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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

#71

Post by [deleted] »

greggturkington wrote: post #35
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…

"Modern day slavery" is mincing words, slavery in the modern day is just slavery. Typically slavery refers to the slave being considered property, and ownership transferring to offspring. You can compare it to forced labor.

[deleted]

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

#73

Post by [deleted] »

_pp0b wrote: post #64
api wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A person held against their will and forced to do labor is a slave whether they're called that or not, especially if they have committed no legitimate offense for which such a punishment could be justified. As near as I can tell the Uighurs' "offense" is being of a different ethnicity and being majority Muslim. What the Chinese are doing here is very close to what the USA did in its first century with African slaves.

You are right in your last paragraph. The situation in Xinjang is such that for an Uyghur it is in fact impossible to decline to do what the state says. Any work done with involvement of Uyghur population by default is a situation of forced labour. That’s what the article says. However, using the term “slavery” gives CCP ammunition to fight back. They can point out that Uyghurs are paid. They can claim they are free…

[deleted]

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

#74

Post by seniorivn »

darkhorn wrote: post #16

Can't Aplle produce them in India, Albania, Vietnam, Nepal, Kazakstan or another similar country where there is no consantration camp?

it's not that simple, if it was that simple to build assembly plant operating corporations, everyone would do it, but it's hard business with very low margins. There are a few big companies capable of providing apple with enough manpower/production capabilities. And even though it's a low skill work, workers still has to be trained, and more importantly have to have high work discipline(which could be considered a part of a skill set) Most countries don't have that at least in large enough numbers for companies like apple(and its contractors) to use.

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

#76

Post by Dumblydorr »

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...

There is genocide going on against Muslims, and the US would typically denounce religious genocide. The current president seems more concerned with watching Fox and pardoning his friends than handling Muslim rights issues.

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

#77

Post by hobs »

simonh wrote: post #59
daenz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now post the next 3 paragraphs after those quotes. Apple is actively doing business in a location where slavery is frequently occurring, while pretending that their audits are thorough and comprehensive so that their hands appear clean. But the fact that they are playing whack-a-mole with constant slavery reports should be evidence enough that they know exactly what they're doing: they're trying to turn a profit whil…

It looks like it may well be going that way, sure, but making this about Apple is headline bait. It's about China. The fact is you can't buy a single thing made in China and be sure it isn't implicated in this in some way. Think of the last few things you bought that were manufactured or sourced some parts in China. Can you honestly say the manufacturer audits their supply chain with the same rigour? At least Apple i…

So we shouldnt shame the richest company on earth for using slave labor because its about "china"?

If anyone has leverage, its Apple, so actually yes its a way to start fixing the problem.

There's a simple way to keep slave labor out of your supply chain, stop doing business with people who are fine with that, not "performing audits to find out they are using slave labor again so we switched!"

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

#78

Post by lotsofpulp »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #61
hdjtkrnrn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly. No one is ditching their iPhone. It’s all about the blue text bubbles. If Americans would just switch to WhatsApp or something else like the rest of the world we could get past the Android stigma.

Is the labor used to make an iPhone and different than any other phone? Or any other electronics for that matter?

As far as I know, unless you stop consuming electronics completely, you’re not avoiding the labor abuses mining the necessary metals in Central Africa or the labor to manufacture it in Asia.

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

#79

Post by esarbe »

tcbawo wrote: post #15
wwwwwwwww wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the US voters have decided that they like forced prision labor in the US.

With choices of two major political parties, US voters have do not have granularity to approve or disapprove long term/chronic/fringe issues or issues that disproportionately affect a small minority of the population.

Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it say that there have to be two parties. And even if there was; make an amendment.

It the case of the U.S., nobody is to blame but the U.S. voters.

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

#80

Post by Dumblydorr »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #43
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.

We "let" them get too big? They are an ancient society who have had millions of inhabitants for centuries. They were already big, huge in fact. In the wake of Mao, however, they have a one party communist system that exterminated it's intellectual and critical class decades ago. Hard to see what could've been done during the Cold War, we tried the domino theory which was a colossal failure in Korea and Vietnam and Laos.
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