Worker abuse petitions to be delivered Thursday at Apple's Grand Central store - Page 2

Without getting into a ridiculously long discussion about the state of the chinese workforce and the laws that govern it...I think its generally accepted that the Foxconn factory has some pretty shady a$$ practices, at least by western standards, and western companies should be holding themselves to a higher standard.

Since you cite it, that event was reportedly Foxconn workers who were making the XBox for Microsoft, oddly enough. Never really got much in the way of details about why them, why then, and what the demands were. Not Apple related, except by extension via Foxconn.

Apple, like it or not, is now the big kahuna making the mobile and computer devices that people all over the world want to have. With the success comes all sorts of scrutiny. They are now the poster boy for all of the Chinese factory workers problems regardless of what they make and as such will have to learn to deal with it, and hopefully get out ahead of it. The disclosures and answering to half-baked accusation is a bad fit for their corporate culture but if they handle it right, they could do a lot of good for both the workers who are hard at work furiously trying to build enough, and for the corporate 'good citizen - exemplar' badge that Apple would like to wear.

The really hard thing is that Apple is growing so fast that the pressure is constant for execs, managers, and on down to the supply chain and to the factory floor. Extremely trying conditions, the type that breed abuse, even when Apple is trying to prevent it. That said, I hope they are getting Foxconn to be generous with overtime pay ... even if no one else is over there.

+1(,000,000)

china does not equal foxconn

????

But China is not a western country. Wages are different, their standard of living is different, their culture is different etc.

Who are we in the west to dictate how another country should operate? Isn't that what people complain about all of the time?

maybe i misunderstood you, you responded to me and i thought you were saying that if you used ANY product from china you were supporting companies like foxconn.

Choosing to not endorse their labor practices by not participating in them is not dictating who they are or how they should operate.

No... if you are protesting at Apple and still buying anything at Walmart or any number of other goods made in China then you are a hypocrite.

agreed

I guess you could also apply that statement to the workers at the X-Box factory who were using the threat of suicide as a negotiating tool.

What value were they placing on human life?

In fact these are some of the highest paid workers in China. Probably why the suicide rate among foxconn workers is significantly lower than the national average in China (or the US for that matter). Lets not let facts cloud up a good protest though.

The kind of hateful responses being posted here are just sad and pathetic, and only give Apple "enthusiasts" a bad name. I suppose this is the kind of crowd AppleInsider has become well known for.

There's nothing hypocritical about using a company's products, and wanting that company to do (even) better.

As an owner of numerous Apple products, I am proud to say that I signed the petition, to put pressure on Apple to do what it can to better the working conditions of workers around the world. It may help, it may not, but it seems like there's nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Why is the "AppleInsider Staff" wasting its time reporting on what nobodys (like Mark Shields) are doing? Is AppleInsider becoming a tabloid?" Damn, I hope this isn't a preview of the future of 'Insider.

The first guest on Real Time with Bill Maher last week talked about Apple and Foxconn. He may have been the guy who did the video of the factory, but I'm not sure.

He mentioned the suicides but failed to compare them to the national average or an average among factory workers in China. He also failed to note the mass suicide threat was at the Xbox plant, not with Apple's products.

Apple will get more of this if they do nothing and likely even more if they do something. Either way they are screwed here; it's the cost of having the most mindshare. Not a bad place to be overall but they will have to address this as sensationalist remora look to feed off Apple.

You'll notice that's not the argument here. You read the responses, right?

Oh, cool... moral indignation.

I bet that the people who signed that petition consists of a few misguided Apple users such as yourself, combined with the majority, which happens to be a ton of Fandroids and Apple haters who no doubt will sign anything as long as it's something that is anti-Apple.

And yes, if the conditions are as terrible and as abusive that the whiny and speculative petition claims, then you are directly causing suffering and pain every time you purchase an Apple product. That is hypocrisy.

The next time you buy a new iPhone, at least 3 Chinese workers will be directly suffering because of your inhumane choice.

actually, that has actually been a significant topic of conversation

I'm nauseous and frankly puzzled by the vitriol and hyper-defensiveness being displayed here. Talking about how protesters should get a job or how one is going to physically attack them if they restrict "your freedom of movement" is completely absurd and makes the person sound like a fanatic.

Also, no they are not hypocrites. The only thing they state is that they're concerned about the level of proactive regulation and inspection Apple is conducting or is allowing to be conducted as regards their foreign manufacturing. Apple is incredibly admired and while the labor conditions problem is not exclusive to the company, they are in a *unique* position to advocate and lead the charge on it as they have in so many other realms. Whether they choose to do this, or agree with the assertions being made, is their own decision and is another matter. However, I can't understand the invective against the act of protest, which is certainly anyone's right, however misguided you may believe it is.

I think I'm going to stop visiting AppleInsider for news as the forums are atrocious and the most important headlines are related by other outlets anyway. AppleInsider, if I were you, I'd consider setting up some trolling policy or other.

This isn't an 'initiative'. It's attention whoring. You think Apple will look at a petition like this and think OH GEE WE NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT THIS CHINA THING MAYBE WE SHOULD LOOK INTO IT. I wonder is this guy actually took the time to read Apple's audit reports? Isn't that 'Apple doing something about it'? Or the fact that wages have increased steadily and substantially since Apple has been involved in the area? Or that they're higher in Foxconn than pretty much any other manufacturing plant?

I'm still waiting on ONE documented incident of 'worker abuse' as this petition states (Foxconn has like a million workers, shouldn't be tough to find one). And I don't consider 'abuse' to be defined as working hours in line with the rest of the industry in that country.

