Apple & Slave Labour: It gets worse

[aerius]

Alternet.org link

iEmpire: Apple's Sordid Business Practices Are Even Worse Than You Think
New research goes beyond the New York Times to show just how disturbing labor conditions at Foxconn, the "Chinese hell factory," really are.

February 7, 2012 | Behind the sleek face of the iPad is an ugly backstory that has revealed once more the horrors of globalization. The buzz about Apple’s sordid business practices is courtesy of the New York Times series on the “iEconomy. In some ways it’s well reported but adds little new to what critics of the Taiwan-based Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, have been saying for years. The series' biggest impact may be discomfiting Apple fanatics who as they read the articles realize that the iPad they are holding is assembled from child labor, toxic shop floors, involuntary overtime, suicidal working conditions, and preventable accidents that kill and maim workers.

It turns out the story is much worse. Researchers with the Hong Kong-based Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) say that legions of vocational and university students, some as young as 16, are forced to take months'-long “internships” in Foxconn’s mainland China factories assembling Apple products. The details of the internship program paint a far more disturbing picture than the Times does of how Foxconn, “the Chinese hell factory,” treats its workers, relying on public humiliation, military discipline, forced labor and physical abuse as management tools to hold down costs and extract maximum profits for Apple.

To supply enough employees for Foxconn, the 60th largest corporation globally, government officials are serving as lead recruiters at the cost of pushing teenage students into harsh work environments. The scale is astonishing with the Henan provincial government having announced in both 2010 and 2011 that it would send 100,000 vocational and university students to work at Foxconn, according to SACOM.

Ross Perlin, author of Intern Nation, told AlterNet that “Foxconn is conspiring with government officials and universities in China to run what may be the world's single largest internship program – and one of the most exploitative. Students at vocational schools – including those whose studies have nothing to do with consumer electronics – are literally forced to move far from home to work for Foxconn, threatened that otherwise they won't be allowed to graduate. Assembling our iPhones and Kindles for meager wages, they work under the same conditions, or worse, as other workers in the Foxconn sweatshops.”

The state involvement shows Foxconn and Apple depend on tax breaks, repression of labor, subsidies and Chinese government aid, including housing, infrastructure, transportation and recruitment, to fatten their corporate treasuries. As the students function as seasonal employees to meet increased demand for new product rollouts, Apple is directly dependent on forced labor.

The real story of the Apple-Foxconn behemoth, then, is far from being John Galt incarnate. Their global dominance is forged in the crucible of China’s state-managed authoritarian capitalism. Since the 1980s China has starved rural areas to accelerate the industrialization of coastal cities like Shenzhen, where Foxconn first set up shop in 1988. Scholars who study China’s economy and labor market link rural underdevelopment to the creation of a massive migrant work force that serves as the foundation of the country’s industrialization. Deprived of many rights, migrants are recruited to work in Foxconn's city-sized complexes by government employees with false promises of good-paying jobs that will help them escape rural poverty. A large percentage of migrant workers are student interns as they are recruited from poor rural regions like Henan and sent to work in coastal metropolises like Shenzhen.

Apple’s formula for mammoth profits, which topped $13 billion last quarter, starts with a highly flexible workforce. Foxconn wields military-style discipline to turn workers into flesh-and-blood robots who can fulfill exacting specifications and orders for new and constantly updated product lines, such as five generations of iPhones in four years. Workers are driven to crank out more computers in less time at lower costs because they are disposable. Of 420,000 employees at “Foxconn City” in Shenzhen, which abuts Hong Kong, half had less than six months service. The inevitable and systematic abuses crush the dreams of young rural migrants, argue scholars, making the suicides a logical outgrowth of the iEconomy as much as the iPad. Simply put, nothing will change unless Apple and Foxconn are forced to because their empires are built on these practices. (Foxconn denies everything.)

iSlaves

Speaking by Skype from SACOM’s office in Hong Kong, Debby Chan Sze-wan says that in Henan province alone more than 100 vocational schools and 14 universities supply students to Foxconn. “Vocational students are required to do internships. Many student workers are as young as 16. They have to work the same positions as other workers, including working on the night shift.” (One worker spoke to SACOM about irregular shifts, lamenting, “day and night shifts are sometimes changed two to three times a month. The change of shift is unbearable. It is difficult to adjust our body clock.”) In June 2010, Foxconn signed an agreement with an additional 119 vocational schools in the southwest municipality of Chongqing to supply student workers.

