[HN Gopher] Women force change at Indian iPhone plant
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Women force change at Indian iPhone plant
Author : happy-go-lucky
Score : 112 points
Date : 2021-12-30 18:58 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| forinti wrote:
| If not for basic human decency, then at least in the name of
| productivity these issues should have been solved.
|
| It just seems stupid to not offer a sane working environment.
| dvt wrote:
| > It just seems stupid to not offer a sane working environment.
|
| You need to read about the history of corporatism from the mid
| 19th to the early 20th century. It's absolutely _not_ stupid:
| it 's optimal. The problem is that these two goals (optimal
| productivity and human rights) will conflict. There's
| absolutely an economic case to be made for working someone to
| the bone (and 16-hour workdays and beatings used to be the
| norm); it is, however, also unethical and morally wrong.
| kempbellt wrote:
| > It's absolutely not stupid: it's optimal.
|
| It's absolutely _not_ optimal, it 's inefficient. Many
| companies have learned this, which is why you see things like
| "Unlimited Vacations! Free snacks! Company provided lunches!"
| etc, offered as perks.
|
| For low-skill labor, there isn't much benefit in making
| employees lives _overly_ comfortable, but it is worth it to
| invest in some basic amenities - easy access to clean
| restrooms, regular breaks, clean air, clean water, warmth.
| These are the basics.
|
| In the case of these workers:
|
| - Better dorms = good sleep/less sickness
|
| - Decent food (without worms...) = less sickness/healthier
| employees
|
| - Decent toilets = less sickness/reduced stress
|
| All of these => happier, more energetic, and less distracted
| employees => more efficient work => more work gets done.
|
| With the benefit of making your company look like a good
| place to work.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Ah the unlimited vacations that no one actually takes out
| of fear to be fired by the next opportunity.
| Jensson wrote:
| > In the case of these workers: ...
|
| You assume they have to keep those workers here. Foxconn
| can just get new people when the old ones break. It isn't
| optimal on a country level, but for the company it is
| optimal. Which is why we make laws to prevent companies
| from abusing workers like this.
| kempbellt wrote:
| There would probably need to be a case study to see if
| overworking, booting, and hiring new workers is more cost
| effective than investing in better work conditions.
|
| My money is on better work conditions being a better
| investment long term. It'd reduce turnover. Less time
| hiring/training new employees, and the employees you keep
| are happier, stick around longer, and become more
| efficient at their job through experience.
| Jensson wrote:
| > My money is on better work conditions being a better
| investment long term. It'd reduce turnover. Less time
| hiring/training new employees, and the employees you keep
| are happier, stick around longer, and become more
| efficient at their job through experience.
|
| You might have noticed that most companies don't care
| about these things, because it doesn't matter much for
| them. For software engineers or equivalent, sure it
| matters a lot, but for unskilled workers that needs
| minimal training? Then it doesn't matter much, as even
| today we see that basically no company cares about their
| minimum wage workers conditions.
| kempbellt wrote:
| > You might have noticed that most companies don't care
| about these things
|
| I've noticed the opposite. Even when I worked retail jobs
| (minimum wage) in high-school and college, those
| employers considered morale the be an important aspect of
| a productive work environment.
|
| We'd have company BBQs, random pizza days, birthday
| recognition (sometimes with cake), etc. They gave us the
| proper tools to do our jobs, including gloves/box
| cutters/shirts/etc. Typically if you told a manger you
| needed something (work related), they would get it for
| you. Things chugged along fairly well.
|
| Reducing turnover was an active goal because it cost them
| time and money to hire and retrain new people, even for
| basic tasks.
| dvt wrote:
| > It's absolutely not optimal, it's inefficient. Many
| companies have learned this, which is why you see things
| like "Unlimited Vacations! Free snacks! Company provided
| lunches!" etc, offered as perks.
|
| You are very (very) wrong and need to read some history. I
| strongly suggest an economics primer like Robert
| Heilbroner's _The Worldly Philosophers_ [1]. It's the
| second-best selling economics book in history and well
| worth the price of admission.
|
| [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82120.The_Worldly_P
| hilos...
| kempbellt wrote:
| Saying I'm "very very" wrong and need to read
| history/some book isn't a good counter argument. It is
| the opposite, and a lazy retort at best.
|
| If I am wrong, I'm sure your history lessons should be
| able to provide good examples how I am incorrect, and I
| would be happy to hear if that's the case, but I can't
| see just saying "you're wrong, read history" as
| productive conversation.
| dvt wrote:
| > I can't see just saying "you're wrong, read history" as
| productive conversation
|
| You're denying a very foundational economic fact which,
| as a society, we litigated over a century ago, so giving
| you a resource (I can cite chapter numbers if you'd like
| me to) seems appropriate. Capitalist forces will always
| tend towards optimality and working people to the bone
| (including children) _is_ optimal. This is why we need to
| have governmental forces preempt this by making these
| kinds of things (e.g. child labor) illegal.
|
| This isn't really a dig against capitalism, it's simply
| how the system works by design. In other words, you're
| denying the _precise_ thing that corporations optimize
| for: worker productivity and shareholder value.
