in better conditions through the entire value chain, not just higher gross profits. Apple does this partly. It keeps more American engineering talent on its payroll than others, and it also makes a slight effort to deal with the worst abuses in places like China.

Yet this article is largely a whitewash.

First Apple is not alone in these types of inspections. Nokia, for example, has done them for years and has been comparably effective.

Second, legal responsibility has nothing to do with this. The law in China is whatever the Communist party wants it to be. This is an ethical question, and also a marketing imperative. Apple knows full well that sales suffer when companies engage labor in sweatshop conditions.

I want Apple to lead here, not just do the bare minimum for marketing and face-saving. Apple does audits, but presses suppliers for cheaper labor costs every year. Suppliers are given a huge incentive to fudge the numbers.

Apple: Want to be truly bold with those 40 billion? Move 10 to 20% of production to a new, state of the art plant in North America, running on green energy. Use automation, not slavery, to control labor costs. Use it as a model for off-shore operations. Use it also for the newest products, which would help protect new designs.

You live in NJ and ask this question? Have you driven down the NJ Turnpike, and looked on either side?!

The more difficult moral question might be to ask what would these children be doing instead of working in a factory... if the alternative is living on the street, "protecting" them from relatively well paid work in a factory might not actually be doing them any favours.

Why is possibly good marketing necessarily a 'ploy?' Why is pursuit of energy efficiency 'sick and backward?'

More generally, if you can do well by doing good, what is wrong with that?

There is simply no way that Apple can set up from scratch a manufacturing facility to, say, assemble (let alone produce) any of its products in the US at a cost that this remotely comparable to what you can get done in East Asia today. That is a fact. If it was so easy to do, they (and others, no doubt) would have done so.

The economies of scale are simply too vast. You would go out of business very quickly because of your high-cost business model.

That said, should Apple invest in the US? You bet they should. However, it should be in businesses where the US offers comparative advantage. Which is exactly what Apple is doing, e.g., as in the $2B server farm they are setting up in NC, the billions of dollars being invested in retailing, or the apparent hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on new semiconductor R&D, etc. I have no doubt that the company will continue to do this.

In the meantime, given that some things will inevitably have to be outsourced, would you rather that Apple did not do anything to improve the quality and decency of that which it does not (or cannot) produce internally?

You'd have to be a manipulated moron to believe that humanity can survive on a toxified, deforested planet.

I am an environmentalist not despite humanity but because of it. The Earth, left to itself, will simply become a burnt cinder in a couple of billion years. By then we could be living in half the galaxy.

But if the Earth becomes a treeless toxic dump in a couple of hundred years, as we are now on a path to, the only place our civilization will go to is a well-deserved early grave.

Apple talked about being bold. This is bold. Easy? No, it's not easy. But apple isn't supposed to do easy, we have Dell for that.

On the other hand, I think you overstate the costs. I am not suggesting Apple manufacture huge volume components such as LCD panels, chips or disk drives. I am talking about enclosure manufacturing, PCB assembly, and final assembly. These are all limited to the volume of Apple's own sales.

In the case of Apple, economies of scale would not really change because nobody else uses unibody aluminum construction. There are also some cost savings having to do with travel, document translations, enforcement of elaborate secrecy protocols on third party assemblers, quality control, air freight, etc.

It would also speed responses to manufacturing problems such as those seen with cracked screens on the 27" iMac, or thermal paste application on many notebook models.

Consider that as recently as the G3 iMac and G4 Power PC (both profitable and successful, helping to bring the company back to life), this was done still done in the USA. Apple has much better scale that it did back with the G4.

So you definitely overstate the cost. There is some cost, but mostly its about how most management is trained to think these days. They hate to add to headcount, they hate labor costs, no matter how small.

Yes, global sourcing is here to stay. I know that. But they have gone too far in that direction. Apple's gross profit is ridiculous, and its cash reserve is huge. Apple does not base its competitiveness on low cost. If any company can try this, it's Apple. And if Apple does it, others will be forced to do it too, at least for a fraction of their production.

On what basis do you say that? What laws of free market economics is Apple violating here?

Or you make wild assertions like that because you simply believe that to be the case (or are against market capitalism)?

Hooray for Apple! Some say they will "Do no evil" while others really do no evil. My Apple stock is doing just fine. I don't need slave labor to make another half dollar a share.

Steve Jobs mantra circa 1996:

Apple will be the Nike of consumer electronics. Im glad that the companys trying to clean up their act, but with a legacy like that, its hard for me to applaud them for admitting they found underage workers.

I guess Steve Jobs has changed his attitude...

edit: It's Sunday... I could have sworn he came back to Apple in 1998. Better get on that Omega-3. Anyway...


You really think that it's hypocrisy because Apple is publicly against child labour and Jobs made a comment to be like Nike in a particular way that had nothing to do with child labour. Makes sense.

I meant to say that is is very high.

On what basis? It is far higher than industry average.

I am not against market capitalism, but I don't worship it either. Market capitalism, by itself, leads to Dickensian labor conditions, social stress, unions, and people who advocate communism.

I think capitalists (and the rest of us) are better off if they self-limit by using social responsibility metrics. As consumers, we have every right to demand it.

Otherwise, the limits will come anyway, but in a more disruptive fashion resulting in the destruction of far more wealth.

December '96.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americ...obs/index.html

Wiki
"Return to Apple

Jobs on stage at Macworld Conference & Expo, San Francisco, January 11, 2005.See also: "19982005: Return to profitability" in Apple Inc.
In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $429 million. The deal was finalized in late 1996,[44] bringing Jobs back to the company he co-founded. He soon became Apple's interim CEO after the directors lost confidence in and ousted then-CEO Gil Amelio in a boardroom coup.
"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs.

I think you need more than Omega 3...

Specifically, which industry? If we take into account the abundant software Apple produces to help sell its hardware then compared to other SW companies it's not so high. If you look at specific HW trying to compete with Apple on the higher-end, not on the budget PCs the others have to sell, Apple's gross profit may be lower since the others have to make up loses at the lower end and if you are already looking at a high-end non-Mac PC you're likely not going for a Mac as it is. Then there is quarterly projections and economics of scale which has increased Apple's gross and net profits simply by having aggressive growth well above the industry, and Apple and analyst's expectations.