SACOM and others report that schools teaching journalism, hotel management and nursing threatened students with failure if they did not take a factory position. The Chinese government-owned Global Times noted that “automotive majors at a vocational school in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan, were also forced to serve as interns for Foxconn before they were given their diplomas.”

One study found in some Foxconn factories, which employ 1.3 million people in China, up to 50 percent of the workforce were students. Foxconn probably prefers it that way because it does not have to sign contracts with the students. Chan says this frees the company from having to pay into social welfare insurance that covers unemployment, healthcare, pensions, disability and maternity leave. In 2010, noted SACOM, “Foxconn ceased to recruit new workers in Shenzhen. Instead, a high number of vacancies were filled by tens of thousands of student interns.”

Not just students are shipped off to Foxconn, says Chan, “teachers have to come to manage them in the factories.” SACOM found that near one facility nearly all the rooms in a seven-story hotel had been rented by vocational teachers accompanying students. Government authorities apparently charge teachers with recruiting students and tech colleges have quotas for interns to be sent to Foxconn, according to a student paper from China Europe International Business School.

SACOM notes, “It is believed that Foxconn alone cannot mobilize such a high number of students.” Another account states, “Many high schools in Zhengzhou are required by local authorities to make arrangements for their students to intern at Foxconn factories in Shenzhen.”

There appears to be a simple reason why many vocational schools eagerly force their students to take hazardous industrial jobs: greed. Evidence comes from another Apple supplier in China, Wintek, where students seem to have it worse than Foxconn. Wintek gained notoriety for making workers use n-hexane, a toxic compound, to clean iPhone touchscreens because it evaporated much faster than rubbing alcohol, enabling workers to increase their output. In 2010 interns told SACOM there were 500 students at the plant who worked 11 hours a day, seven days a week with a maximum salary of 500 yuan, less than $80 a month. According to the report, “Wintek pays the students’ salaries in accordance with law, but the lion’s share goes to the schools directly.” Over the course of a year, 500 students could net a school more than a million U.S. dollars in income.

The China Labor Bulletin found schools stealing wages to be common: “The key issue in forced internships appears to be the entrenched relationship between schools and businesses, a relationship actively encouraged by the Chinese government.” They added that “it was not unusual for schools to deduct a ‘commission’ from the interns’ salary or get paid directly by factories for providing cheap labor,” despite the illegality of the practice. As for redress for abuses, “students have little or no legal recourse when they are cheated out of their pay or forced to work long hours in hazardous conditions.”

In other cases, the state education bureau will withhold funds reserved for vocational schools if they fail to meet quotas for interns.

Corporate Socialism

The use of hundreds of thousands of students is one way in which China’s state regulates labor in the interests of Foxconn and Apple. Other measures include banning independent unions and enforcing a household registration system that denies migrants social services and many political rights once they leave their home region, ensuring they can be easily exploited. In Shenzhen about 85 percent of the 14 million residents are migrants. Migrants work on average 286 hours a month and earn less than 60 percent of what urban workers make. Half of migrants are owed back wages and only one in 10 has health insurance. They are socially marginalized, live in extremely crowded and unsanitary conditions, perform the most dangerous and deadly jobs, and are more vulnerable to crime. Finally, the state rigorously enforces the registration system, often packing migrants back to the countryside if they lack the proper documents. It’s the very picture of the Foxconn workforce.

But that is just the beginning of state subsidies. China’s growth model over the last 30 years is based on “heavily intervening” in the process of economic development while retreating from “the social and civic sphere by providing social and labor protections,” according to scholars Ngai Pun and Jenny Chan. Foxconn is taking advantage of the latest phase, known as the “Go West” strategy, which is enabled by the government’s “massive investment in interior infrastructure including airports, highways, power grids and high-speed rail.”

Outright plunder is sometimes the tactic, and government officials are notorious for grabbing collectively held lands in China to benefit themselves and well-connected corporations. Debby Chan claims some of Foxconn’s new facilities have been a result of such land confiscations. (As elsewhere, privatizing the commons in China also serves the goal of turning rural peasants into industrial laborers.)