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| Perks are a hack to continue to overwork your employees.
| Feed them and they don't have to leave to get food. Give
| them yoga and they won't have to leave for yoga class. Give
| unlimited vacation and they'll think they can take a break
| whenever they want, so they won't take one.
|
| General inefficiency in their company is completely fine as
| long as they continue to increase revenue, as revenue
| growth is the only "efficiency" that matters in capitalism.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| The problem is that Apple can require that, their sub-
| contractors can agree and then just pocket the additional
| cash for it and not do it. Apple must more closely verify
| the conditions of its Indian subcontractors just like they
| had to do in China a decade ago.
| kempbellt wrote:
| Definitely a problem. Bad-faith actors can screw up well
| intended policies making everyone look bad. Inspectors
| that verify the work-site conditions help, but can also
| potentially operate in bad faith. It's a hard problem to
| "solve", but still likely worth it for a company like
| Apple, both in regards to PR and ROI.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Apple solved the problem in China with surprise
| inspections done by independent organizations (e.g. the
| FLA); e.g. see
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/feb/20/foxcon
| n-r...
|
| The title oddly enough is "Apple faces its 'Nike moment'
| over working conditions in Chinese factories" from 2012.
|
| One challenge here is that the host government (local,
| provincial, or national) is often complicit and might not
| agree to allowing such inspections. In that case, you
| simply have to be ready to walk away.
| kempbellt wrote:
| Fascinating. TIL. Thanks for the link.
|
| Such a strange situation, where a company has to walk
| away from letting people work for them because they can't
| verify their working conditions are good enough. I
| suppose these are the tricky side-effects of being an
| international corporation though.
| [deleted]
| vanusa wrote:
| _It just seems stupid to not offer a sane working environment._
|
| No -- Apple management sees this as a smart move, actually.
| Allowing these little flare-ups to happen now and then allows
| senior management to broadcast to the world just how cold-
| blooded they really are. Which helps keep the staff at home in
| line.
| blhack wrote:
| How much more would it cost to manufacture iPhones in the US?
| martin8412 wrote:
| Depends on what you mean by manufacture. Print the PCB and
| assemble it? Probably not that much more given the scale of
| operations.
|
| Assembling it in the US is however a security risk for anyone
| not aligned with global US interests.
| scintill76 wrote:
| The keys that sign the software are probably located in the
| US, or are otherwise within reach of US jurisdiction. That's
| as much a risk as assembling hardware in the US would be.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Isn't the software a security risk for anyone not aligned
| with global US interests? Isn't manufacturing in China a
| security risk for anyone not aligned with global PRC
| interests?
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Initially a lot since the entire supply chain is in
| China/Taiwan/Korea/Japan. Those glue stickies that hold the
| batteries? Nitto Japan makes them. Lots of small things like
| that also needs to be brought on shore. Overtime, it can get to
| a point where it would be maybe 30% more expensive. That number
| doesn't ring well with investors. Only government action (which
| are puppetted by Apple lobbyists) can solve this problem.
| wonnage wrote:
| It's weird that with interest rates at all time lows and huge
| amounts of money sloshing around looking for something to
| invest in, it's all ended up in overpriced houses and NFTs
| rather than attempting to compete with these overseas
| manufacturers. Like surely Nitto doesn't have some
| indefensible moat around making battery glue?
|
| Also while Congress is up in arms over tech monopolies... why
| isn't anyone going after ASML? This is a literal monopoly
| that's choking the entire world's supply of semiconductors.
| Their patents prevent any competition. The US isn't shy about
| taking unilateral action and fucking over entire countries
| when strategic interests are at hand, why not pull the
| trigger on a little-known Dutch company that the public
| doesn't care about?
