I quite literally get sick reading this. In Poland, which is in the middle of Europe,and which is a part of European Union and all, there are people who don't earn as much per hour as guys at Foxconn do. It's not uncommon for people to earn 5PLN/hour,which is actually less than 2 USD/hour. And these guys get 4 dollars per hour, have a place to stay,a place to do sports and food to eat, and you call it inhumane and horrible? I think you need to take a long hard look at yourself,not everybody lives in highly developed countries like UK and US, not earning 20 dollars/hour is not the end of the world, like seriously.
Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn
131–140 of 152 posts
Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
what's with this fixation on Foxconn and Apple? Apple is the most successful business in history. They have literally billions of dollars in the bank. The fact that they have reached this position by exploiting international labor conditions is dissonant with the glowing opinion of them in the American press. It is seen as hypocritical. From your tone, I infer that you think you may agree - but that you feel conflict…
Injustice means one thing for me and another for someone living in China. I have no idea what the standard of living is over there for a typical factory worker. Is it better or worse than the alternatives? I don't know. Foxconn could be a pioneer of beter living and working conditions for the country and I'd never know it. I'm biased towards a first world view on these matters. Everything must be considered when doin…
> Injustice means one thing for me and another for someone living in China.
Why? That standards of living are higher in some places than others is no reason to be negative about attempts to change the status quo. Drawing attention to this has resulted in improvements, even if there's a long way to go. People always want things to be someone else's problem. The good news is that, looking at history, these things usually get better over time.
> There's no need to crucify Apple or Foxconn over this.
These are their own workers. They are directly responsible for the conditions in their own factories. The notion that it's China, so it's reasonable to expect them to be treated like crap doesn't sit well with me. That may be how things are in much of China, but it says nothing about how things ought to be in China. You could complain that if so, they ought to improve things, but that's exactly what they are doing here: bringing the issues to light so they can be dealt with.
Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn
#133This "journalist" puts 1 single Chinese company under a microscope and incites people of first world nations to pick up their pitch forks and torches in protest. Sure the conditions at Foxconn are terrible in comparison to my world view, but I'm not Chinese and my world view is irrelevant here. You know how I know this article is trash? This statement right here: "It also appears that windows have had bars put over t…
Unfortunately, I believe the OP misrepresents the original article quite a bit. The Chinese article is three pages long but their summary only covers details from the first page. The second page features personal stories from several employees and their families, which the journalist said made a much deeper impression than the tasks he went through as an undercover employee. The third is a commentary along the lines of "is this the best China can do?" (i.e. forever be implementing other countries' creativity, instead of being the inventors), and a final reflection saying that working conditions at Foxconn have improved greatly over the last two years (apparently working undercover at Foxconn is something that's been done several times before), but the hostile attitude toward employees has not improved.
Aside the editorial content at the end, I think the article was quite fair in that the journalist simply reporte what he saw (if the windows really have screens installed for suicide prevention, merely describing this fact does not make an article "trash"). I also don't think the author has any intent of making the Western world go up in arms about anything. The point is more about checking how much things have changed since the famous chain of suicides was made public.
Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, the world is still in such a sad state that your above comment could absolutely be construed as your own personal beliefs which is why I asked if you were serious lest I overreact and turn what would be an otherwise lively debate into uncouth name calling. But thank you for the definition of the word irony. I wish you a good day.
Sorry about my somewhat harsh reply. I come from the UK where irony/sarcasm use is far more common than it appears to be by our cousins in USA. I sometimes forget this and really should use more neutral arguments!
sarcasm requires an explicit markup on the internet.
Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn
#135Here is a very interesting story on the flip side of this article
http://www.ted.com/talks/leslie_t_chang_the_voices_of_china_...
Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, the world is still in such a sad state that your above comment could absolutely be construed as your own personal beliefs which is why I asked if you were serious lest I overreact and turn what would be an otherwise lively debate into uncouth name calling. But thank you for the definition of the word irony. I wish you a good day.
Sorry about my somewhat harsh reply. I come from the UK where irony/sarcasm use is far more common than it appears to be by our cousins in USA. I sometimes forget this and really should use more neutral arguments!