A SACOM video features Foxconn boasting that the building of its Chengdu Technology Park in Sichuan Province “had strong government support at the state, provincial, city and local levels.” For the facility, which will be able to spit out 40 million iPads annually on 50 production lines, the local government “increased cargo flights to Hong Kong and set aside the biggest block of land in its tariff-free zone for the company to help cut costs.” SACOM’s video also showed packed public buses being used as Foxconn’s transport fleet, and workers’ housing that was supposed to be “resettlement housing for rural farmers.”

In Foxconn’s Zhengzhou complex that manufactures iPhones, the government “fast-tracked approval for the factory in 16 days, including clearances for fiscal subsidies and preferential corporate income tax rates.” The government provided the land to Foxconn as well as renting it a renovated factory and rooms for 100,000 workers. The city is also talking of spending more than $4 billion to expand the airport so it can accommodate more cargo flights.

In Chongqing “employment promotion officials granted Foxconn a discounted corporate income tax rate of 15 percent” and lengthened an airport runway by 400 meters “to meet increasing transportation and logistical needs.” For Taiwan’s computer industry, Chongqing offers “direct charter flights, entry permits for Taiwanese citizens upon arrival, cross-border Chinese Yuan’s trade settlement services, 10-year subsidies on income taxes, export tax rebates and export custom declaration services.”

The New York Times feature on China’s role in Apple’s empire touched upon this, explaining how government subsidies enabled a glass-cutting factory to have engineers, workers, glass samples and a whole manufacturing wing on standby to service Apple’s possible needs.

Wages of Misery

The justification for soup-to-nuts state funding of corporations is they provide jobs and a rising standard of living. That’s not the case with Foxconn. The high turnover – less than 5 percent of Shenzhen’s workforce has five years or more seniority – and consistent worker accounts of being misled about wages as recruits and shorted on earned overtime pay once in the factory point to how Foxconn squeezes workers for profit. That, in turn, is the result of Apple’s strategy of squeezing suppliers. One executive who’s worked with Apple told the New York Times, “The only way you make money working for Apple is figuring out how to do things more efficiently or cheaper. … And then they’ll come back the next year, and force a 10 percent price cut.” While Apple’s profit margin tops a rarified 30 percent, Foxconn ekes out a puny 1.5 percent. (Though don’t cry for owner Terry Gou, who has to make do with $5.7 billion.) In the case of an iPad, labor costs in China amount to 2 percent of the final retail cost.

Despite headlining one article, “In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad,” the Times highlighted environmental hazards and overtime, glossing over wages, working conditions and abusive supervision. (Even then the Times barely scratched the surface of how Foxconn and other Apple subcontractors have trashed the environment and poisoned workers as documented in these studies.)

SACOM found that after the spate of suicides in 2010 compelled Foxconn to raise wages (which weren’t really raises because housing and food subsidies were cut), the pay of frontline workers ranged from 50 to 61 percent of the minimum living wage depending on the city. To make a sufficient wage, workers must take on overtime shifts. But if they decline even one overtime shift they get iced out for the entire month. One student worker in Chengdu summed up the dilemma, “If there is no overtime at all, I will only receive the basic salary. Hence, I have no choice.”

This is backed up by an eye-opening paper published in 2010 by Pun and Chang, titled, “Suicide as Protest for the New Generation of Chinese Migrant Workers: Foxconn, Global Capital, and the State.” The two academics found that for migrant workers in Shenzhen their average pay, even with overtime, was 47 percent of what city residents earned, and amounted to only two-thirds of the living wage calculated by SACOM.

Military-Style Management

To meet production goals Foxconn relies on “military-style management … on the shop floor.” Workers say “military training” starts during the recruitment phase, such as being forced to stand in the sun for hours with no water. In Chengdu, some workers claimed that for up to one month before work began they had to line up in formation and “stand still as a soldier for hours.” Even the China Daily reported that the state-controlled Shenzhen Federation of Trade Unions said Foxconn has a “quasi-military management system.” According to scholars as well as business publications, Taiwanese managers in China refer to their management style as militaristic.

The workers believe the goal is “to indoctrinate the idea of absolute obedience.” This reflects Foxconn founder Terry Gou’s principles that a leader must be “a dictator for the common good,” and “a harsh environment is a good thing.” One SACOM report stated, “New workers are always reminded by the management that they should obey all the instructions of the superiors without question.” Another apparent goal is to train the workers to stand all day. One female worker in Shenzhen said, “We have to stand all day long. Even worse, we have to stand like a soldier. I am totally exhausted after non-stop work.”