| b9a2cab5 wrote:
| Because the purpose of investing one's money is to attempt
| to preserve wealth. Dumping a bunch of money into a
| domestic factory with way higher variable costs that are
| structurally never going to improve is a surefire way to
| lose money. In contrast housing prices literally only go up
| and NFTs have non-zero chance at not losing all your money,
| which is better than a commodity factory in the US.
|
| I think we'll see more onshoring if robotics ever gets to
| the point where factories can be cheaply fully automated.
| wonnage wrote:
| "structurally never going to improve" seems to overstate
| things. Working standards in India and China will
| eventually improve (China is already pricing itself out
| of the clothing market). The era of cheap overseas labor
| will eventually dry up.
|
| I think the bigger problem is that you couldn't invest in
| such businesses even if you wanted to. Nobody is even
| bothering to start them. The US still has a lot of
| advantages - a looser regulatory environment than Europe,
| less subject to the whims of politics than China/Russia,
| the best research institutions in the world, and
| essentially infinite dollars. But all this is to produce
| a managerial elite that decides it's cheaper to just
| print money and buy stuff elsewhere.
| kube-system wrote:
| The entire point of patents is to give companies a monopoly
| for a period of time in exchange for not keeping the
| information secret. The utility and merits of the system is
| certainly not without debate, but if you want the answer as
| to why governments are okay with it, it's probably because
| it was their idea.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Note that this wretched situation is at the very top of Apple's
| supply / manufacturing chain. (Maximum visibility, maximum risk
| of bad P.R.)
|
| Think about how workers further down - say, making small
| electrical connectors - are probably treated.
|
| Then consider that Apple's supply chain is probably held to
| considerably higher standards than those of the great majority of
| consumer product companies.
|
| :(
| shmde wrote:
| Another article from front page.
|
| Crowded dorms,no flush toilets and food crawling with worms at
| iPhone plant in India.
|
| [https://www.independent.ie/world-news/asia-pacific/crowded-d...]
| humaniania wrote:
| Reuters is a much better source of information. Look up the
| ownership of The Independent.
| nmridul wrote:
| The women would have continued suffering the condition (and apple
| continue to make profit) if the food poisoning did not happen.
| This title is trying to play down the condition of the dorms
| where the iPhone labourers were forced to stay.
|
| The apt title should be as per this thread - "Crowded dorms, no
| flush toilets and worms in food: How protest forced change for
| women at Indian iPhone plant".
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29737698
| dirtyid wrote:
| From memory Foxconn India assembly is done by all
| (predominantly?) women work force because they're easier to hire
| since most Indian manufacturers prefer men. I'm pretty sure I
| read this was a feminist move inspired by head operations mother
| or whatever feel good PR soundbite. Cynic in me now thinks maybe
| Foxconn feels it's easier to abuse rural Indian women after
| Winstron iphone riot that escalated to breaking shit last year.
| frontman1988 wrote:
| The baseline hygiene in India isn't much higher than what was
| found. Apart from the worms everything is kinda routine.
| Flushless toilets are common everywhere. Crowded doms is also the
| norm for people living in chawls and slums in urban India.
| Handwashing using soap itself is practised by only 2/3rd of the
| population (and this is when majority don't use tissue
| paper/bidet). Similarly deodrant is unheard of. Open defecation
| is still practised in villages. Sadly I could go on and on
| naruvimama wrote:
| Flush toilets use a lot of water, even wealthy people use
| buckets. Moreover squat toilets, which is how the human anatomy
| has evolved generally require the use of mugs and buckets, is
| the preferred and often cleaner method.
|
| Soap usage is quite common these days except perhaps in the
| remotest and the poorest regions.
|
| There is an obsession with western comodes and toilet paper, if
| you read up on their relatively recent history and a solution
| looking for a problem you would realise they they aren't great
| ideas. This is especially considering a warm country like
| India, where washing one's self with water and soap is the
| safest option.
|
| There is in general a problem with most countries especially
| developing ones, where the ones using the facilities are far
| removed from the ones providing it. Often the
| builders/contractors provide substandard facilities, this
| includes public facilities like busses.
|
| The food poisoning incident has brought out the other complains
| about other the facilities which has always existed.
| melling wrote:
| Did FoxConn expand into India because India now requires the
| phones to be made there?
|
| There were no manufacturing companies in India?
| vanusa wrote:
| Per the article:
|
| _The factory is central to Apple 's efforts to shift its slave
| plantations away from China due to tensions between Beijing and
| Washington. Reuters reported last year that Foxconn planned to
| invest up to $1 billion in the plant over three years_
|
| I'm paraphrasing a bit, but only slightly.
