ABC Previews 'Nightline' Visit to Foxconn's Chinese Factories

[danielwsmithee]

To put things in perspective the average salary in Shenzhen China where this city is located is $400 per month. Foxconn just raised their salary to $400 per month.

The average income for California is $4,800 per month.

So pretty much take what ever salary numbers you see coming out of this and multiply it by 10 to get the equivalent. Do you really think it is that big of a deal that somebody is paid $15 an hour to assemble an iPad?

 

[manzanamojo]

Big Fluff Story?

How objective can we really expect this story to be? Isn't ABC owned by Disney?...which had/has a very tight relationship with Apple? In fact, Steve Jobs, Disney's biggest shareholder, sat on the Disney board. Do you think Bob Iger and/or Lasseter will allow anything on the air that would tarnish Apple's reputation? I could be very mistaken but something tells me this will be a huge fluff story.

 

[coolspot18]

Did anyone else find that preview difficult to watch? In this technology age we still rely on the human hand and factories of human machines just making products for others.

No, until someone designs a machine that can assemble a complex device like an iPhone/iPad ... human assembly is still required.

What's so difficult to accept about that?

 

[Chupa Chupa]

I have to say, knowing how much Apple charges for their products, I am disgusted that they hire w/ a company like Foxconn that only pays it's employes $1.50 an hour. As much as I enjoy my Apple products, it makes me think twice about buying another.

Great, but better check the origin of just about everything else you buy too because odds are better than 50/50 it's made in China too, likely under even worse conditions. For example, clothing manufacturing is even more dangerous.

Also Foxconn manufactures products for just about every major electronics company -- XBOXes, HP and Dell computers, Nokia phones, Vizio TVs, Amazon Kindle Fires. It's a long list.

 

[tripleg]

"I pull out my own iPad to show her a few pictures of my kid and America and her eyes light up when she touches the screen to swipe another photo into view. She's never seen a working iPad up close before.
"For all the people in America who buy one of these, what do you want them to know about you?" I ask.
"I want them to know me," she says. "I want them to know we put a lot of effort in this product so when they use this please use it with care.""

I'm not sure where the above quotes came from but it seems very sad that someone who works so hard for so little has never even seen a working iPad or has any hope of owning one. Speaks to Apples greed on their profit margins that they have to take advantage of people like that. Just another Microsoft.

 

[GREEN4U]

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This will be interesting for us to see but you've got to admit: This type of s*** never wouldve happened while Steve was CEO. Tim Cook's new blows. I find myself saying that everytime.

 

[coolspot18]

To put things in perspective the average salary in Shenzhen China where this city is located is $400 per month. Foxconn just raised their salary to $400 per month.

The average income for California is $4,800 per month.

Average income in California is only $1892.00 per month.



Take a look at this chart:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States#By_educational_attainment

Most Foxconn workers will come from the first two categories: Some High School / High school graduate. So when compared to their American counterparts, they are paid about 3x less.

 

[deeddawg]

17 suicides within two months.

Source for this figure? Wired says 9 between March & May 2010, 17 in the past half-decade per the article.

Again, one is too many, but when advocating a position that the suicide rate is too high at Foxconn it would be helpful if (a) you have your facts straight and (b) you successfully show that the rate per 100,000 is in fact higher than the rate in the general population.

 

[jackc]

I'm not sure where the above quotes came from but it seems very sad that someone who works so hard for so little has never even seen a working iPad or has any hope of owning one. Speaks to Apples greed on their profit margins that they have to take advantage of people like that. Just another Microsoft.

iPads are expensive even in the U.S. Is it a tragedy and taking advantage of people that someone working on a luxury car will never afford one?

 

[Robert Mizen]

Oh boy, there are some really stupid people on here, and thankfully some good.

Make stuff in the USA? Are you guys friken serious? Wake up! It won't happen, Manufacturing in the states is gone, it won't come back. Either you just accept it and just learn that you will be left with Creative and Service sectors or keep throwing money into a fire. Countries in Europe found this out. Trust me, i know i have lived and visited many.

Manufacturing will return to the states and europe only when rest of the world comes into equilibrium where there is no benefit to it being made cheaply because every country is the same.