No worries my friend. I know it's often difficult to convey tone over the web so big up to you for apologizing. Honestly, it's standup people like you that keep me coming back to HN for news and good debate rather than some of the other sites out there. Cheers SeanDav.
Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn
#137This "journalist" puts 1 single Chinese company under a microscope and incites people of first world nations to pick up their pitch forks and torches in protest. Sure the conditions at Foxconn are terrible in comparison to my world view, but I'm not Chinese and my world view is irrelevant here. You know how I know this article is trash? This statement right here: "It also appears that windows have had bars put over t…
"Let's be real here."
OK, go work in the Foxconn factory and then let's see how you feel about Apple. That's about as "real" as it gets.
I wonder if you would actually be more upset with the conditions than the local workers are. Who knows, they might be quite happy with what they're getting. But how would _you_ feel working there? Your world view _is_ relevant here because you are the source of Apple's reputation and their income. You are the primary market.
Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Injustice means one thing for me and another for a negro. I have no idea what the standard of living is for typical negros. Is it better or worse than the alternatives? I don't know. Confederate cotton farmers could be a pioneer of better living and working conditions for negros I'd never know it. I'm biased towards a Union view on these matters. Everything must be considered when doing these types of comparisons, bu…
You're comparing impoverished people taking jobs of their own free will to chattel slavery?
Rural migrant workers in China (who make up the bulk of factory labour) have less rights than people who are residents of the area they are working in. For one, it is very hard (near impossible) for migrant workers to send their children to schools near their workplace. As for free will, you will find many who move to the cities for these jobs are doing so under intense family pressure.
I'm not trying to draw a comparison to slavery, there is actual slavery in Southern China's brick making industry that is truly appalling.
Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn
#139Anyone who has significant issues with this needs to stop buying anything marked made in China. There are some interesting bits in there from the perspective of understanding the manufacturing process, but in terms of the worker conditions and so on, it's nothing new and anyone for whom this is news has presumably been hiding under a rock for the last couple of years and making a concious effort not to think about ho…
Boycotts are a fantasy. You would love to think that you can just ethically spend your money and the world will be fine but it is a complete myth. So what if you never buy something marked "Made in China" then I guess Haiti, Vietnam and India must be bastions of freedom and ethical work?
In today's modern, integrated economy it is near impossible to buy anything that isn't at least partially made in China. Defence suppliers try to avoid foreign parts for political reasons and even they cannot prevent some components, metals, plastics or raw materials being sourced from China.
It is you who are living under a rock if you believe you can truly vote with your wallet. You don't have that choice any more. Even if you go out of your way to avoid all electronics (I guarantee you at least some of those components came from China) and only buy locally sourced, fair-trade hemp clothing you will still be giving money to someone else who is buying almost everything from China.
This doesn't just apply to China, it applies to every nation (except, maybe, North Korea, you really need to try hard to find something that they have exported recently). Economies are interconnected and boycotts are feelgood nonsense.
Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is hard to know who to believe. The journalist who has something to gain by exaggerating the suffering of the workers, or the company which has much more to gain by hiding the suffering. The truth is somewhere in between. Based on the Foxconn on-the-job-site suicide rate being significantly higher than other on-the-job-site suicide rates (important to compare apples-with-apples, no pun intended), the truth probabl…
What evidence suggests the suicide rate for Foxconn workers is "significantly higher" than would otherwise be expected? Near as I can tell, the only complaint is that there was a large raw number of suicides a while ago...in a company so huge it has more workers than the population of Wyoming. Last time I looked it up, the suicide rate there seemed to be lower than the rate among chinese people, lower than the rate a…
"lower than the rate among US factory workers". This is a common comparison fallacy. The baserates you appear to be comparing with are all general population baserate. The baserate that I was thinking about was how many factory workers committed suicide on-site. That is the Apples-to-Apples comparison. Eg: How many Apple employees committed suicide on campus vs how many Foxconn employees committed suicide at their factory camp/dorm.