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More than a decade after the Nike scandals of the late 1990s exposed terrible working conditions in the Asian factories where most of our stuff is made, has anything changed? To be sure, in the years since, most U.S. brands -- not just footwear and apparel companies like Nike, Timberland and Gap, but corporate giants like GE and Walmart -- have assumed responsibility for human rights and environmental problems throughout their supply chains. But are conditions any better for the workers?
Those questions are front-page news these days, literally, in The New York Times, which has published two long and extraordinary stories about Apple and its supply chain in China. [See How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work and especially In China, Human Costs are built into an IPad.]
The Apple-in-China story is also brought to life by Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory, a lively, provocative episode of public radio's This American Life, in which an actor-turned-reporter named Mike Daisey investigates conditions at a Foxconn factory in Shenzhen. Together this reporting paints a shameful picture of harsh and unsafe working conditions at Apple suppliers: sometimes deadly safety issues, chemicals that scar people's hands, 60-hour weeks, long stretches of work with no breaks, a rash of worker suicides, etc.
To get some perspective, I spoke with Dan Viederman, the executive director of Verite, a nonprofit that helps companies build more humane and sustainable supply chains, and I've been reading my friend Adam Lashinsky's excellent new book, Inside Apple.
For starters, let's be clear: This is not an Apple problem. The focus of both The Times' reporting and Mike Daisey's story is Foxconn, which is said to be China's biggest private employer and may be the world's largest manufacturing company. It employs 1.2 million people (!) and assembles an estimated 40 percent of the world's consumer electronics, for customers including Amazon, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Nintendo, Nokia and Samsung, according to The Times.
Part of a company called Hon Hai that is headquartered in Taiwan, Foxconn operates not just in Asia, but in the Czech Republic, Mexico and Brazil. It publishes a corporate social responsibility report and has U.S.-based employees in Houston and Austin, Texas. Most Americans, of course, have never heard of Foxconn although they probably own something that was made by the company.
Nor is the problem of harsh, unsafe working conditions limited to Foxconn or even the electronics industry. Problems abound in the apparel and toy industries, too, as well as in mining, farming, fishing and construction. [See Walmart: A Bully Benefactor at Fortune.com for my story about Walmart's work to prevent child labor on cotton farms in Uzbekistan].
The low cost of cheap labor
The low cost of cheap labor and many job being outsourced has caused all these problems
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Wait those people have
Wait those people have chairs.
All Apple has to do is put out iPad3, or have a sale, all the protesters will rush Apple Store like those poor peasants who rush the gates of Foxconn to get a job.
What our media doesn’t tell us is Foxconn pays above industry average, and to the unskilled migrant workers, it’s a good job. I’d love to see the protesters try to eek out an existence in 100 year old unheated, unplumbed huts in rural China, then stay at a Foxconn dorm. Perhaps then they'll have some sympathy for the 900 million Chinese who still live in 3rd world poverty.
A dollar an hour is low wage? Factor in Purchasing Power Parity Foxconn workers earn more than many minimum wagers in US. A hotdog is about 20 cents in China, how many McDonald's workers make enough an hour to buy 5 hotdogs at 3 bucks a pop here?
Worker abuse? Are there no evil bosses or industrial accidents in America? Do line workers not have to pull double shift sometimes? Again our media deceives us. Did NYT disclose the fact their primary sources are disgruntled employee and US government funded dissident group paid to red-wash China? Check China Labor Watch’s financial tie with congressionally funded National Endowment for Democracy.
Suicide? Check the facts – suicide is caused by mental illness, and suicide rate at Foxconn is below China’s national average, lower than US college campus, and a fraction of US military suicide rate. What our media doesn’t tell us is the Foxconn jumpers off themselves over relationship breakup, gambling debt, life insurance benefit, not working condition.
Is a dollar an hour the
Is a dollar an hour the average wage or the lowest wage... The average wage at Mcdonalds is 9 dollars an hour and that does not include overtime which they would get paid 13.50 an hour.. and Hotdogs are 3 dollars a pop here? I can go buy them at the grocery store for 50 cents each..
Worker abuse.. Yes they have to pull double shifts sometimes but not every day.. People have died from overworking there.. Find me a case of someone dying in the US that was overworked and died from exhaustion and not gone to prison.. So the US government trying to show the poor working conditions is a bad thing? Apple sure does alot of marketing promoting their working conditions so why cant the US government fight back and show the truth.
Suicide? Does apple and foxconn report every single suicide at its plants? When was the last time a US college campus has a mass suicide where people demanded more respect or over a hundred people would kill themselves at once.. Im sorry but mental illness does not cause mass suicides at factories.. Maybe the rates arent that high because Foxconn told employees that they would not help their families if they committed suicide.. and the Nets around the factories sure helped alot too.. I have not heard of Ford putting up nets to stop their employees from jumping..
You have to remember this is not some struggling company that is paying its employees a good wage.. The company is making tens of billions a year in PROFIT and can not even share the wealth with their employees..
It is arrogant to simply
It is arrogant to simply ignore our right from Apple and make sales of iPad in this market, and we will reject ... Could Aside from that, we are in serious debt and brands are valuable assets to help us to sort out which of these difficulties.
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Good article, Marc, that adds
Good article, Marc, that adds to the discussion. Those who have studied history and economics realize that you don't go from rural-agriculatural to industrial without growing pains, and poor treatment of workers happens everywhere - still in the U.S. in many industries, where victims of human trafficking work. We're not where we want to or need to be from an ethical/moral perspective but progress continues. Journalists educating, consumers speaking out, and voting with their dollars, shareholder resolutions and looking for made in the USA products where workers are more likely to be treated fairly, not to mention promoting economic growth for all of us as those dollars flow, are ways we can all help.