Suicides in Factories - Remember this people, 17 people (As stated by a seemingly clever but actually a moronic idiot) in a month killing them selves.

There are a lot of problems in China, for the most part it is ****. I have been, its dirty, oppressive, fake (the way it is perceived internally and also how "advanced" it is.) I have friends 1 of whom witnessed her friends being taken away in blacked out vans and never saw them again and came to study and live in the UK. Lots of people take their lives everyday, plenty of reasons the reason Foxconn comes up is it has the media attention and employs more people probably then other factories in the sector. (But i don't know).

Final statement really is simple.

Apple SHOULD do more really. They have the money, but it honestly would be better spent on helping Foxconn move to Brazil and other countries with better Judicial Systems. China is corrupt and disregards human rights completely.

Unless China starts to respect rights of humans and start cleaning that place up its just not worth the trouble.

 

[niuniu]

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This will be interesting for us to see but you've got to admit: This type of s*** never wouldve happened while Steve was CEO. Tim Cook's new blows. I find myself saying that everytime.

What type of ****? Letting cameras into a workplace? It's a good move by Cook.

 

[gkpm]

But that hope quickly fades away when they are stuck in these living conditions.

If you were essentially stuck in a dorm with suicide nets installed outside the windows, wouldn't you feel a bit stuck, or like a slave?

Not when these living conditions are better than the ones you had on your own home, or at school (many Chinese live in far worse dorms at school).

Company dorms are the norm in China and other Asian countries (South Korea comes to mind).

I lived for a few months in a South Korean dorm that was the size of my western home's closet and wow did I moan every other day about it, but my Korean friends just laughed.

They seemed very happy with it and really didn't get why I was complaining so much.

 

[Jamo12]

Content with life? Who ever said they were content. They are trained from a very young age not to think for themselves and to act like robots. Do you think the civilians of North Korea are content and love their leader? Do some research, they have been brain washed. They though kim jong il was god, not a god, but the god. They also think america needs to be destroyed by any means possible and we are the root of all evil. So don't mix low suicide rates with being content, they just take orders and realize very early they have no shot at anything better. They know very early on you go to work, come home and have 2 kids. They might as well be living in cages.

The suicide rate said they were content. Whether or not they were 'brain washed' (which is debatable) their reality is that, in general, they are more content with life. Honestly in life, no matter what life, a good goal is to be happy. If they are happy with their $1.50 an hour, (which is MUCH better than the rest of the country, hence the thousands of people lining up to work there) who am I to judge?

 

[danielwsmithee]

Average income in California is only $1892.00 per month.

You are right, I posted the median household income. Using the individual number than. $1892/$400 = 4.73.

So put in perspective a $1.50 and hour is the same as $7 an hour here.

 

[Chaos123x]

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Bob Iger is a Apple board member....

Disney isn't going to let nightline trash there own CEO.

 

[Blueflame1138]

This is why they increased wages just this last week. The problem i have is you have the richest company on this planet who is notorious for making incredible profits off its products employing human robots in other countries at a fraction of the price they can get elsewhere due to the fact they don't need to pay them the amount of money they are worth or any of the benefits the rest of the world enjoys.

Yes, if Apple were to accept lower profits and insist on this being passed on in the form of greater benefits for the employees of one of their suppliers, I'm pretty sure that Foxconn would fall into line. If not just to keep this prestige contract.

My argument is why just hold Apple up to this scrutiny? Shouldn't all firms be examined equally?

Should we not also fall down just as hard, if not harder, on a regime that creates an oppressed society that uses government sanctioned human rights abuses to keep the vast majority of it's population at a financial level that $1.50 per hour is seen as a positive?

 

[kiljoy616]

So who wants the dollar a day job? Oh come on someone must want those jobs?

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why isnt there this same level of scrutiny of america's chicken farms?

LOBBYIST, any other question you have?

 

[Robert Mizen]

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This will be interesting for us to see but you've got to admit: This type of s*** never wouldve happened while Steve was CEO. Tim Cook's new blows. I find myself saying that everytime.

What the **** are you on about?

