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Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

thisamericanlife.org

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Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#51

Post by brudgers »

radicalbyte wrote: post #43

A point which seems to be missed (and which is, thankfully, made in the podcast) is that these terrible conditions are better than the alternative. The situation China, in many ways, better than it was in the Western world when we were going through our Industrial Revolution. It made me think back to a TED talk from Hans Rosling on Population Growth, and the relation to economic status: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_…

>"these terrible conditions are better than the alternative."

That was the argument made against divestiture in South Africa during apartheid.

History has shown that it was wrong, at the time.

At the time, moral reasoning showed that it was wrong, as well.

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#52

Post by glenra »

yardie wrote: post #40
glenra wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original macintosh used to be built in Fremont too. http://www.onedigitallife.com/2006/03/21/flickr-find-mac-fac... As I recall, the US stupidly made that uncompetitive by enforcing anti-"dumping" duties on DRAM chips. We required that RAM sold to the US should be really expensive, to protect our (then largely hypothetical) local suppliers. So clone PCs built abroad could include cheap DRAM chips while Apple coul…

That is not correct. What happened was an earthquake in Taipei in the early 90s leveled most of the worlds RAM factories. This sent the price of RAM through the roof and took years to level off. Other IC manufacturers, sensing an opportunity, started making RAM as well. Then the factories in Taipei got back up and a price war ensued in the late 90s. US memory makers had exited the arena long before. Now it was multin…

There were many rounds of US dumping investigations involving DRAM, some of which caused the manufacturers to raise prices voluntarily and others of which actually caused duties to be implied. This process started as far back as 1985: http://www.japanlaw.info/lawletter/april86/eoq.htm

Here's an example a few years later (in 1991/92) of Apple trying to get its own memory boards excluded from such actions: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EKF/is_n1935_v38/ai_...

Quote:

> 'The papers also disclosed that Apple Computer had filed a last-minute request that "a product imported by Apple containing Korean DRAMs not be considered within the scope" of the dumping ruling. Micron Technology, which initiated the dumping complaint, opposed the Apple petition'

The earthquake you're talking about happened in 1999, right?

FWIW, the Fremont Mac plant was extremely automated, well ahead of its time in that regard. The anti-dumping duties applied to memory imported alone or in circuit boards but did not apply to memory chips in finished products - that last possibly for the practical reason that nobody wants customs inspectors tearing apart VCRs to see if they can find untaxed memory chips.

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#53

Post by yardie »

glenra wrote: post #52
yardie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not correct. What happened was an earthquake in Taipei in the early 90s leveled most of the worlds RAM factories. This sent the price of RAM through the roof and took years to level off. Other IC manufacturers, sensing an opportunity, started making RAM as well. Then the factories in Taipei got back up and a price war ensued in the late 90s. US memory makers had exited the arena long before. Now it was multin…

There were many rounds of US dumping investigations involving DRAM, some of which caused the manufacturers to raise prices voluntarily and others of which actually caused duties to be implied. This process started as far back as 1985: http://www.japanlaw.info/lawletter/april86/eoq.htm Here's an example a few years later (in 1991/92) of Apple trying to get its own memory boards excluded from such actions: http://finda…

Yes you are right I was confused, I thought it was the Taiwan earthquake that caused RAM prices to spike (and it did), but this was earlier. I think the previous RAM spike might have come from the Windows 95 release. A Google search on Japanese earthquakes only displays the one from last year. One chatroom mentions the '93 earthquake.

FWIW, no matter how you cut it California is still an expensive place to do business. All the automation in the world couldn't save that factory. Not for what they were making. Now it's about specialization, automation (in the short term) is still more expensive than millions of chinese factory workers.

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#54

Post by dangero »

Great storytelling and I have no doubt that it is all true. One thing that bothered me in this monologue was he kept saying things like, "Do you think that THEY don't know?" "Do you think that Apple doesn't know?"

Problem for me being that Apple is a corporation and doesn't have one mind. Does anyone at Apple know? I'm sure people who visit the factories do. Does the information get passed around throughout the organization so that everyone knows? I'm pretty sure it doesn't. Do most people who work at Apple want to be intentionally ignorant? Probably, but I don't think there's some huge conspiracy going on. Most Apple employees are no different than consumers. They have no knowledge of this from Apple internals and don't think about it much.