| Jcowell wrote:
| This is weird to me. The initial line says per the article
| with the following block of text seemingly looking like from
| the article and then the last sentence says it's paraphrased.
|
| Why not just quote the article and add brackets to any words
| you decide to add? It's borderline misleading.
| vanusa wrote:
| Because it's time to start calling these plants that Apple
| runs what they are.
|
| As the hint at the bottom indicated -- the substitution was
| obvious (assuming one read the actual article). And in that
| sense, not "really" misleading.
|
| Call it dramatic license, if you will.
| zepto wrote:
| I wasn't aware that the workers were prevented from
| quitting.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| India has huge tariffs for officially imported iPhones (to the
| point that most iPhones were being bought abroad or via the
| black market), so doing final assembly in India is the main way
| to avoid those tariffs and sell iPhones directly in India.
| dghughes wrote:
| I'm pretty sure India and China are not on speaking terms.
| newswasboring wrote:
| I wonder how much it costs to improve the working conditions to
| basic hygiene? Anyone has any idea? I want to compare it to the
| top executive salary and see how much of a pay cut they will have
| to take
| jjulius wrote:
| You could also compare it to the ~$200 billion[1] in cash they
| have on hand.
|
| [1]https://finance.yahoo.com/news/15-companies-most-cash-
| reserv...
| merpnderp wrote:
| Looks like Tim Cook makes about $15 million a year, which seems
| really low for the value he brings. This is likely more a
| question of Apple not requiring its contractors to bid in
| wormless food for their employees, when they bid a contract.
|
| Seems like Apple could just say on their contract deals "If you
| offer onsite dorms and food for your employees, it must not
| contain worms, feces, poison, or Brussel sprouts. Also you
| can't use slaves or children. Bid accordingly."
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| That would be true if we only looked at his salary, but it
| appears he makes an order of magnitude more[1].
|
| 1: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58352098
|
| (edited for a more reputable source)
| kube-system wrote:
| I've always thought that it was dishonest to include non-
| monetary compensation in statements like "they make [x]
| amount of dollars, they can afford to [y]". Usually, to buy
| [y], you need cash.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Cash is easy to get by borrowing against assets.
| kube-system wrote:
| This is true for some people, some assets, and some
| amounts of money. Regardless, for the super-rich, they
| have enough cash that people can make more honest apples-
| to-apples comparisons with the same effect.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| Apple spends billions on stock buy backs per year they can
| redirect a bit of that so those who make their products for
| them don't have to be treated worse than animals.
| spzb wrote:
| This article is about Apple and a lot of commenters seem to be
| quite hung up on that fact but, let's be honest, pretty much
| every consumer device we buy will have had some or all of its
| components manufactured in a facility like this.
| boudin wrote:
| There's some companies like Fairphone that tries to make a
| difference.
| vanusa wrote:
| If that were true then reports of this sort would be much more
| common.
| spzb wrote:
| That seems naive. The more common something is, the less
| newsworthy it is
| keewee7 wrote:
| Good that they forced change but this is why India will never
| become industrialized.
|
| Apple will just move manufacturing back to China if more negative
| news makes it out of India.
| whatshisface wrote:
| You may be surprised to hear that India is already
| industrialized... and has been for decades.
| keewee7 wrote:
| Half of India's population are still working in the
| agriculture sector. That is not normal in 2021 not even for
| developing countries.
|
| >Agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for about
| 58% of India's population
|
| https://www.ibef.org/industry/agriculture-india.aspx
|
| India needs a bigger manufacturing sector.
| whatshisface wrote:
| India's manufacturing sector is about 13% of GDP and the
| US's manufacturing sector is about 11%. There are a lot of
| people living in rural India but they don't interfere with
| or detract from the Indians living in urban India.
|
| https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.ZS?locatio
| n...
| Jensson wrote:
| US's manufacturing sector was 28% 1955, it went down post
| industrialization.
| incompleteCode wrote:
| What makes you think India is _not_ industrialized?
| smooth_remmy wrote:
| I would say: if its Tier 1 cities like Mumbai do not have a
| reliable supply of electricity and running water
| (infrastructure necessary for industry), then it is not
| industrialized.
| naruvimama wrote:
| As an Indian I can assure you that there are only a handful of
| bus stop in any major city which have the bus number written on
| them.
|
| There is a general apathy of service providers to the users.
