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Did anyone notice the text under the image "A worker inspected motherboards on a factory line at the Foxconn plant in Shenzen, China, in May." She is looking at a graphics cards, not a motherboard.
First thing I noticed. And unfortunately for the author, that's where I stopped reading, since the credibility is instantly lost.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have a cite for Apple "revolutionizing" working conditions? Please, they're a electronics designer. They contract with whoever bids lowest, and always have. One of the big reason Foxconn is so large now is precisely because they were the low bidder for Apple's business years ago. Now, I agree with the premise of the linked article that Apple has been unfairly tarnished for problems that are endemic to the industr…
I have no horse in this race but It's very well known that Apple does indeed pick who bids lowest but: * They put severe requirements on the quality of the produce * They put severe requirements on secrecy * The they put severe requirements on how the workforce needs to be treated All of the above are enforced. Apple has massive teeth. They are king makers of the industry and drop suppliers like a hat for any offence…
No they don't;
"The FLA investigation, released late last week, resulted in the questioning of 35,000 Foxconn workers across the Chengdu, Longhua and Guanlan factories and found average hours worked per week were 56, compared to the legal Chinese limit of 49 hours, which includes overtime."
http://www.crn.com.au/News/295713,apple-auditor-finds-foxcon...
[edit] I do think that Apple has taken a lead by the standards of the electronics industry, but the global standards of the commercial electronics industry are not high and Apple has been embarrassed into a lot of this.
If Apple dropped suppliers for any serious violations in the way that you claim, they would not have the giant pile of money they have today.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have no horse in this race but It's very well known that Apple does indeed pick who bids lowest but: * They put severe requirements on the quality of the produce * They put severe requirements on secrecy * The they put severe requirements on how the workforce needs to be treated All of the above are enforced. Apple has massive teeth. They are king makers of the industry and drop suppliers like a hat for any offence…
> They put severe requirements on the quality of the produce That's not great for workers, who lose pay if they cannot meet these exacting standards. > They put severe requirements on how the workforce needs to be treated The conditions they demand may be better than most workers get in the target country. That doesn't mean those conditions are actually enforced, nor does it mean they are acceptable. The amount of pr…
In a similar vein, the amount of money the average westerner makes means it should be fairly easy for them to save a life in Africa every day.
I do not think Apple in particular is to blame for what we as a collective do.
"That would be a huge sales point for them"
Would it? Can you give one example of a company that behaves that way and gets a hugs sales boost from it? If so, how does that sales boost compare to Apple's profits?
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My proof is that they're attacking Apple, and it's working; we're talking about it. We're also talking about the fact that Apple isn't the only company to blame. Even that happened by attacking Apple. I'm not being facetious: are you really in need of evidence? It's happening, and the people who are doing it have decided it's the best strategy. I can't go by anything else. And thanks to the nature of the experiment,…
I didn't say it wasn't working. I just think don't think it's helpful to claim it's the best way. [edit: one reason I think it's unhelpful is that it legitimizes misleading reporting, which is itself a great harm]
Proven to be sufficient at achieving the goal, then.
As we are constantly reminded here, Apple takes 80% of the phone industry profits and thus deserve proportionate blame for working conditions. They make $575 in profit from an iPhone but pay the Foxconn workers $7 to assemble it. They could double the pay and still make a very huge profit. On the other hand, many other companies like Amazon and Microsoft sell the hardware for a loss, hoping to make it up on software…
Assembling the iPhone is a small and very insignificant part of the manufacturing process. What about the manufacturing of the steel, glass, LCD panels, logic boards, processors and IC chips, antennas, speakers, microphones, screws, cameras, batteries, and cables?
Obviously if it's unethical for Apple to contract the assembling of the iPhones to a manufacturer that pays high wages relative to the average Chinese job, then it must also be unethical to buy components from suppliers that also pay their factory workers a similar wage. Clearly, doubling the wage for all factory workers who work on any component of the iPhone will have a huge impact on the manufacturing cost far beyond the extra $7 you suggest it to be.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have a cite for Apple "revolutionizing" working conditions? Please, they're a electronics designer. They contract with whoever bids lowest, and always have. One of the big reason Foxconn is so large now is precisely because they were the low bidder for Apple's business years ago. Now, I agree with the premise of the linked article that Apple has been unfairly tarnished for problems that are endemic to the industr…
> "Please, they're a electronics designer. They contract with whoever bids lowest, and always have." Do you have a cite for your claim that Apple has never been holding their producers up to a standard of quality, and has been entering into contracts on the SOLE basis of price? Of course you don't, as this is just an ideological statement, already refuted by my pointing out their history of audits and high requiremen…
There is a concept called "burden of proof". If you are claiming something without evidence (which you did), the responsibility is on you to provide evidence that you are right, not on him to prove that you are not.
