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.
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... ^_^;
Apple said the child workers are now no longer being used, or are no longer underage. "In each of the three facilities, we required a review of all employment records for the year as well as a complete analysis of the hiring process to clarify how underage people had been able to gain employment," Apple said, in an annual report on its suppliers.
So what's the problem?
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
I guess the Western World can't handle knowing where the cheap stuff on their store shelves come from.
You mean Wal-Mart's bottom-shelf goods aren't made in Mayberry by union labor??
I never woulda guessed!
</sarcasm>
Quote:
Apple is the only company I know of that is VOLUNTARILY doing something about it.
They have absolutely no reason to do so apart from an altruistic motivation to improve conditions for third world workers.
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sippincider
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.
It is good that they are cracking down. It is not good that they use companies that treat their employees like slave labor.
BNbn
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.
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
Apple should investigate the recent reports of workers being exposed to toxic chemicals used in the manufacturing of their products. Within the past six months, workers went on strike alleging exposure to toxic chemicals and in the past week there is a report of some workers becoming ill due to exposure.
China should also improve its record on the environment. Their industries are far worse than Europe or the US--not that we are perfect.
I'm sorry, what "industry" remains in the United States?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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"......
Sick, backwards culture.
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?
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.
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?
Apple knows there is sub-culture of manipulated morons that care more about the Earth (something they have no knowledge of) than about Humanity,..
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.
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.
...
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?
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.
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.
?Apple will be the Nike of consumer electronics.? I?m glad that the company?s trying to clean up their act, but with a legacy like that, it?s hard for me to applaud them for admitting they found underage workers.
edit: It's Sunday... I could have sworn he came back to Apple in 1998. Better get on that Omega-3. Anyway...
Quote:
Originally Posted by AngusYoung
Steve Jobs? mantra circa 1996:
?Apple will be the Nike of consumer electronics.? [...]
I guess Steve Jobs has changed his attitude...
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.
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)?
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.
Jobs on stage at Macworld Conference & Expo, San Francisco, January 11, 2005.See also: "1998?2005: 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.
Comments
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.
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... ^_^;
Apple said the child workers are now no longer being used, or are no longer underage. "In each of the three facilities, we required a review of all employment records for the year as well as a complete analysis of the hiring process to clarify how underage people had been able to gain employment," Apple said, in an annual report on its suppliers.
So what's the problem?
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
I guess the Western World can't handle knowing where the cheap stuff on their store shelves come from.
You mean Wal-Mart's bottom-shelf goods aren't made in Mayberry by union labor??
I never woulda guessed!
</sarcasm>
Apple is the only company I know of that is VOLUNTARILY doing something about it.
They have absolutely no reason to do so apart from an altruistic motivation to improve conditions for third world workers.
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.
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.
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.
It is good that they are cracking down. It is not good that they use companies that treat their employees like slave labor.
BNbn
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.
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
Apple should investigate the recent reports of workers being exposed to toxic chemicals used in the manufacturing of their products. Within the past six months, workers went on strike alleging exposure to toxic chemicals and in the past week there is a report of some workers becoming ill due to exposure.
China should also improve its record on the environment. Their industries are far worse than Europe or the US--not that we are perfect.
I'm sorry, what "industry" remains in the United States?
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.
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.
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.
I'm sorry, what "industry" remains in the United States?
You live in NJ and ask this question? Have you driven down the NJ Turnpike, and looked on either side?!
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"......
Sick, backwards culture.
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?
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.
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?
Apple knows there is sub-culture of manipulated morons that care more about the Earth (something they have no knowledge of) than about Humanity,..
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.
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.
...
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?
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.
Apple's gross profit is ridiculous
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)?
?Apple will be the Nike of consumer electronics.? I?m glad that the company?s trying to clean up their act, but with a legacy like that, it?s hard for me to applaud them for admitting they found underage workers.
I guess Steve Jobs has changed his attitude...
Steve Jobs? mantra circa 1996:
?Apple will be the Nike of consumer electronics.? [...]
I guess Steve Jobs has changed his attitude...
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.
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)?
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.
edit: It's Sunday... I could have sworn he came back to Apple in 1998. Better get on that Omega-3.
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: "1998?2005: 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...