The absolute power inevitably leads to abuses. In another paper Pun and Chang cite a study by the independent Foxconn Research Group in 2010, involving interviews of 1,736 employees in 12 separate factory areas and 14 investigators who took one-month positions in the company. It found that 38 percent of employees had their privacy violated and 16.4 percent – one in six workers – were “subjected to corporal punishment by management and security personnel,” according to Ross Perlin (who is fluent in Chinese and translated parts of the study at my request). Twenty-eight percent of workers said they were abused or insulted. “Public humiliation and confession … is a frequently used management method,” write Pun and Chang. “Line leaders, who are also under pressure, tend to treat workers in a harsh way to reach the productivity targets.”

Pun and Chang conclude, “Foxconn employees experience long hours of repetitive work for very low income. They submit to management scrutiny on the job, and their low income and limited free time restricts their options outside of work. Many young men and women workers rarely stop working except to eat and sleep, simply to make ends meet. The result is a community of people under intense stress with few resources, a situation conducive to depression.”

In May 2010, the same month six Foxconn workers died after hurling themselves out of buildings, a letter issued by Pun and eight other mainland Chinese and Hong Kong academics connected the dots between state policies, global capitalsim and the effects on the workforce. The writers maintained that because young migrant workers never think of “going back to farming like their parents … they see no other option when they enter the city to work. The moment they see there is little possibility of building a home in the city through hard work, the very meaning of their work collapses. The path ahead is blocked, and the road to retreat is closed. Trapped in this situation, the new generation of migrant workers faces a serious identity crisis and, in effect, this magnifies psychological and emotional problems.”

For some, the way out is suicide, writes UCLA professor Russell Leong: “It’s my belief that workers internalized their oppressive conditions because they could not find ways to resolve the oppressive ‘relations of production’ – treated as part of the machinery of the production assembly line they became demoralized, dehumanized, and finally, desperate. So their only option was a very human one: to throw away or destroy their own bodies as a gesture of frustration – and of defiance.”

As much as Foxconn and Apple laud their audits, their devotion to the law and their ethics (Steve Jobs emailed an Apple user critical of the suicides, “We do more than any other company on the planet”), the companies ascended to the top on a heap of bodies. They are hardly unique, and that’s the problem.

As far as labor practices goes, Foxconn is no different than its rivals, and it’s impossible to escape. It assembles electronics for everyone including the iPad’s rival, the Kindle, and the Acer computer I’m writing this on. All that matters is that Wall Street is happy because Apple has more cash on hand than the U.S. Treasury.

Apple and consumers alike could easily pay more as labor accounts for only 7 percent of costs. Tripling wages and benefits might add $100 to an iPad. But that would set a bad example. Apple’s profits might decline a notch and Wall Street would dump its stock. Consumers would still have their toys but might buy fewer smart phones, tablets, iPods, Xboxes, laptops, desktops and other digital sundries.

Giving Foxconn workers a job with a living wage instead of one that cripples them by their mid-20s would pressure other Chinese companies to do the same. And then more demands would be made: Why can’t the factories stop poisoning waters, lands and workers, fouling the air and frying the planet?

It’s not that we can’t have advanced technology, a healthy society and a green economy. We just can’t have it with the Foxconns and Apples of the world, where dictatorial billionaires make closed-door calculations based on market share, revenue and profit at the expense of everyone, and everything else.

So don’t expect anything to change in Apple and Foxconn’s hell factories, unless workers in China (and wherever else Foxconn goes next) rise up and make it change. In the meantime, enjoy your iWorld.

Arun Gupta is a founding editor of The Indypendent newspaper. He is writing a book on the decline of American Empire for Haymarket Books.

So not only do Apple & Foxconn use slave labour to build their products, what they have is barely a step away from forced slave labour & relocation. On top of that we have corporate kickbacks to the vocational schools for more slaves, a practice which is supported by the government. And Apple happily contracts with Foxconn & other such abusive companies in China to build all their products.

[weemadando]

Well when your founder says shit like this:

"I have a headache how to manage one million animals"

You've got some endemic corporate culture issues.

I remember listening to a report from DeutscheWelle or Radio Netherlands or the Beeb about how the residency/registration system in these cities is deliberately mismanaged (in addition to never being initially designed for these scenarios) so that the workers, no matter how long they stay or whether they marry, have children or whatever while working there, are always utterly reliant on their home city/province for everything.

Yay for slavery because we like shiny stuff I suppose.

