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Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn

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Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn

#31

Post by terhechte »

norswap wrote: post #7
terhechte wrote: post #2

After the mess that was the last Apple Foxconn story, and with all the economic pressure that affects newspapers & news media, it becomes increasingly difficult for me to believe stories like these. It's not that I don't suppose that there're bad working conditions at Foxconn - there probably are. No, it's that even if the journalist in this story managed to sneak in, and work there, he probably added tons of hyperbo…

tl;dr You don't anything about this (I don't either) but you doubt it because there is "economic pressure". Right. The same comment can apply to every single item posted to this website, yoohoo.

I'm not talking about the rest of this site, I'm talking about journalism in particular, and how it changed compared to 1-2 decades ago. There's a huge difference between startup blog posts (which are for example other items posted here) and journalism, as a fourth constitutional force: Responsible for educating the people in an objective and truthful way, so they can form their own opinions, express their ideas, and thus participate in politics (by that I do't mean working in Washington. Lookup Habermas). In short, journalism should rinse democracy.

I fear that this function (actually the only relevant function that journalism enjoys, imho) is less and less fulfilled. I just took the doubts I have about this article as an example of that.

A working journalistic system shouldn't have to fear really hard economic pressure, otherwise it can't work correctly anymore. This relates to all other contents on this site as well, as long as they're journalistic and not public relations.

Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn

#32

Post by damian2000 »

eckyptang wrote: post #26
terhechte wrote: post #2

After the mess that was the last Apple Foxconn story, and with all the economic pressure that affects newspapers & news media, it becomes increasingly difficult for me to believe stories like these. It's not that I don't suppose that there're bad working conditions at Foxconn - there probably are. No, it's that even if the journalist in this story managed to sneak in, and work there, he probably added tons of hyperbo…

It's probably true and there's nothing Apple or anyone can do about it apart from stop selling things. I dealt with several Chinese manufacturers in the late 1990's who were doing custom PCB runs for one of our products. They treated their staff like shit then and hid it all under the rug when you went to see them. They wheeled out the turd polish in double-quick time. I don't think it's changed and I don't think it…

Its probably not in the same league in terms of numbers, but its impressive that the Raspberry Pi foundation just announced recently that they are now manufacturing their computers at home, in the UK, and maintaining the same retail price. So with advanced technologies and automation, plus some determination, there is something they can do. Its also revealing that the RPi foundation is non-profit so they aren't trying to maintain a bottom line.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1925

Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn

#34

Post by glenra »

paulerdos wrote: post #4
terhechte wrote: post #2

After the mess that was the last Apple Foxconn story, and with all the economic pressure that affects newspapers & news media, it becomes increasingly difficult for me to believe stories like these. It's not that I don't suppose that there're bad working conditions at Foxconn - there probably are. No, it's that even if the journalist in this story managed to sneak in, and work there, he probably added tons of hyperbo…

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 among chinese college students, lower than the rate among US factory workers and so on. And that problem was largely in the past, not an ongoing issue.

Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn

#35

Post by hubb »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #24

Anyone 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…

does anyone know of an adroid (or any brand, really) phone that is made in north america or europe?

Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn

#36

Post by sp332 »

relix wrote: post #33

$2 an hour? That's more than minimum wage in Estonia, a European Union country with most likely higher cost of living than China.

That was his pay for overtime. I don't think they were paying him time-and-a-half, in fact I think they probably paid him less for the overtime. So I'm guessing he made more than $2/hr for most of that 10 days.

Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn

#38

Post by tatsuke95 »

terhechte wrote: post #2

After the mess that was the last Apple Foxconn story, and with all the economic pressure that affects newspapers & news media, it becomes increasingly difficult for me to believe stories like these. It's not that I don't suppose that there're bad working conditions at Foxconn - there probably are. No, it's that even if the journalist in this story managed to sneak in, and work there, he probably added tons of hyperbo…

>"I really think it's hard to believe journalists these days, especially if the stories are unheard of and outrageous."

You really think piss-poor working conditions in Second-World factories are "unheard of and outrageous"? It's been going on for centuries. Sure, this story was impeccably timed, and I'm sure there are liberties taken here and there, but that's because running a magazine/newspaper is a business. That doesn't provide carte blanche to deny that there is truth behind the writing. I think it's a dangerous precedent when the populace begins to say, "you can't believe the media". In fact, I'm sure that there are terrible governments around the world that would love the population to think that way.

I'm a big believer in capitalism and globalization, so I think that, net, having these factories in China is beneficial. But I also don't disclaim that they are probably horrible, unhealthy places to work. How much responsibility is Apple's, and how much is China's is the important question.

Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn

#39

Post by knwang »

sp332 wrote: post #36
relix wrote: post #33

$2 an hour? That's more than minimum wage in Estonia, a European Union country with most likely higher cost of living than China.

That was his pay for overtime. I don't think they were paying him time-and-a-half, in fact I think they probably paid him less for the overtime. So I'm guessing he made more than $2/hr for most of that 10 days.

Foxxcoon pays about 400 USD a month - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/technology/foxconn-to-rais...

and if that's for 7 days a week 10 hours a day as the reporter said, that's 300 hours.. so 1.33 dollars per hour.

BTW, the typical salary range for a junior Ruby dev in a second or third tier city in China is about 800 - 1600 USD per month. Just to put things in perspectives

Re: Journalist goes undercover making the iPhone 5 at Foxconn

#40

Post by bmj »

hubb wrote: post #35
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #24

Anyone 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…

does anyone know of an adroid (or any brand, really) phone that is made in north america or europe?

This link (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57389858-1/are-any-smart...) is from earlier in the year, so I'm not sure how applicable it is these days.
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