I'm certain that it is-- ironically-- Apple's decades of integrity that is the very reason you hate them so
This is the HN-poison, not anything else. He never said that he hated Apple, he simply questioned their actions. Your reaction to simple criticism is to label him as irrational and full of hatred. "Doth protest too much" and all that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They put severe requirements on the quality of the produce That's not great for workers, who lose pay if they cannot meet these exacting standards. > They put severe requirements on how the workforce needs to be treated The conditions they demand may be better than most workers get in the target country. That doesn't mean those conditions are actually enforced, nor does it mean they are acceptable. The amount of pr…
"The amount of profit Apple makes means it should be fairly easy for them to dramatically improve conditions for overseas workers" In a similar vein, the amount of money the average westerner makes means it should be fairly easy for them to save a life in Africa every day. I do not think Apple in particular is to blame for what we as a collective do. "That would be a huge sales point for them" Would it? Can you give…
So an obvious example would be Starbucks' investment in fair-trade coffee.
[edit] but this only is profitable if people are basing purchasing decisions on it. Before this current furore, there was very little press about these issues, so if from this a 'fair-trade' hardware movement emerges, it would then be profitable for Apple to exploit it, but in the absence of one it isn't.
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Careful with your data sources and assertions. Some of this "data" needs a serious dose of fact checking. The data for: https://twitter.com/#!/nicepaul/status/163797296306331648/ph... as indicated at the bottom, comes from: http://onforb.es/wj2Lt6 which maps to: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/01/29/the-apple... If you look at Tim Worstall's (kinda op-ed) article on the second page, you can see that the…
The data does support the case. It may be incorrect, or incomplete. But why would they be hiding fatality stats? Why would they get away with that when they are subject to the crazy levels of scrutiny that we see today? Safety management is based on identifying and reducing hazards, which reduces accidents, near misses, lost time injuries, serious injuries and ultimately fatalities. With a large enough number of work…
Oh, it does? Let's look at the article together and see if we can find that data:
>> (The US rate is) 3.5 per 100,000: we would expect, if the Foxconn factories were no more dangerous than the average American workplace, 35 workplace deaths a year among those 1 million workers. Yes, each of those deaths, each of those injuries, in those aluminium dust explosions is a tragedy. But if we were being realistic rather than spouting nonsense over such matters we would not be using evidence of three or four deaths as evidence of how Apple, Foxconn or even China are ignoring worker safety in pursuit of filthy lucre. At a very minimum we would be looking at the total workplace death rate rather than cherry picking one specific incident.
The author's saying he's heard of 3-4 people killed... so how does that map to 7 in the infographic? Where exactly are the Foxconn stats coming from? Because the "data" offered in this article is "as-seen-on-TV". Is there even a system of reporting mandated by the national govt to collect data? In the absence of actual vetted data, how can you conclude that Foxconn manufacturing is 5-10 times safer than avg US manufacturing?
>> But why would they be hiding fatality stats?
If you are Foxconn, do you want people talking about Foxconn and fatalities in the same sentence? And if the govt doesn't require it, do you feel compelled to use your own internal resources to voluntarily compile and publish stats that make you look bad?
The real irony, to my mind is this: Apple is the company with the most integrity I've ever known. This manifests itself everywhere- from product quality to service at Apple stores. Apple has been proactive in making sure their employees are well taken care of, here and abroad, and they've been doing this for the past decade. They've been auditing suppliers in various ways for far longer than this story has even been…
This seems like hyperbole to me. What I mean is that Apple itself does not make this claim. They are honest about what things are good, and what things need work. Their audits often show problematic stuff; there have been reports of underage workers, workers exposed to toxic chemicals, etc. To Apple's credit, the company has worked to close those gaps. But it's clearly not the case that there have never been any problems at Apple's Foxconn factories, or that they "solved this problem before it ever became a problem."
Moreover, I don't think it's fair to take the facts that Apple jobs and longer hours are desirable at Foxconn and extrapolate from them that everything there is ideal. Let's be honest: factory work in China is not exactly the finest working environment ever conceived. There are a lot of really bad things that go on there. The fact that Apple is the best as far as Foxconn jobs are concerned does not by any means indicate that there are no problems whatsoever with the working or living environment. Again, to Apple's credit, they haven't put forward this excuse and commenced to ignore their critics; they've actively and honestly confronted the problems in the working environment in their factories, and tried to fix them, even when they've already exceeded standards set by other factories in the Foxconn group.
I think it's really important that we work to avoid whitewashing the difficult conditions at the Foxconn factories. It's really fantastic what Apple's done so far, but that doesn't mean there's nothing more to do. In our rush to speak well of a company that has done some really awesome things, let's not overstate the good they've done, lest we lose sight of why they're doing it.
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> Apple is the company with the most integrity I've ever known. This manifests itself everywhere- from product quality to service at Apple stores. Watching really smart people repeat this emotional and unreasonable argument, makes me highly value their genius marketing. Learning how their concise UX from products to slogan can convince reasonable people to act emotionally is a must for every entrepreneur.
> Watching really smart people repeat this emotional and unreasonable argument If you're going to make a claim about the quality of an argument, please back it up. Otherwise it comes off as a form of ad hominem. I'm not making an emotional, nor an unreasonable claim. I've been a customer of Apple for decades, and a partner of theirs for many years. I've had many interactions with them, across a variety of modes, and…
You claim that Apple has the most integrity of any company you have ever known, when the longest serving CEO was well known for a very wobbly relationship with the truth, in his "reality distortion field".
You also claim that any critics of Apple are driven by hatred and lack integrity.
To my mind, your entire argument lacks integrity and you are guilty of grievous insults to those who would disagree with you, even before anyone had a chance to do so.