|
| Dormitories for workers is a relatively new concept and not very
| common, it is quite possible that it was quickly built, was a
| penny pinching contractor or an all in all general apathy which
| is not that very uncommon.
|
| There is probably no evil hand except these did not not figure
| highly on their priority list.
| dvt wrote:
| This is absolutely criminal and we should be a lot more cognizant
| of where our phones, laptops, and other gadgets come from. For a
| company like Apple (with the biggest private corporation war
| chest arguably in _history_ ) to tolerate these kinds of
| conditions is shameful.
|
| I'm sick and tired of Twitter slacktivism that does not fix these
| issues, and the real sad part is that there's real suffering that
| ought to be fixed. I read a book this year that I would
| recommend[1]. It's about organ trafficking in underdeveloped
| nations, but it's really opened my eyes to how much human
| suffering and injustice we tolerate as Western consumers. Of
| course, being an Eastern European immigrant, it really touched a
| nerve, but I think everyone should read it.
|
| [1] https://www.scottcarney.com/the-red-market
| alisonkisk wrote:
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Headline:
|
| >At an Indian iPhone Plant (implying it's an Apple plant)
|
| Article:
|
| >a Foxconn plant in southern India
|
| >Venpa Staffing Services, a Foxconn contractor that runs the dorm
| where workers were sickened by food poisoning, declined to
| comment.
|
| So it's Venpa Staffing who's responsible, but the headline
| implies Apple.
|
| I'm all for holding people accountable, but this is irritatingly
| deceptive journalism.
| Strilanc wrote:
| Apple is paying them money to make iPhones (according to the
| article). Apple is surely aware of this sort of behavior; maybe
| not the specific instance but the general fact. This makes
| Apple complicit. Similar to how buying factory farmed meat
| makes one complicit in factory farming.
| vanusa wrote:
| Exactly - "follow the money". It's very clear where the
| responsibility lies.
| Arete314159 wrote:
| What can we as consumers do to pressure Apple to have better
| working conditions?
| Den-vr wrote:
| I'd suggest that the best thing we as consumers could do is
| speak to our state legislators about creating requirements for
| cellular devices to be sold in the state. Apple could do
| better, or they might just try to counter the legislative
| effort. Either way costs are imposed on Apple for evil. When
| it's less expensive to do better than it is to be evil,
| consumers will see change. Just look at what California
| legislators have been able to do to vehicles.
| Arete314159 wrote:
| I love this idea for blue states. For red states, it would be
| DOA.
| dghughes wrote:
| Like bring up to Amazon level conditions or actually something
| humane?
| willcipriano wrote:
| Not defending Amazon or anything, but bringing factories like
| this up to Amazon warehouse standards would be a massive win
| for labor globally. These conditions are the norm.
| vanusa wrote:
| An immediate month-long boycott of all stores would be a good
| place to start.
| me_me_mu_mu wrote:
| You could vote with your wallet it's literally all you have to
| do lol.
| petermcneeley wrote:
| I dont think voting with your wallet was how any of the
| labour issues of the 20th century were solved.
| me_me_mu_mu wrote:
| Well sure, then, just keep feeding the beast. Good luck.
| vanusa wrote:
| _For women who assembled iPhones at a Foxconn plant in southern
| India, crowded dorms without flush toilets and food sometimes
| crawling with worms were problems to be endured for the
| paycheck._
|
| And:
|
| _The unrest at Foxconn was the second involving an Apple
| supplier in India in a year. In December 2020, thousands of
| contract workers at a factory owned by Wistron Corp destroyed
| equipment and vehicles over the alleged non-payment of wages,
| causing estimated damage of $60 million._
|
| Which will just keep going on and on and on, of course.
|
| Until we stop buying their shiny products any more than strictly
| necessary. And those making ICT4 and higher at Apple --
| especially those working at HQ in any capacity -- get together
| and tell their bosses they simply will not allow this shameful
| dereliction of duty on their part to continue. And will
| absolutely resign if there are any further occurrences of it.
| askonomm wrote:
| You mean Foxconn, right? As per my understanding this is not
| Apple's factory, simply just a factory that makes Apple
| products.
| vanusa wrote:
| It is 100 percent Apple's responsibility to guarantee safe
| and humane working conditions for all workers at every level
| in its supply chain.
|
| The idea that this is Foxconn's responsibility, or that Apple
| is "unable" to proactively monitor what happens at these
| plants is just BS.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > It is 100 percent Apple's responsibility to guarantee
| safe and humane working conditions for all workers at every
| level in its supply chain.