[Shroom Man 777]

Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!

[Netko]

Reading it a bit less sinisterly, a practical work/internship requirement is nothing new for vocational schooling. As is it not being paid or being minimally paid or profits split with the school. The only really troubling aspect here is that schools from non-related fields are forced to do so - that's corrupt and should be prosecuted.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Reading it a bit less sinisterly, a practical work/internship requirement is nothing new for vocational schooling. As is it not being paid or being minimally paid or profits split with the school. The only really troubling aspect here is that schools from non-related fields are forced to do so - that's corrupt and should be prosecuted.

The other problem comes from the horrific working conditions. It is one thing to have an internship requirement where you work in an office/firm or a garage or something while getting the benefits of student financial aid by taking credit hours in "internship", and being subject to the same protections as any other employee, in a nation where such things exist. Where the law MAKES a sociopathic corporate executive treat you like a human being.

It is another matter to be shoved into a monk's cell in another province where you are not getting the same basic worker protections, are not paid, working 12 hour shifts, with a sociopathic corporate executive being permitted to treat you like the literal definition of a "human resource" to be unpacked, used, and thrown into a trash heap when you are no longer useful.

[K. A. Pital]

As far as labor practices goes, Foxconn is no different than its rivals, and it’s impossible to escape

I would not say Foxconn is absolutely similar in all aspects to all other factories (what do they mean by rivals, Amazon and Apple are contracting Foxconn, they're part of the chain). What I would say is that due to the size of Foxconn, teaching it a lesson would be nice. However, Western corporations will never do that.

Oh, and let's recall the claims about "improvement" of the working conditions that some here pushed. This article makes it sound like the raise was offset by the cuts to subsistence programs. And yes, if Apple stops playing the game, their profits will tank just like it happened with Dow after the fake "compensation to Union Carbide victims" announcement. The market is ruthless.

It is a machine. Demanding the market to be ethical, moral, whatever is bullcrap. That's like asking a tsunami or tornado to be merciful.

[The Yosemite Bear]

so how much would it cost to start "Cruelty, Child Labour, and Slavery Free" brand name?

[Eulogy]

It's been endemic for a long time now, and it's not limited to labourers. When you can get tortured to suicide over a lost phone you know the company will eventually implode.

If consumers were willing to pay more money just so people aren't roped into slavery, the world would already be a better place. Instead we get horseshit like this.

[Sephirius]

so how much would it cost to start "Cruelty, Child Labour, and Slavery Free" brand name?

You'd get laughed out of any meeting where you seriously proposed that, be it for a bank loan or with investors.
Hell, I wouldn't throw my money at that either. Would you?

[Pendleton]

Title is misleading. Last I checked, Apple wasn't Foxconn.

In other news, Apple Corp. (EVIL on NASDAQ) is ordering independent audits. I didn't see a thread about that, so am including it here. Let me know when the other Foxconn contractors follow suit. I, as ever, agree with Stas again.

[Pendleton]

Consumers are willing to pay more money.

Apple isn't willing to slow the pace of their record profits, though. If people pay more money, they still squeeze the supplier and just bank the excess for themselves.

Like 99% of all companies. This isn't an Apple problem, as we have already discussed, and pretending it is with these sudden outbursts of caring for peasant workers in China because it also chimes in well with the anti-Apple crowd's fantasies, doesn't change anything either. You will never get truly ethical businesses to become the norm. They simply won't thrive, doubly so in the economic climate of today. Many are even seen as luxury brands, just as with organic produce. The best you can hope for is better audits bringing about action on the suppliers and pressuring them into helping out their employees more. Really, the Chinese government should be the one taking flak for allowing such industry to arise at the cost of their people's health and the environment (although I remember bringing this point up once elsewhere, and promptly being shouted down because I was questioning the world's most amazing raising of people out of poverty ever witnessed. So who wins here?). But rapacious growth is far too tempting, and it gives China the competitiva edge over even other developing nations.

It doesn't seem like any nation can rapidly industrialise itself without going through the workers' rights movement phase too.

[Pendleton]

Yeah, we went over this before, so no need to do it again.

The most amazing thing I find about these stories is how many of them seem to end in suicide. Where are the murders?

(no, seriously)

Remember the proposed mass suicide at the Xbox plant in Wuhan? Surely walk outs and other protests would have been just as effective (I hear Foxconn even put nets up for the eventuality). It seems wanting to suicide and make a point posthumously is preferred, perhaps down to cultural differences. I wouldn't, however, be surprised if we did have people being killed off or beaten at least. Maybe they're more honourable...

