Apple allows inside look into Foxconn iPad factory
Journalist Rob Schmitz, who exposed Mike Daisey's fabrications and exaggerations of Apple's Chinese suppliers, has produced an inside look at how Apple's iPad gets built in China for American Public Media's Marketplace.
Schmitz has published a series of reports on Marketplace detailing factory conditions in China and interviewing both workers and their supervisors.
Since unraveling Daisey's fictionalized portrayal of conditions among Apple suppliers last month, Schmitz has detailed his own findings in China, with unprecedented access granted by Apple and Foxconn.
In a new video tour posted today, Schmitz revealed an exclusive look into how iPads are built and tested.
"The first misconception I had about Foxconn’s Longhua facility in the city of Shenzhen was that I’ve always called it a ‘factory’ -- technically, it is," Schmitz wrote. "But after you enter the gates and walk around, you quickly realize that it’s also a city -- 240,000 people work here. Nearly 50,000 of them live on campus in shared dorm rooms.
"There’s a main drag lined on both sides with fast-food restaurants, banks, cafes, grocery stores, a wedding photo shop, and an automated library. There are basketball courts, tennis courts, a gym, two enormous swimming pools, and a bright green astroturf soccer stadium smack-dab in the middle of campus. There’s a radio station -- Voice of Foxconn -- and a television news station. Longhua even has its own fire department, located right on main street."
Schmitz describes working conditions that involve tedious work and long hours, but characterizes reports of terrible sweatshop conditions as being sensationalized fiction.
"There have been poisoned workers, and Apple’s own audits have caught underage workers at factories making Apple products, but here’s another fact that also might be missing from this whole conversation: From what we know these are rare occurrences in Apple’s supply chain. Life at factories that make Apple products is not all hunky-dory, but the truth is much more complicated than how Daisey’s portrayed the situation," he wrote.
Jobs on China in 2010
In the summer of 2010, Steve Jobs responded similarly when asked by Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal about factory conditions in Apple's Chinese suppliers.
Apple's Chief Executive Steve Jobs at the 2010 D8 Conference. Photo credit Engadget
"We are on top of this," Jobs said. "We look at everything at these companies. I can tell you a few things that we know. And we are all over this. Foxconn is not a sweatshop.
"It's a factory, but my gosh, they have restaurants and movie theaters, but it's a factory. But they've had some suicides and attempted suicides, and they have 400,000 people there. The rate is under what the US rate is, but it's still troubling."
The suicide rate at Foxconn's plant reached 13 out of 400,000 employees in the first half of 2010, less than the U.S. rate of 11 per 100,000.
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Comments
Political ploy to discredit Apple by the competition plain and simple.
"There?s a main drag lined on both sides with fast-food restaurants, banks, cafes, grocery stores, a wedding photo shop, and an automated library. There are basketball courts, tennis courts, a gym, two enormous swimming pools, and a bright green astroturf soccer stadium smack-dab in the middle of campus.
"It's a factory, but my gosh, they have restaurants and movie theaters,
It sounds like paradise.
It sounds like paradise.
compared to the any other factory job in China, it is. You need a reality reset. They dont live in the US, where every other joker whats to set the standard for the Chinese people.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...s-supply-chain
It sounds like paradise.
I know you are being sarcastic, but when a rural farmer's son can go to town and get a job that can earn 6 to 7 times more than what his farmer father can make ... it's still pretty good.
Even if it isn't paradise.
Much different view of the Foxconn factory environment than the media has portrayed it. Believe only 50% of the media. A lot times they sensationalize things to get a reaction so they get more web hits or sell more papers. They might not get paid a ton of money, but making $8 a hour at McDonalds in America isn't exactly living in pristine living conditions either.
That video was boring. Where are the slave girls that myapplelove claims exist?
Somebody tried asking Leonovo, HP, Samsung, etc. about their working conditions and was stone walled.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...s-supply-chain
Two wrong make a right?
Why should they? The standard of living in China has been going up for decades without all these Western activists screaming. China's had the record double-digit GDP growth for well-over a decades (even if they are fake) - a feat only accomplished by Japan, Germany, South Korea.
It sounds like paradise.
Well then I'm sure they would be more then happy to have you.
This is the living conditions for Foxcons employees.
There are now hundreds of tent cities in every American large city. You can't tell me they wouldn't give a right foot to have work and live in one of these places if it was somewhere in America.
I live in Switzerland, we have .05% homeless and that's because they want to live like that or they don't have papers, why am I mad at this.
That's a big reason why I like Nokia, they make their phones where there going to be sold, well I'm sorry except the US but their building a plant in Sunnyville if they can sell phones. Not all made in China like the rest of them, well ok Samsung also makes their phones at home and so does Sony, Asus, Sharp, HTC and NEC. Actually it seems to be mostly Americans and Europeans who outsource and we wonder why we are in deep financial dodo.
You sound like you want to play the part of the serpent.
Now what's that about Daisey you're saying?
compared to the any other factory job in China, it is. You need a reality reset. They dont live in the US, where every other joker whats to set the standard for the Chinese people.
Or perhaps some of us would simply like to suggest that, while countries and cultures differ, there should still be some minimum standard regarding the treatment of human beings, wherever they are.
Otherwise we might as well accept eight-year-olds making tennis shoes for our kids, who I'm sure we are glad aren't doing that sort of thing themselves.
For what its worth, what little I know of China and these factories suggests they do meet a fairly decent standard, and I'm proud that Apple has diligently involved themselves in this issue from very early on.
But why should there be a gap between Apple's concern, and the concerns of those of us
(the "jokers") who use those products?
Y'know something nuts? I think if you would put your comment underneath the quote you are responding to, you might have a better chance of making your comment relevant to that quote. I've been waiting for someone to say something to you, or for you to see that you don't do it like everybody else. It's annoying as hell.
Now what's that about Daisey you're saying?
Easy dude. Mike Daisey = attention whore
It was aimed at the t***who wasnt supposed to be fed.
Thanks for the tip BTW [No sarcasm intended].