|
| You're advocating a particular ethical framework, but I'm
| not sure what the justification is. I'd be interested in
| hearing an argument for why others should adopt it.
| worik wrote:
| > You're advocating a particular ethical framework
|
| Treating human beings decently is the ethical point here
|
| Why should others adopt it? For me it is enough to treat
| others decently, and by that I can only use my own
| standards (and I do not have a flush toilet in my house,
| but there is running water to wash with).
|
| But perhaps some people need another reason. Perhaps they
| should ask their priest?
|
| Perhaps they should consider how they wish to be treated
| themselves, and what goes around comes around.
|
| But for me: Just be decent. Remember the Golden Rule: Do
| not be a dick
| lordnacho wrote:
| I think you can make a case that the responsibility is a
| metaphorical chain. If you do something, eg make a phone
| through a complex chain, you need to make sure all the
| parts of your system are ethical: dangers are minimized,
| people have sensible working conditions, etc. If you
| could just stop being responsible as soon as you sign a
| contract with a subcontractor, it would be very easy to
| avoid any responsibility. Simply set up everything as
| another company, or get real subcontractors. Then hide
| behind "but I told him to treat everyone fairly, see this
| contract?"
|
| In addition the subcontractor could do the same, and
| nobody would have to check any of the unpleasant stuff.
| The brand name could just hide behind people who hide
| behind non-brands (who really shops at Foxxconn?).
|
| The fact is in the modern world we have these things
| called brands that people associate with positive or
| negative vibes, and we use them because we really don't
| have enough attention to dig deeply. The brand is an
| investment into making a positive vibe that hopefully is
| a true signal. If it's not, people are misled and they
| end up buying things that they didn't want (though GDP
| doesn't suffer, that's another story).
| vanusa wrote:
| The Golden Rule:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule
|
| Combined with Apple's astronomical financial leverage and
| obvious capability to prevent situations like this from
| ever occurring again.
| WalterBright wrote:
| What's the role of the government of India in this?
| askonomm wrote:
| I don't think that's how the world works. Just because you
| hate Apple, doesn't make it any different. I have a friend
| who runs a B2B sales company, by selling things like
| pencils and cups with logos on them, and he frequently
| communicates with a wide variety of factories who make
| those things, and in none of the factories does he have any
| control over how they do work, or what process they follow.
| But according to your logic, he should? And not only
| _should_, but it's his *responsibility*? Or do you just
| make this argument selectively based on how much money the
| company has who hires a factory? Because then again, you
| just hate Apple.
| quitit wrote:
| As someone that has worked with Chinese production enough
| to for it to give me grey (each order in the many-
| millions of pieces) - the factories do this behind the
| backs of the company and they're pretty good at evading
| detection, and yes they know it's wrong.
|
| For example any scheduled inspection by Apple would be
| met with a safe and well running facility - and the
| moment they leave it all returns back to normal. Apple,
| like other companies, do random inspections - and that's
| when you find all of the infractions, but these companies
| are pretty clued in to when a random inspection might
| occur since there are telltale signs for that (the
| factories will also pay off anyone they need in order to
| get advance notice, e.g drivers, airport staff, hotels
| you name it.)
|
| So it's a constant battle of trying to uncover and
| rectify the supplier problems. As a simple anecdote for
| the production staff to have normal working hours we
| would need to pay them as if they worked an 18 hour day
| on the requirement that they used the rest of the day for
| rest and leisure - because otherwise they'd just go to
| other factories to get in additional hours. The workers
| are not there for a good time, they're there for the
| cash.
|
| Despite the Apple hate on HN (HN has a big thing for
| double-standards), Apple do a very good job about this
| and unlike many companies Apple publish their own dirty
| laundry in their supplier responsibility report. As
| someone rightly noted earlier: You hear about the Apple
| ones, you barely hear anything from non-American
| companies, but let me assure you - their conditions are
| far worse and in many cases simply dangerous and not
| suitable for humans.1
|
| 1. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2018/11/23/samsung-
| electro...
| seoaeu wrote:
| Apple is the most valuable public company in the world.
| They have plenty of leverage to force their suppliers to
| treat workers better. Apple just _choose_ not to use it
| to the degree they could. It is laughable to compare the
| market power of an enormous multinational that frequently
| buys out factories ' entire production capacities, to
| some random middleman who sells branded cups and pencils.
| vanusa wrote:
| I don't hate Apple.
|
| I just don't see why they shouldn't be held accountable
| to universally accepted principles of basic human
| decency.
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