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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

#201

Post by downrightmike »

_pp0b wrote: post #41
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…

They are kept in camps, monitored constantly, have no privacy, are searched constantly and on top of that, they are forced to work or go to detention. That is slavery. There's also the problem with them getting gutted for the organ transplants that China's own doctors have reported to be 4 times higher than they should be for the population size. So it is work, or go to detention and possibly get gutted.

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

#202

Post by bergstromm466 »

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…

> instead of quietly consuming the products

The problem is the propertied capitalist class, not the working class.

The capitalist class has the power. I appreciate your intention, yet it's super important to be clear that the problem is the bourgeoisie and the capitalist system, as the means of production are monopolized in their hands. The most advanced form through which the bourgeoisie (in this case Apple) expropriates, creates enclosures and exploits/oppresses, is 1) through the use of trade secret laws [1], which steals away new inventions from the commons and stifles learning and innovation, as well as 2) through the means-of-exchange money system that obscures relationships between people and places [2].

"Zak Cope makes the case that capitalism is empirically inseparable from imperialism, historically and today. Using a rigorous political economic framework, he lays bare the vast ongoing transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest countries through the mechanisms of monopoly rent, unequal exchange, and colonial tribute. The result is a polarized international class structure with a relatively rich Global North and an impoverished, exploited Global South.

Cope makes the controversial claim that it is because of these conditions that workers in rich countries benefit from higher incomes and welfare systems with public health, education, pensions, and social security. As a result, the internationalism of populations in the Global North is weakened and transnational solidarity is compromised. The only way forward, Cope argues is through a renewed anti-imperialist politics rooted in a firm commitment to a radical labor internationalism." [3]

[1] https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2019/02/19/dont-fooled-patent-pur...

[2] http://mikorizal.org/Fromprivateownershipaccountingtocommons...

[3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43015121-the-wealth-of-s...

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

#203

Post by tiahura »

fishtacos wrote: post #178
stickfigure wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was major news that prisoners were sent to fight fires in California for little to no pay. Just to make sure nobody is confused by this, because the subject comes up a lot - prisoner firefighers are volunteers.

Just to make sure no one is confused by this either, there is no "volunteer[ing]" in prison.

I'm guessing you've never been incarcerated? There's all sorts of volunteering: such as fixing the TV or coffee maker, teaching other inmates to read, helping another inmate file a frivolous appeal, and so on.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/07/20/538062911/wh... [What's It Really Like To Work In A Prison Goat Milk Farm? We Asked Inmates]

But what do the workers themselves think?

I find Jeremiah Pate in the milking barn, attaching milking machines to the goats' udders.

"This job, how do you feel about it?" I ask him. "A bad thing? Good thing?"

"It's a great thing," Pate tells me. "It beats the alternative. Rather than sitting in your tiny little cell, you get to come out here."

Every man I meet echoes that thought. They aren't thinking about what was fair on the outside. They were just thinking about their options in prison, and in that perspective, the farm looked pretty good.

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

#204

Post by beisner »

animal_spirits wrote: post #198

I have yet to see any actual evidence of forced labor in China. Only claims, nothing more. Americans have been fed false propaganda against communist USSR for decades, and I have a gut feeling the same is happening against communist China. Maybe it has to do with China's plan to collapse the US petrodollar global monetary system [0] and the US is trying to rouse a new Red Scare and push us into a second Cold War. EDI…

While there probably is an element of that, hard evidence that might paint the Chinese government negatively in general is much more difficult to obtain because of information and communications controls.

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

#205

Post by jlokier »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #167
jordan_curve wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not slavery. They’re similar atrocities though. It would be weird to refer to the people in Auchwitz-II as slaves.

I'm no necessarily disagreeing with you, as far as saying "it would be weird to refer to the people in Auschwitz-II as slaves", but may I ask why? I can't come up with a reason, really. They were dehumanized, worked to death, treated as property and less. Would calling them slaves be giving the Nazis too much credit, at that point?

Because Auschwitz-II took dehumanisation to a whole extra level of depravity, far beyond slavery.

While you could logically argue that people there were also slaves, it would be an injustice to leave it at that. Generally speaking, slaves had some kinds of rights that were far better than those in Auschwitz-II.

It's one thing to be treated as someone's property and forced labour, as a slave.

It's another thing to be subject to awful medical experimentation (often to death), torture of kinds that are barely imaginable, and mass killing with on-site factories literally built to murder the occupants and other occupants forced to dispose of the body parts of their friends afterwards. All of this in large numbers.

There's a reason Auschwitz-II had sections called "Crematoria I-IV".

Auschwitz-II makes almost every evil in the world look mild in comparison. It's that bad.

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

#206

Post by [deleted] »

natecham wrote: post #189
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an Apple fan, probably more of an Apple hater, but why is Apple the bad guy for seeking cheaper labor? Why is it the consumers problem that China allows it's citizens to be treated like shit? Why is this ethical responsibility somehow always offloaded to the consumer?

Because as long as it’s legal and the consumer is willing to buy at the rate they have been, Apple/etc. has very little incentive to change

[deleted]

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

#207

Post by sosborn »

mrweasel wrote: post #165
duxup wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were in the US you'd certainly see it in the news. In China and other places just getting close to a factory can at times be difficult and crappy working conditions are sadly just assumed to be a fact :( Trump's criticism of China I don't think intersects anywhere close to caring about the treatment of Chinese citizens... or anyone really. Just a random anecdote, I'm American and work in the US. Trump personall…

But Apple is in the US. What surprises me is that the US media isn’t pounding on Apple for using suppliers with force labor. Sorry about the acquisition, if it had been a movie it would have been almost funny: This is great for job, btw you’re fired.

Part of it is that I think people generally understand that Apple doesn't go into a supplier contract negotiation and say, "Ok, how many slaves do we get in this deal?"

While they ultimately bear responsibility for their supply chain, it's easy to see how this stuff can happen without direct knowledge. What we need to do is pay attention to Apple's response and then act accordingly.

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

#209

Post by [deleted] »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #173
mgh2 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple fans don’t seem to care, as long as they are getting their magic, nothing else matters...

I'm not an Apple fan, probably more of an Apple hater, but why is Apple the bad guy for seeking cheaper labor? Why is it the consumers problem that China allows it's citizens to be treated like shit? Why is this ethical responsibility somehow always offloaded to the consumer?

[deleted]
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