Nightline's Look into Apple's Foxconn Factories
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notabadname
macrumors 68000
If suicide is lower there than it is as a national average, than it seems a relatively positive environment to work in by comparison. If Apple is a "better" place to work for their citizens, I don't see an issue. Change the government, not the employer.
B777Forevar
macrumors 6502a
I'll gladly pay the difference.
People won't suffer in those horrid Foxconn factories, plus you get a product that was proudly built in the United States.
jackc
macrumors 65816
So are you donating the difference to US workers? Help a brother out.
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Do you have any evidence that China is holding down wages? Why would they need to, the market wage is going to be low.
Interesting programme, but it could - as others have already pointed out - have gone deeper into the subject of living in China to give a better idea of how "well off" or otherwise these workers are in comparison to people in other jobs out there.
It's all about context: without it, they've missed out on what could have been a much more important and educational programme, and we're left with a fairly superficial look inside a factory, rather than insight into the "prospect" value these workers get from their jobs. I guess cable channels, even those who claim to be informative, don't rate education very highly.
It's all about context: without it, they've missed out on what could have been a much more important and educational programme, and we're left with a fairly superficial look inside a factory, rather than insight into the "prospect" value these workers get from their jobs. I guess cable channels, even those who claim to be informative, don't rate education very highly.
edenwaith
macrumors 6502a
Frustration with crappy products
I tried to record this show using the DVR. However, the experience to do so was on the level where I can imagine Steve Jobs demonstrating what a POS product the DVR, the menus, and the remote are.
First off, I sometimes have to use multiple remotes, since it seems like none of them even work completely. Down button doesn't work? Use a second remote?
Looking for a channel? Which channel is ABC on? Don't know, just scroll through the 1000 channels instead...with a remote with a broken down button.
How about search? OK. Figure out where the search functionality is on the DVR....slowly try and pound out NIGHTLINE....buttons still don't want to work properly...
I think the last time I had this problem, I just used an iPad app to search for the program.
I tried to record this show using the DVR. However, the experience to do so was on the level where I can imagine Steve Jobs demonstrating what a POS product the DVR, the menus, and the remote are.
First off, I sometimes have to use multiple remotes, since it seems like none of them even work completely. Down button doesn't work? Use a second remote?
Looking for a channel? Which channel is ABC on? Don't know, just scroll through the 1000 channels instead...with a remote with a broken down button.
How about search? OK. Figure out where the search functionality is on the DVR....slowly try and pound out NIGHTLINE....buttons still don't want to work properly...
I think the last time I had this problem, I just used an iPad app to search for the program.
People talk. But companies like Levi's have tried offering made-in-USA products at a much higher price to cover the costs. No significant fraction of the population puts their money where their mouth is.
Whereas Apple's subcontractor is giving these Chinese workers better jobs for better pay than their own villages, local enterprises or their own national government can provide all of them. Sounds like a great way to make the world a better place.
1) What about the other several million people that buy iPads, you thing they would?
2) Do you think Apple's competitors care about that? Or do you think they will just exploit the extra costs that Apple would charge?
ETA: Firewood beat me on my first point and put it a bit better than I could.
linuxcooldude
macrumors 68020
How about the Chinese scalpers who buy up all the iPhones, only to sell it to their own countrymen for a higher price.
But I'm sure you will blame Apple for that too.
notabadname
macrumors 68000
Companies like Apple investing in China actually raises the standard of living there. People saying Apple should pull out because of sub-par working conditions don't seem to answer the question, where will all those employees go, and what job will they do that is better?
macmagician
macrumors newbie
Yes you are. They are not being forced to work there. They have other choices. They may not be the same choices as here, but it's a communist country. Are you upset there are farmers in Mexico that farm your bananas at below OUR USA minimum wage?
Another fanboy response. Being forced to work there is irrelevant. Are you FORCED to work? No, but if you want to survive you have to. Taking advantage of any human being for your own gain is wrong.
Nope... not wrong at all.
I don't think this is "wrong" at all. If anything, this program just gave some people a reality check on what life is like in other parts of our world.
The fact is, China has a MASSIVE population, automatically making it a far bigger "supply and demand" problem if all of their residents were to suddenly decide to change their lifestyle, with a desire to live just like Americans do.
When you look at video of their villages, for example, and think "Wow... what a miserable life they're living!" -- you're watching it in the perspective of an American, contrasting that against the home or apartment you live in, and what you see around you. Everything is relative, and if it's the "norm" for all of their peers to live that simply and basically, they simply don't view it as the tragedy you see it as.
As others pointed out:
1. Most of the Foxconn workers are young. The place resembles a college campus in many respects, which makes more sense in the context of the average age of their employees. Most U.S. teenagers and early 20-somethings don't get especially great jobs either.
2. Their expenses are drastically lower than ours, so their money goes a lot farther. Since when can you buy lunch in the U.S. for the equivalent of only 70 cents? Even a government subsidized school lunch for a grade-school kid is over 2x that amount!
