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Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#41

Post by _pp0b »

daenz wrote: post #9

"forced labor" It's slavery...modern day slavery. Why are we mincing words? We stand on our soap boxes and preach about historical injustices and how we need to repair them. Well here is your chance to prevent a future historical injustice, and all it takes is for you to take a stand, instead of quietly consuming the products and leaving it for future generations to atone for methods by which those products were prod…

Equating slavery with forced labour belittles the gravity and awfulness of what actual slavery is (or was).

Forced labour takes different forms, which includes forced paid work and by some definitions penal work.

Slavery is when a person is treated as a property of another person. Being a slave may or may not involve forced labour.

In addition, calling Uyghur work “slavery” in fact undermines the cause, allowing CCP defenders to legitimately call out “fake news”. Precision matters.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#42

Post by bstar77 »

daenz wrote: post #9

"forced labor" It's slavery...modern day slavery. Why are we mincing words? We stand on our soap boxes and preach about historical injustices and how we need to repair them. Well here is your chance to prevent a future historical injustice, and all it takes is for you to take a stand, instead of quietly consuming the products and leaving it for future generations to atone for methods by which those products were prod…

"Forced" is the word the article uses. We don't know if that's accurate or hyperbolic. I think issues like these are worth scrutiny and intense investigation, but I'm not going to pull my pitch fork out just yet.

It's so easy to sit in my desk chair, read an article like this and have an armchair outrage moment.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#43

Post by MaxHoppersGhost »

LatteLazy wrote: post #12

I'm amazed the world isn't taking more action on China. Its quite sad really, 20 years ago, any one of the headlines from this year would have prompted sanctions and denunciations...

We let China get too big without modernizing/democratizing. Massive foreign policy failure by the western world. Now they appear too big to reign in and everyone (except maybe the US) is scared of them and just wants to play nice.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#44

Post by 5tefan »

daenz wrote: post #10
1cvmask wrote: post #3

iPhone suppliers workers supposedly. Maybe we should also talk about the prison labor complex in the US as well then and the 13th Amendment: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-11/californ... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/us/california-wildfires-p... https://www.freedomunited.org/news/forced-prison-labor-in-ca... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat... https://www.motherjones…

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Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#45

Post by delecti »

christophilus wrote: post #34

I’ve decided to leave the Apple ecosystem in 2021. But the problem is not isolated to Apple. In fact, I’d be surprised if other, cheaper products aren’t quite a bit worse. Is there an electronics company that does a better job? (That’s not a rhetorical question.)

Fairphone is your best bet with smartphones, but I'm not sure if there's similarly ethically produced hardware of other types.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#46

Post by simonh »

person_of_color wrote: post #11

What the fuck is Apple doing here. They could see an iPhone boycott if this blows up.

Apple clearly does have a responsibility here, they acknowledge that themselves in their supplier policies. They have also taken steps previously to drop suppliers that have been found to use forced labour, so they're aware of the problem and willing to take action.

So the question here is what is the evidence, what does it show, and if Apple's inspections have missed anything how can they improve their policies and enforcement actions to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#47

Post by orange_joe »

kortilla wrote: post #19
daenz wrote: post #9

"forced labor" It's slavery...modern day slavery. Why are we mincing words? We stand on our soap boxes and preach about historical injustices and how we need to repair them. Well here is your chance to prevent a future historical injustice, and all it takes is for you to take a stand, instead of quietly consuming the products and leaving it for future generations to atone for methods by which those products were prod…

> Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock said the company has confirmed that Lens Technology has not received any labor transfers of Uighur workers from Xinjiang. He said Apple earlier this year ensured that none of its other suppliers are using Uighur labor transferred from Xinjiang. >“Apple has zero tolerance for forced labor,” Rosenstock said. “Looking for the presence of forced labor is part of every supplier assessment…

I don't believe that quoting a PR spokesperson is a meaningful response, Apple is obviously a biased party in this investigation. Moreover, Apple has opposed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act which would penalize companies with forced labor in their supply chains[1]. It also has a history of similar accusations with regards to their LCD screens [2] and their uniforms [3]. All of this is completely ignoring their history with foxconn and other suppliers that routinely abuse their employees without compelling their labor through outright force. Apple might say that they care about this issue, but its clear that their supply chain is setup to take advantage of poor workers from 3rd world countries at a minimum.

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2020/11/23/anti-forced-labour-bill-apple... [2] https://9to5mac.com/2020/03/02/apple-suppliers-implicated-in... [3] https://9to5mac.com/2020/08/10/apple-store-staff-t-shirts/

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#48

Post by hdjtkrnrn »

daenz wrote: post #9

"forced labor" It's slavery...modern day slavery. Why are we mincing words? We stand on our soap boxes and preach about historical injustices and how we need to repair them. Well here is your chance to prevent a future historical injustice, and all it takes is for you to take a stand, instead of quietly consuming the products and leaving it for future generations to atone for methods by which those products were prod…

What is an influencer to do? Switch to Android, like poor people?

Nobody who matters is going to boycott Apple.

Apple will counter with a plausible narrative, "we didn't know, we cancelled contracts, ..." and everything will be fine again.

Oh, and a new woke diversity ad to show how much they care about muslims. And everybody will share and clap and feel good.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#49

Post by alltakendamned »

christophilus wrote: post #34

I’ve decided to leave the Apple ecosystem in 2021. But the problem is not isolated to Apple. In fact, I’d be surprised if other, cheaper products aren’t quite a bit worse. Is there an electronics company that does a better job? (That’s not a rhetorical question.)

There’s the fairphone

https://www.fairphone.com/en/

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#50

Post by dvivsivd »

sudenmorsian wrote: post #24
HuwytNashi_008 wrote: post #18

I'm very envious of the Chinese for having a government that unapologetically puts the interests of their people over foreigners. Part of why this is so shocking to us Westerners is that it's such alien behaviour. We have become conditioned to expect foreigners are treated with extreme preference.

I suppose the Uyghurs in detention camps are not included in “their people” then?

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