I'm all for 'doing something'. What I'm not all for is taking knee-jerk, ignorant actions that have no basis in facts, context, or knowledge about the situation. This makes things worse, as it misrepresents the realities, promotes ignorance, and gives no new insight or tools for improvement. I can't of another situation where the one company who has done THE MOST to try and improve a situation, out of dozens of others, is solely attacked. Does this not promote ignorance? There are things you can protest if you're concerned about Chinese working conditions (Chinese gvt, etc) but Apple is not one of those things.

Yawn. Apple sold 37M phones last quarter and they can barely muster 200K to sign some feel good petition? Big whoop.

I suspect CNN and NY Slimes will be all over this. Maybe breaking news on MSNBC. Which is all this guy wants - attention.

What a bunch of idiots. Demonstrating at locations of the one company that has, is trying and has committed to making things better for the workers who assemble Apple' products.

So you support the protesters, but you have a problem with people protesting the protesters?

I see.

I agree with you that it is not hypocritical to use Apple products but also to hold Apple to high(er) standards of ethical and moral behaviour. However, I firmly believe that Apple management and especially Tim Cook, probably expect higher standards of their suppliers and manufacturers in China than even the Chinese government, which should be at the forefront of protecting its citizen's interests. Any of the workers in these factories who are considered migrant workers in their own country, typically it seems, enjoy less rights and privileges than long-term local residents. Western governments and society would find this unacceptable. The Chinese government should be intervening to protect these worker's rights and conditions.

I'd be more suspicious of this petition if its originator professed to never having used, or was antagonistic to, Apple products. He might be misguided (or not) but not on the face of it, hypocritical.

All the best.

The guy was Mike Daisy, and he was simply whoring himself out and exploiting his 15 min of fame, that's all. The segment was painful to watch, especially the fact that it seems a grown man just made a shocking discovery that shit is actually made it China- and it turned his whole world upside down. There's nothing that he stated that is enlightening, or that can make one come to the conclusion that Apple deserves the be condemned and singled out. Again, he's gonna run around and try to exploit the attention he's gotten.

Heh, heh.

While I also think that these protesters are misguided and ignorant, your post is really scary. You don't seem to be able to make up your mind whether they're liberals or fascists or nazis (concepts that are mutually exclusive). And your propensity to insult and threaten physical force against people who have different viewpoints to your own seems to indicate that maybe you are the Nazi?

Apple is in business to make a profit. The end.

Meanwhile Nokia is quietly sacking another 4,000 European workers and moving the jobs to Asia, that's on top of the 7,000 they sacked last year.

Too bad they closed their American stores (and presumably sacked those workers too) or there would be somewhere to protest outside,

while

wearing

Chinese

made

clothes.

Mr protestor,

are

the

buttons

on

your

shirt

made

of

recycled

plastic

sourced

from

the

Mumbai

rubbish

dumps

and

gathered

by

five

year

olds?

I was with you until you went off the rails with your political nonsense.
Where do 'liberal fascists' exist outside of Glenn Beck psycho-land?

BTW, classy language.

Well played, sir. These protestors are in it for their own reasons. They give not a whit about Chinese workers.

Do any of these people have a single recommendation as to how one American company can force changes within the world's largest totalitarian country?

"Hey Foxconn... here's 10 billion dollars, and we insist that you pass it on to your workers."
Followed by a big uptick in the Chinese executive yacht industry.

If Apple pulled up stakes (even if it were possible) it would barely make a dent in Foxconn's bottom line.
But if everyone did, then care to go back and tell the now starving, unemployed Chinese workers how you made their lives better?

What? That doesn't make sense. Apple elitists who have the money to pour into a new iphone every 18 months are not the people who would otherwise be making minimum wage in an apple processing factory...

A worthy cause. I only hope this action spurs improvement from all the companies (i.e., every other electronics company) that are worse than Apple and take these matters less seriously than Apple does!

So Apple unilaterally pull out, HP et al stay in, and Apple goes out of business.
No one has been helped, and way more hurt.

Brilliant.

Yes. Just as protesting slavery while eating/wearing products produced by slaves would be hypocritical. Clearly the answer is that slavery NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN PROTESTED, since it would have meant starvation, right genius?

To give Apple a "pass" on human rights violations because everyone that is offended by it (read: people possessed of the slightest decency) don't immediately cast off all products produced within the paradigm of capitalism and live wild and free like the wolves is ridiculous.

If you want to bury your head in the sand and argue that children in China don't deserve our concern on the grounds that they are chinese, fine.

There are A LOT of people who don't view the world through the nationalistic, ethnocentric, and xenophobic filters that color your meagre moral canvas.

Passing an imaginary national border, to those of us not steeped in the ideologies of a half-witted tribalist dogma, is not at all tantamount to entering into a realm of psuedo-existence where ethical judgments are put on standby until the goods are safely transported back to "reality." As far as I am concerned Alabama and Hong Kong are equally incomprehensible, but the fact that I can't place myself in those contexts doesn't by any means make me eager to apply toto caelo opposed ethical standards to the existence of "Unknown Humans X" and "Unknown Humans Y."

This thread is, by and large, an exhibition of the perverse and pathetic lowliness of the standard 150-200 lbs sack of American refuse. Still, despite your profound unloveliness, I would still contend that you should be given a chance to express your existence with dignity and freedom; whether you choose to do so is another matter.

Thanks for making me chuckle.

Let's ask these people if they want to sign the petition?

http://news.yahoo.com/many-chinese-w...190754170.html

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