If anything with Tim Cook it will get better.

Steve Jobs was brilliant, but a complete *******. He was hard to work for and with according to people who have. But that gets overshadowed by his brilliance and ideas and vision, something you have to admire to a degree.

Look at stories that have come out of Apple being scared of him or the way he would fire people and shout at them. I bet he pushed Foxconn to the limits, but Tim Cook pulled the strings for manufacturing process and the product lines, with the amount of unemployed in the USA and Europe, i bet most of them would take 1-2 Dollars a hour specially since Foxconn provide apartments, bedsits and rooms for rent.

 

[gnasher729]

You know what, you guys are all right with me. Forget about 17 suicides within two months. Let's care more about the chickens and pigs and cows.

USA 2008: Number of deaths by suicide: 36,909.

In other words, if you really cared about human lives, then you should start looking out for the people around you, not for the people working at Foxconn.

Steve Jobs was brilliant, but a complete *******. He was hard to work for and with according to people who have. But that gets overshadowed by his brilliance and ideas and vision, something you have to admire to a degree.

I'm sure there are plenty of bosses in the USA compared to whom Steve Jobs was a saint.

And I'm sure there are plenty of people in the USA with very nice bosses who lost their jobs because their company went under, and who wished their boss had been a bit more brilliant, even if it meant being a bit less nice.

 

[Gasu E.]

Is there a scandal I missed about poor working conditions and pay for chicken farm workers?

Or wait, did you just imply that a Chinese laborer and a chicken, about to be killed for our dinner, should be treated equivalently?

I love Chinese food, but no way would I consider eating a Chinese laborer.

 

[hissyfit]

Great, but better check the origin of just about everything else you buy too because odds are better than 50/50 it's made in China too, likely under even worse conditions. For example, clothing manufacturing is even more dangerous.

Also Foxconn manufactures products for just about every major electronics company -- XBOXes, HP and Dell computers, Nokia phones, Vizio TVs, Amazon Kindle Fires. It's a long list.

I do check the origins of my purchases and even ingredients in my food, but thanks for the advice??
I think Apple could and should be made in the USA, nothing wrong w/ that. Why would someone be so offended by this suggestion? The price points of Apple products don't have to go up if they are USA made Apple just doesn't want to a take blow to their wallets. But more jobs here mean more Apple products potentially sold too. My opinion is a valid one.

 

[tripleg]

iPads are expensive even in the U.S. Is it a tragedy and taking advantage of people that someone working on a luxury car will never afford one?

It's just a sad statement of the times that the most valuable company in the world with huge profits and profit margins has to do so on the backs of these workers. Isn't Apple suppose to "Think Different"? All I see is another Microsoft.

 

[Robert Mizen]

So who wants the dollar a day job? Oh come on someone must want those jobs?

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LOBBYIST, any other question you have?

I imagine the millions who are now made homeless and jobless and have nothing and been left out to dry because companies in own countries cut back and bankers and car makers getting stupid and pure greed. At least Apple supplies Jobs.

 

[IBradMac]

Again, claiming that someone is blindly following the press is a terrible argument, and certainly shows that you have NOTHING to add to the conversation.

Remember what was going on with the auto industry at the time, and how many eyes were on them ... read/watch/listen a bit more carefully, they got the same amount of attention, and were going through an entirely different set of issues as Foxconn.

We aren't talking suicides across the nation, we are talking about 17 suicides in the same COMPANY within a few months who all felt the need to jump out of windows.

GEEZE people wake the **** up!

Install plexiglas for windows. Problem solved.

 

[kiljoy616]

What others are doing has no relevance to the Foxconn situation - if it's bad it should be stopped. If it's not, then no worries. It shouldn't be OK to get away with terrible conditions just because others are getting away with terrible conditions.

Tony

Why should it stop, go build your own company and make it a utopian society. Oh wait you can't and Apple is probably better than 99 percent of North American companies world wide.

Its nice Apple leadership cares but lets not go crazy by projecting how bad your jobs are on these workers. We have for now still right in this country people died for. I wonder if anyone here would go to war to keep those right. I say not, Otaku don't tend to fight.