[Sephirius]

If consumers were willing to pay more money just so people aren't roped into slavery, the world would already be a better place. Instead we get horseshit like this.

Consumers are willing to pay more money.

Apple isn't willing to slow the pace of their record profits, though. If people pay more money, they still squeeze the supplier and just bank the excess for themselves.

Fuck the consumer, they're just there to increase my share price. That's what Apple and their investors really want at the end of the day, they could care less about how it's done and who it fucks over.

[Civil War Man]

Where are the murders?

Considering how police states often work, many of them are probably busy being reported as suicides.

[weemadando]

Title is misleading. Last I checked, Apple wasn't Foxconn.

In other news, Apple Corp. (EVIL on NASDAQ) is ordering independent audits. I didn't see a thread about that, so am including it here. Let me know when the other Foxconn contractors follow suit. I, as ever, agree with Stas again.

This article amongst others gives a number - 229 audits being conducted by Apple.

Two hundred and twenty nine audits? Can't wait to see the outcomes they don't act upon.

I'm actually kind of intrigued to see what comes of the hack, would be interesting to see if there's e-mails from Apple going: "I don't fucking care how many more workers die, we need more iPads for launch day".

[Vendetta]

I'm actually kind of intrigued to see what comes of the hack, would be interesting to see if there's e-mails from Apple going: "I don't fucking care how many more workers die, we need more iPads for launch day".

I think it's naive to expect anything of the sort, frankly.

The issue is that it really doesn't matter what Apple does, Foxconn's business practices wouldn't change because there's no incentive for them to do so. They're just about the only volume manufacturer of electronics, the whole supply chain is also in China, so manufacture of electronics is not going to be leaving China, so all their competitors are going to be operating on the same level as regards employee protection etc.

[Faqa]

so how much would it cost to start "Cruelty, Child Labour, and Slavery Free" brand name?

You'd get laughed out of any meeting where you seriously proposed that, be it for a bank loan or with investors.
Hell, I wouldn't throw my money at that either. Would you?

I would. People are willing to pay in order to feel better about themselves, the Starbucks 'free trade' racket make this quite clear. There's profit in it. Like 'free trade' coffee, though, the extra money paid is likely to get lost long before it reaches the people it's purporting to help.

And if anyone could make consumers pay premiums above market value for their goods, it's Apple. They already run on this.

They're just about the only volume manufacturer of electronics, the whole supply chain is also in China, so manufacture of electronics is not going to be leaving China

Huh. I didn't actually think of this. Would China actively block delivery of materials to companies who did not base their manufacturing in China?

Let's get the 100% robot factories working. They may not give anyone a job, but at least they won't do this. And expecting a more ethical outcome otherwise is foolish.

(Huh - thought on this. I recall reading somewhere that RIM bases their manufacturing in the West, and turns a profit on it. Any truth to that?)

[K. A. Pital]

1) RIM is facing oblivion, it lost the market.
2) The solution is not robotic factories, but rather the introduction of decent worker protection standards (believe or not, some factories in China have them) to that particular piece of crap company known as Foxconn
3) Expecting a better outcome is stupid - acting to make one happen is not. Not with boycotts, though, but rather with vicious attacks against the corporate lobby in the press, on the streets and everywhere from the highest echelons of power down to the lowly slums of Bangladesh, attacks carried out in any fashion that is morally acceptable and justified given the conditions.

[Faqa]

1) Is that due to Western manufacturing, or just the fact that they missed the smartphone boat?

2) As long as workers are in the factories, factories will try to cut corners on protecting them. As long as there is a lot of money that can be made from cutting said corners, it will be made possible to cut them. See problem with government being a player instead of a referee.

3) This is a bad idea. The corporations are bigger and better. They can hire better press, they can buy the fucking streets, and damn sure they can buy the highest echelons of power. And, like an attack dog, they're not actually bad when properly restrained. The solution is in education and then exposure. Make people not actively want to not see the abuses, show them the abuses... and things will change. Corporations might will always be soulless profit entities, but if they have to answer to ethical, ethically active (as opposed to ethically lazy) people....

And when humanity has done that, we should refill the world's oil wells and reverse the trends of global warming as well. With purple unicorns.

