Nightline's Look into Apple's Foxconn Factories

[CplBadboy]

Oh and please stop creating new arguments, come up with some actual facts (as we all do) and don't just go into details about stacking apartments into apartment blocks, but also try to counter all the other arguments.

???? Whats up?? Did you overlook that little point reference the accommodation solution??
Ok heres a fact . Conditions are pretty substandard and as a result workers are feeling that they have to take their own lives. Suicide nets have had to be erected. So whats that telling you??

 

[Rogifan]

5 Days to make an iPad eh?? Really??? Does the making of the aluminium (thats al-u-minimum) attribute to this time. Seems an awfully long time if you asks me. These things are churned off surely one every 5 minutes.

i don't understand why people say that oh if they where made in the US at 12 bucks an hour we would be paying a fortune for it. Look at it a different way. If that was the case the products would still be as popular but Apple wouldn't have the incredibly high profit margins it does and at the same time would help its own US economy. They could still sell at the same price and make the profit.

Listen iPhones are made for 8 dollars and sold for 600 or there a bouts. The only reason for making things in China is the cheap labour. Whatever way you look at it its kinda wrong that Apple is failing to give its workers a decent standard of living - not 20 man dorms but 4 man spacious living - and facilities that they could so easily afford. Ultimately Apple should be responsible and from what Im reading they are more or less turning blind eye. They seem to preach all this do good but dont seem to actually embrace it. How about they draw a comparison what its like to work on Apple HQ in California with all its facilities to those at FoxConn Its all a bit distasteful if you ask me.

Where are you getting $8 from? The average salary for Apple designers is $162K. I'm guessing average salaries for software and hardware engineers is similar. Is that factored into your $8?

 

[CplBadboy]

Many years ago I worked on a production line. It was low paid and full of temporary staff, no one cared (even about losing their job) and that was reflected in the quality of the output. Don't think anything has changed.

Well then, you need to take a long hard look at yourself then don't you? There are people always willing to work hard and do the job properly. If you didnt care ten Im glad you dont work there anymore

 

[Lochias]

What's your point?

Apple's Foxconn factories? Apple allows access the their Foxconn factories?

Are you suggesting that access could be given without Apple's permission? Not bloody likely.

 

[diazj3]

... That isn't something you Sherlocked all by yourself...

I know. Not saying I did... btw, loved the term "sherlocked"

He said that as a journalist, he would only do the story if he was allowed to tell the whole truth. So maybe, yes, that might be a lie. But if journalists are liars, then the positive news might be exaggerated. The same thing can be said about the negative news. Don't you think?

Perhaps. But it's a clear und inevitable conflict of interests - so even if he warns about it, that doesn't let him off the hook in terms of credibility. The whole production was at least sanctioned by Apple, just to get access to the factory.

Perhaps in other countries, the media is not as corrupted as in the US, and companies don't control the media (and everything else within their reach) as Apple does. Plus, it wouldn't be the first time a journalist lies, would it?

How come all other reports point to the opposite direction? If ABC's and the reporter's journalistic integrity is such, why do the report at all? Aren't there enough good stories out there to report on without taking this chance?

Should we just trust them and forget about it? IMO, it's way too fishy.

cheers!

 

[Hattig]

"You know whats funny? you can ALWAYS tell who's untalented by their position on wages"

Really you believe that?? So would you say that a Soldier, Sea or Airman that serves his country is untalented even though he or she doesn't exactly earn a large wage packet???

POSITION ON WAGES. Not their own wages.

I.e., do they think everybody's earnings should be dragged down to a lowest common denominator because it's "so unfair" some people earn more, or do they realise that some people will earn a lot more due to skill, talent, ability.

A good soldier, etc, can become a corporal or a major too, and those positions earn more. Is Tim Cook worth millions? Yes, because he is part of the team that has taken Apple to its current world-leading position.

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???? Whats up?? Did you overlook that little point reference the accommodation solution??
Ok heres a fact . Conditions are pretty substandard and as a result workers are feeling that they have to take their own lives. Suicide nets have had to be erected. So whats that telling you??