3. It would be insanity for Apple NOT to mark up their products to whatever the level is that the American market would bear. That's simply called business. Have you ever looked at the actual costs to bring a product like the iPad to market? The manufacturing expenses are only one portion. Things like advertising and marketing are a BIG reason you pay the asking price for one too, and those are all expenses paid in U.S.dollars to U.S. based firms -- when you want them to market it to U.S. customers.
If you turn this around and ask how those Chinese poor would be doing if Apple never existed (or refused to build anything there whatsoever) .. how would you conclude that betters their situation in any way, shape or form?
I don't think this is "wrong" at all. If anything, this program just gave some people a reality check on what life is like in other parts of our world.
The fact is, China has a MASSIVE population, automatically making it a far bigger "supply and demand" problem if all of their residents were to suddenly decide to change their lifestyle, with a desire to live just like Americans do.
When you look at video of their villages, for example, and think "Wow... what a miserable life they're living!" -- you're watching it in the perspective of an American, contrasting that against the home or apartment you live in, and what you see around you. Everything is relative, and if it's the "norm" for all of their peers to live that simply and basically, they simply don't view it as the tragedy you see it as.
As others pointed out:
1. Most of the Foxconn workers are young. The place resembles a college campus in many respects, which makes more sense in the context of the average age of their employees. Most U.S. teenagers and early 20-somethings don't get especially great jobs either.
2. Their expenses are drastically lower than ours, so their money goes a lot farther. Since when can you buy lunch in the U.S. for the equivalent of only 70 cents? Even a government subsidized school lunch for a grade-school kid is over 2x that amount!
3. It would be insanity for Apple NOT to mark up their products to whatever the level is that the American market would bear. That's simply called business. Have you ever looked at the actual costs to bring a product like the iPad to market? The manufacturing expenses are only one portion. Things like advertising and marketing are a BIG reason you pay the asking price for one too, and those are all expenses paid in U.S.dollars to U.S. based firms -- when you want them to market it to U.S. customers.
If you turn this around and ask how those Chinese poor would be doing if Apple never existed (or refused to build anything there whatsoever) .. how would you conclude that betters their situation in any way, shape or form?
jackc
macrumors 65816
Hiring people at a wage higher than they can get elsewhere is taking advantage of them?
FoxConn is providing a mutually beneficial exchange for these workers, what are you doing for them?
You have issues with a system, of which Apple has no part other than bringing money into their country. Whichever country you live in, outside money is always welcomed, even courted to extremes.
I'm no economic professor, but I'm fairly sure that if you pour money way and above the national average wage into a single workforce (Foxconn workers) then there are going to be some serious problems for the economy, as suddenly you have X thousand factory workers earning more than other professionals. An influx of (disposable income) money means rising prices, and lots of people who can't afford to match the rate inflation - because they don't work at a factory?
You're right, it stinks that they have all that space, all that labor force and all this imported business and yet still live in conditions we'd call squalor...but these things have to be solved from within, and if everyone stopped doing business with China; if the world stopped buying their export, then they'd be royally screwed.
Personally I'd put up with 3 months of cramped living conditions and 12 hour shifts if it meant I made 9 months profit (in context with the economy I'm living in). But hey, that's just me looking for the bright side.
Michaelgtrusa
macrumors 604
Well done for asking the inconvenient question.
Thinking differently has gotten you a lot of negative votes.
What does it profit a corporation to gain the world but lose it's soul?
Next up...one trillion in the bank.
You've made those behind this scandal very happy. Try and read the title of the tread.
Rocko1
macrumors 68020
It's the bleeding hearts that think every Chinese worker should earn min. of $8.25/hr or whatever your states min. wage is.
MacBookProzak
macrumors regular
Hey everyone, this guy is just trying to wind us up and we all fell for it. Just look at his name on this forum "MacMagician", he is truly an Apple supporter.
Chupa Chupa
macrumors G5
Yes. If China wanted to push up wages it would set a higher minimum wage than $240/mo (actually lower in some provinces). It does this to promote overall job growth. Again, remember that China is a planned economy.
Take a look at this for more background
macmagician
macrumors newbie
There still taking advantage of them. Why do you think they make them in china. What am i doing for them? The same thing you are, discussing it on the internet.....?
MacBookProzak
macrumors regular
Plus MOST, if not ALL of the Occupy Wall Street protesters were using Apple made products to document and report on the protest, so we are just following this righteous crowd and supporting Apple like they did.
jackc
macrumors 65816
Yes, but I realize those workers are not being exploited, but in fact are being helped. You would presumably like to shut it down and relocate, wouldn't you?
Well, now. That's flat out wrong. Fox News, for example, is justly lambasted for it's 'news' quality because they argued all the way to the Supreme Court (and won!) that a self-described news organization has no duty to tell the truth, and should be allowed to knowingly and willfully lie to it's viewers. (I know that sounds hard to believe, but it's true, look it up!)
As I recall, ABC, CBS, & NBC all filed briefs on the case arguing *exactly the opposite*, that a news organization has a duty to at least make a best effort to tell things as they are.
macmagician
macrumors newbie
For a company who made 6 billion dollar profit in one quarter of 2011, defending them paying someone 1.75/hr is insane. I have worked with macs and on them for many years. Hence the name macmagician. This doesn't mean I can't be critical of them.