[aerius]

(Huh - thought on this. I recall reading somewhere that RIM bases their manufacturing in the West, and turns a profit on it. Any truth to that?)

Most of their manufacturing is right here in Canada, I used to work there when I was university. They did and they still do turn a profit on their products and in fact the company is still making a profit. Not nearly as much as they used to and they're getting creamed in the markets but that's because their management went full retard & missed the smartphone wave among other poor business decisions. They didn't get into the smartphone business until it was far too late and got a huge chunk of their market share taken away by competitors.

[K. A. Pital]

1) Is that due to Western manufacturing, or just the fact that they missed the smartphone boat?

Not sure. In any case, most other companies use Chinese/Taiwanese/Malaysian labour.

2) As long as workers are in the factories, factories will try to cut corners on protecting them. As long as there is a lot of money that can be made from cutting said corners, it will be made possible to cut them. See problem with government being a player instead of a referee.

If you are raising productivity by labour-saving technologies (automatic production), the former workers should be supplied anyway. That might work under some form of socialism or planned economy, but under capitalism? Tough luck making Third World labour find work. Like I said, while this is an endemic and widespread capitalistic problem, there is no resolution to it within the realms of private property, although it is also worth noting that not all factories behave like Foxconn. So either you admit that factories can avoid such conditions (in which case there is no need for automatization as an immediate replacement), or you admit that factories cannot, in which case the problem above arises.

3) This is a bad idea. The corporations are bigger and better. They can hire better press, they can buy the fucking streets, and damn sure they can buy the highest echelons of power. And, like an attack dog, they're not actually bad when properly restrained. The solution is in education and then exposure. Make people not actively want to not see the abuses, show them the abuses... and things will change. Corporations might will always be soulless profit entities, but if they have to answer to ethical, ethically active (as opposed to ethically lazy) people....

The theory of little deeds and "teach 'em with the buck". Too bad it has failed miserably and undoubtedly will fail many times in the future as well. See my sig for details. It is a neverending battle to cure the vices created by private property on means of production via private property itself. Perhaps one can say that there can be an intermediate result, but in reality the fight cannot be won.

And when humanity has done that, we should refill the world's oil wells and reverse the trends of global warming as well. With purple unicorns.

Yeah, I guess that's pretty much as probable as Foxconn and their contractors stopping these repugnant practices unless some of their managers end up in a prison cell. Is that why you made this comparison?

[Vendetta]

Huh. I didn't actually think of this. Would China actively block delivery of materials to companies who did not base their manufacturing in China?

No, it would just be far more expensive to assemble, say, an iPhone in the US when every single component that goes into it is made in a completely different factory and they're almost all in China.

Even if the Chinese government woke up tomorrow and decided that it wanted to institute worker protections and minimum wage standards equal to or better than any western nation it would still be way cheaper to manufacture there because almost all of the factories are there (to the extent that Apple would still make a per-unit profit on the iPhone), not just final assembly like Foxconn does, but the factories that make almost every component down to the screws are also in China.

Shorter and better integrated supply chain means cheaper manufacture and more responsiveness to changing requirements.

[Faqa]

If you are raising productivity by labour-saving technologies (automatic production), the former workers should be supplied anyway. That might work under some form of socialism or planned economy, but under capitalism? Tough luck making Third World labour find work. Like I said, while this is an endemic and widespread capitalistic problem, there is no resolution to it within the realms of private property, although it is also worth noting that not all factories behave like Foxconn. So either you admit that factories can avoid such conditions (in which case there is no need for automatization as an immediate replacement), or you admit that factories cannot, in which case the problem above arises.

I prefer unemployed workers to ones in a Foxconn factory, to be honest. People who need a minimal living can at least be taken care of. People who are employed in these hellish conditions are out of sight and out of mind until an enterprising NYT reporter stops by for a bit.

Then we buy a new Galaxy and forget about them.

I don't really think such factories are avoidable - Western factories only get away with decent conditions because the people who want a cheaper product can find it on the Glorious Free World Market (i.e, outsource to China). If the entire world suddenly adopted socialist protection laws for it's workers?

You'd just still have well-connected factories who could pay enough to get around the pesky problem. Capitalism works, dude.