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#55

Post by easp »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #26
joering1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont buy it. in the good ole days even before Standard Oil, fierce competition and W-2 (and IRS/SS in that matter), the reason behind owning any business was not to get rich or satisfy the board with higher dividend, but to give people job and ability to keep their families respected. to me its a simple math: Apple produce stuff in China saving 40% of production costs, then sells its goods in America putting 40% pr…

"in the good ole days even before Standard Oil, fierce competition and W-2 (and IRS/SS in that matter), the reason behind owning any business was not to get rich or satisfy the board with higher dividend, but to give people job and ability to keep their families respected." I don't know of any such time. Which good ole days are you talking about? I think you're dreaming of a romantic past that never existed.

There are many (successful) idealistic business leaders during the industrial revolution who might have fit the description you've quoted.

Don't blindly buy in to the cult of human selfishness.

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#56

Post by mbubb »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #37
joering1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont buy it. in the good ole days even before Standard Oil, fierce competition and W-2 (and IRS/SS in that matter), the reason behind owning any business was not to get rich or satisfy the board with higher dividend, but to give people job and ability to keep their families respected. to me its a simple math: Apple produce stuff in China saving 40% of production costs, then sells its goods in America putting 40% pr…

> to me its a simple math: Apple produce stuff in China saving 40% of production costs, then sells its goods in America putting 40% profit margin on it. I smell greed, regardless if people accept to be ripped of or not. So, you expect Apple to manufacture in the States, and then sell it to you without a margin (over production costs)... And how exactly are those poor Apple engineers and Apple Store Employees are supp…

"I'd be happy if my iPad would be $549 (instead of $499) AND those workers were receiving more money for their hard work."

I have thought that for years.

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#57

Post by glenra »

jhancock wrote: post #31
glenra wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do get a decent salary by local standards, and (so long as they're being paid for it) tend to want all the hours they can get. There was a riot a few years ago in a chinese plant because the plant owners stopped giving so much overtime and the workers were upset that they lost out on the extra work. If you read Apple's status reports, one of the problems they seem to be battling is that these jobs are so good th…

They get an above average salary by local standards. I wouldn't call this decent. I'm not calling out Apple's manufacturing partners here, whom are better than most, just making the situation more clear. edit: As to "huge bribes to middlemen", I live close to a Foxconn factory making Apple products in Chengdu. I've seen recruiters in a suburban (poor) farmer's market with a table setup recruiting people for Apple job…

The workers paying the bribes mostly were from well outside the area where the factories were, including nearby countries.

Quote from Apple's Supplier Responsibility report (page 7)

http://images.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_...

Limiting Recruitment Fees

Some of our suppliers work with third-party labor agencies to hire contract workers from countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. These agencies, in turn, may work through multiple subagencies in the hiring country, the workers’ home country, and, in some cases, all the way back to the workers’ home village. By the time the worker has paid all fees across these agencies, the total cost can equal many months’ wages, forcing workers into debt to gain employment.

Apple views recruitment fee overcharges as debt-bonded labor, or involuntary labor, which is strictly prohibited by our Code. We limit recruitment fees to the equivalent of one month’s net wages and require suppliers to reimburse overpaid fees for all foreign contract workers in their facilities, including workers not assigned to Apple projects. To the best of our knowledge, Apple is the only company in the electronics industry that mandates reimbursement of excessive recruitment fees.

Apple forced companies to reimburse more than $3.4 million that year to foreign contract workers, fees of as much as "thousands of dollars per worker".

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#58

Post by DaNmarner »

ugh wrote: post #7
lukeman wrote: post #3

Hopefully the story is more honest than the title, since Foxconn is less an "Apple factory" than it is the company that pretty much assembles all of the best electronic devices in the world (at least according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Clients ).

It’s a clever way of framing it. Apple has become this huge and powerful entity and they are very much unlike every other technology company out there. If you list all the companies or pick another one that’s not Apple they will just say noncommittal nice things and try to shift responsibility away from them. “But we have to do this to stay competitive, everyone else does!” “We have even stricter guidelines for our s…

"extremely", "always" and "most likely" being in the same paragraph "most likely" indicates mental masturbation.

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#59

Post by shirro »

Just to turn this around a bit for a different perspective.

How many US products are made by prison labour? Who has worse conditions: a Foxconn employee paid a low wage and living in a dorm or a US prisoner deprived of liberty, exposed to violence and paid practically nothing? Who will live better and longer, the grandchildren of Foxconn employees or those of US prisoners?

The US has an astonishingly high incarceration rate compared to other countries thanks to government policy. The US economy clearly benefits from the misery caused by this system. Why would any foreigner want to support it?

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