Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 820 posts

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

#361

Post by ogre_codes »

judge2020 wrote: post #352
desiarnezjr wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And almost every company on that list will use the same factories, supply chain, and probably labor. There are not that many ODM manufacturers that have enough scale and capability to build high precision electronics. That would be companies like Foxconn, Pegatron (from the same founders of Asus), Wistron, Compal, etc., etc. Basically every factory that manufactures your Dell, Asus, Samsung (?), etc.

Intel might just be the only company where there's a chance your chip is built in the US and thus uses the minimal amount of forced labor necessary to mine and ship the raw material.

I don't think the issue is with the CPUs. For example TSMC is has always seemed pretty well clear of these issues as well. Forced labor is usually involved in mining for battery components, or mid-low skill tasks like assembly.

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

#362

Post by oarsinsync »

danudey wrote: post #327
izacus wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple's supply chain is more than 1,000 companies. Do you really think Apple has the expertise and personnel to replicate what 1,000 companies have spent decades mastering? Not likely. As one of the richest corporations on the planet which always smugly tells everyone how nice they are and how much they respect people? Yes, fuck yes. They're not a mom and pop shop. They're a corporation that finds millions to lobby…

One of the reasons Jobs cited as being an important factor for locating in China is the availability of skilled labor. It would have taken them years to hire enough industrial engineers to handle the scope and scale and volume that the iPhone required in the US, if they could even manage it at all, but only weeks to do so in China. The supply chain is also important. One person who worked in Shenzhen commented that,…

> One thing we've seen over the last century of western civilization is that cheaper wins over better. Cheaper toasters that don't last, cheaper fridges that break down after their three-year warranty is up, cheaper laptops that come infected with bloatware and adware. If Apple refused to manufacture in China because of forced labour issues, then they'd lose out on sales to companies who kept benefitting from it, because consumers, as a whole, just don't give a shit.

Apple customers have made it very clear that as a whole, they are not price conscious. Better beats cheaper, or they’d be all using cheapo Android phones.

Apple has very high profit margins compared to their competitors in the same industries. Apple can pay their suppliers more, rather than driving them down to the bone, which of course results in workers being exploited.

Or they could be more transparent that the only thing that matters is the size of their profits, instead of cultivating a good guy corporate image, as the hypocrisy stinks.

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

#363

Post by greggturkington »

La1n wrote: post #238
greggturkington wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Not all slavery is chattel slavery.

A good example of another type being forced labor via debt bondage.

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

#364

Post by AnthonyWnC »

I wouldn't believe anything that any Western MSMs write about China; they are basically zero credibility given the amount of fake news that they put out. It also doesn't take much critical thinking to realize the narrative that they have been pushing to the general public.

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

#365

Post by judge2020 »

tehjoker wrote: post #359

The US state is promoting these stories because they want Apple to reduce its dependency on China so they can more easily conduct their trade war.

But it's not really something they can do (and the Trump administration knows this), so this is probably just routine Apple bashing while everyone else also uses China and probably cares a lot less about their supply chain as long as they get their product after ample QC.

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

#366

Post by Aunche »

baskire wrote: post #176
_pp0b wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[flagged]

That's not what your source says at all. One person who works for a anti-communist organization thinks that it meets the UN definition of genocide. This sort of malicious misinterpretation of China is why people think it's 100x more evil and absurd than it actually is. Another example is China's banning a few Winnie the Pooh memes got warped into China banning Winnie the Pooh altogether. Anyone who stepped foot into China would know that's ridiculous.

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

#367

Post by justapassenger »

danudey wrote: post #327
izacus wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple's supply chain is more than 1,000 companies. Do you really think Apple has the expertise and personnel to replicate what 1,000 companies have spent decades mastering? Not likely. As one of the richest corporations on the planet which always smugly tells everyone how nice they are and how much they respect people? Yes, fuck yes. They're not a mom and pop shop. They're a corporation that finds millions to lobby…

One of the reasons Jobs cited as being an important factor for locating in China is the availability of skilled labor. It would have taken them years to hire enough industrial engineers to handle the scope and scale and volume that the iPhone required in the US, if they could even manage it at all, but only weeks to do so in China. The supply chain is also important. One person who worked in Shenzhen commented that,…

> One of the reasons Jobs cited as being an important factor for locating in China is the availability of skilled labor

Highly skilled forced labor?

Let's not kid ourselves - it's all about cost cutting. They're trying to diversify and move to another low wage country, India.

Not - I'm not saying that China or India lacks skilled labor, or highly paid experts. But that's not why companies like Apple are there. They're there for cheap labor, and close to non-existent labor protections. But China is starting to change, so Apple is looking for new places.

> Yes, Apple should do something about this issue, and yes it's horrible to imagine them profiting off this with their "nice guy" image, but keep in mind that if they did this and increased the cost of the iPhone, other companies wouldn't, and it would put Apple at a huge disadvantage.

It's like saying that Google and Facebook should continue to disregard privacy, because their huge margins relay on that?

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

#368

Post by robocat »

esarbe wrote: post #114

I'm so confused by all the downvotes for reasonable critique of either Apple or China, most of it silent without any justification given. Does anyone care to explain it to me?

I use up and downvoting to improve the reading experience for others. I try hard to vote according to the hn guidelines e.g. “Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.”. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Personally, I silently downvote because good community members will self-reflect upon their comment (for even a single downvote), and I believe the process of questioning one’s writing is good; while bad community members are often not worth responding to (edit: I sometimes engage as i am an idealist and I think someone can be influenced for the better, however I really don’t feel I have much luck against the tide!)

I don’t think I am infallible, and usually others will upvote if a mistake is made. That said, I am usually careful to only downvote for what I think are very good reasons. I sometimes upvote something downvoted incorrectly IMHO. I have showdead switched on, but I can’t say I have felt the urgent need to vouch for anything yet.

IMHO this thread contains a lot of noise and thoughtless blather, which is a shame, because the topic is really important.

Edit: the hn guidelines say “Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.” True. But sometimes I think it is worthwhile, and it is obviously polite to answer an honest question like yours which is so far down-thread in a low signal environment that I think that my transgression is otherwise harmless.

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

#369

Post by nicoburns »

justapassenger wrote: post #367
danudey wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the reasons Jobs cited as being an important factor for locating in China is the availability of skilled labor. It would have taken them years to hire enough industrial engineers to handle the scope and scale and volume that the iPhone required in the US, if they could even manage it at all, but only weeks to do so in China. The supply chain is also important. One person who worked in Shenzhen commented that,…

> One of the reasons Jobs cited as being an important factor for locating in China is the availability of skilled labor Highly skilled forced labor? Let's not kid ourselves - it's all about cost cutting. They're trying to diversify and move to another low wage country, India. Not - I'm not saying that China or India lacks skilled labor, or highly paid experts. But that's not why companies like Apple are there. They'r…

> Not - I'm not saying that China or India lacks skilled labor, or highly paid experts. But that's not why companies like Apple are there.

I think it is partly. China in particular seems to have a depth, quality and volume of hardware engineering skills that isn't available anywhere else in the world. Maybe the US had this once, but as far as I can see: not anymore.

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

#370

Post by baybal2 »

nlitened wrote: post #329
baybal2 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here, invalidate stock shares

Yeah, but what does it mean? To revoke ownership of the company from its owners? Who then gets to own the company and why? Or does it mean the company should cease to exist, and all employees should be fired immediately? We should deny honest people from getting their salaries?

To declare their shares of having no more legal power than toilet paper.
Post reply on HN