We have a similar issue here in Israel - which has strong socialist roots and relatively strong (though weakening) socialist protection for it's workers. We have temp worker agencies who lease out workers for grunt jobs - security guards, cleaners, etc. Companies love these agencies, because they have to pay out a shit-ton less to the worker in pay and benefits than they would if he were a direct company employee. Nobody seems to ask how this miracle of savings was accomplished. Now the newspapers are shocked (SHOCKED!) to find that these workers are getting shafted on pay, benefits, pension, whatever. Take your own guess how these temp agencies are getting around the worker protection laws (in this case, it helps that Netanyahu is a free-market whore who hails, I believe, from the school of Reaganomics). The market found a way - it's really that simple, and always will be.

The theory of little deeds and "teach 'em with the buck". Too bad it has failed miserably and undoubtedly will fail many times in the future as well. See my sig for details. It is a neverending battle to cure the vices created by private property on means of production via private property itself. Perhaps one can say that there can be an intermediate result, but in reality the fight cannot be won.

It fails because the deeds are little and scattered. It fails because society says it's a nice thing for hippies from California to do, like that organic crap, but not really required. It fails because 99% of consumers will still buy the cheapest product for their needs, regardless of manufacturing. It fails because trying to bring this stuff up leads to one being perceived as a pushy asshole who's ruining everyone's fun (well, I'm exaggerating - if one is to enjoy any benefit of Western society, one is probably purchasing it from the misery of the third world. We're all ethically lazy assholes). So companies respond accordingly.

They only do what customers want. You make the customers better, the companies will follow suit. That's what I mean by education.

Yeah, I guess that's pretty much as probable as Foxconn and their contractors stopping these repugnant practices unless some of their managers end up in a prison cell. Is that why you made this comparison?

More because I recognize that the chances of what I think should be done ever happening. Education is absolutely shitty, getting worse, and fixing educational systems is still a Hard Problem, which gets exponentially Harder as the populace gets less educated. It's also a problem that requires long-term, sustained and steady investment. From, you know, Western democratic governments in the 24-hour news cycle.

In short - I think your ideal solution and mine have an equal chance of every occurring.

Even if the Chinese government woke up tomorrow and decided that it wanted to institute worker protections and minimum wage standards equal to or better than any western nation it would still be way cheaper to manufacture there because almost all of the factories are there (to the extent that Apple would still make a per-unit profit on the iPhone), not just final assembly like Foxconn does, but the factories that make almost every component down to the screws are also in China.

Shorter and better integrated supply chain means cheaper manufacture and more responsiveness to changing requirements.

So, no need for economic warfare - it just Makes Economic Sense. My heart is warmed.

[K. A. Pital]

I'm not sure you're actually disagreeing with me on the first point. The market cannot solve its own problems. At least while remaining a market.

I'm exaggerating - if one is to enjoy any benefit of Western society, one is probably purchasing it from the misery of the third world

You're not, actually. Trying to raise the issue just causes them to blurt out something like "sod off commie". First World's cup of sins is so full it is hard to even imagine that it can reform.

You make the customers better, the companies will follow suit. That's what I mean by education.

The education in a capitalist society is deliberately designed to be fragmentary, and the tendency is getting worse (although some counter-tendencies, e.g. open education, are rather welcome). That way a person would not be able to compose smaller bits of knowledge into an overall system, and the companies are exploiting that. The obfuscation of certain knowledge has become an essential task to the system, just as dissemination of other types of knowledge. ... Eh, I see you already noted that as well.

[Faqa]

The education in a capitalist society is deliberately designed to be fragmentary, and the tendency is getting worse (although some counter-tendencies, e.g. open education, are rather welcome). That way a person would not be able to compose smaller bits of knowledge into an overall system, and the companies are exploiting that. The obfuscation of certain knowledge has become an essential task to the system, just as dissemination of other types of knowledge. ... Eh, I see you already noted that as well.

Here I disagree. The problems in educational systems are simply the result of a weakening government. To say corporations are deliberately sabotaging the systems crosses the line into comic-book villainy.

Ultimately, capitalism and democracy make the people the ultimate watchmen of society. We failed to remember that people are not born good enough for this privilege. The responsibilities that go with this power must be taught, and abilities to fulfill them must be given. This requires a strong educational system that teaches that.

(I'm pretty sure I fail on both criteria. So do most of us)

These systems do not prosper on the free market. So when free market thinking gets involved in it, it deteriorates, and it is ten times harder to improve it back, particularly as time goes by and we see the effects on the populace. So you could say capitalism is to blame - but not with villainous intentions.