Conditions are so good (compared with alternatives in that country's current development situation) that the suicide rate is significantly lower than the national average.

 

[Lochias]

Apple's process, Apple's products

Why is Apple being treated as if Foxconn *was* Apple?

The two are completely independent companys, so why the hell should Apple even 'allow' the media to look into Foxconn's factories? THATS FOXCONN'S CALL.

It certainly is not. Do you really believe that that is how the contract with Apple reads?

 

[BobbyRond]

???? Whats up?? Did you overlook that little point reference the accommodation solution??
Ok heres a fact . Conditions are pretty substandard and as a result workers are feeling that they have to take their own lives. Suicide nets have had to be erected. So whats that telling you??

First of all, to counter that argument. Suicides have occurred and the nets are there to prevent "impulsive souls" to think twice about jumping. 9 people committed suicide in 3 months time, so this is well below the national average.

Suicides happen all over the planet, also in the UK or in the US. I bet those suicides are not always work related, but suicides do happen in the workplace.

See this:
http://abcnews.go.com/International...impse-inside-apples-chinese/story?id=15748745 (within the very first minute)

Then, as for the questions you haven't answered:
- Do you understand why it takes 5 days to create an iPad?
- Do you acknowledge an iPhone costs more than $8 to manufacture?
- Do you understand that a salary which is low for Western standards, may actually be very well above average for the Chinese standards?
- Do you acknowledge that there are no 20 man dorms?
- Do you understand it is very costly probably impossible to move all manufacturing power from China to the US?
- Do you understand the negative consequences this will have on the Chinese people?
- If you do, do you agree that your statement about moving jobs to the US is not a smart move? If you don't agree, please come up with proper arguments.
- Do you agree to the facts that I have presented that Apple does more for Foxconn employees than Nintendo, Sony, Dell or Microsoft do?
- Do you agree that Tim Cook has more responsibility towards the world than any factory worker?

Please answer all questions. If you don't, I presume you don't have sufficient arguments and therefore I am right.

 

[Lochias]

Odd

How does it take an odd number of hands to make an iPad?

Who's the poor bastard with only one arm?

Actually, he has three.

 

[M-O]

$1.78/hr isn't terrible when your monthly rent is $17.50 & meals are $0.70. i know the living conditions aren't great, but are there alternatives?

i'm not knowledgeable about the cost of living in china, but we can't look at this from an American view. Sure minimum wage here is around $8/hr, but rent for a cheap apartment is $600-800/month. Split that with 8 friends and it's still much higher than $17.50...

 

[BobbyRond]

Perhaps. But it's a clear und inevitable conflict of interests - so even if he warns about it, that doesn't let him off the hook in terms of credibility. The whole production was at least sanctioned by Apple, just to get access to the factory.

I couldn't agree more with you.

Because I'm not an American, I also don't know how 'trustworthy' ABC is a reporting network. I know that many people say that Fox News is mainly BS. How is this for ABC?

 

[Ecoh]

How much do you figure, then? I was just roughing it out, but I believe there are things I'm not considering.

Any other estimates out there?

You also have to take into account the number of iPads built in a week. That one hand is continually busy making other iPads, it just doesn't make one iPad a week.

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

This wouldn't be an issue if:

1. U.S. based companies hadn't shipped all the jobs overseas mainly because of #2 below
2. If unions hadn't drove up the pay rate until it was ridiculous
3. If the world's population wasn't spiraling out of control

FACTORY LINE WORKERS SHOULDN'T MAKE MORE THAN TEACHERS. Just because you screw a bolt onto a Chevy Malibu doesn't mean you should get paid $60k a year. My wife is an Autism Specialist—she trains parents on how to reinforce proper behaviors with their autistic children. She gets bitten, scratched, and bruised by these little rascals. Not to mention our car gets peed all over when she transports them. She makes $12.50/hr. I'm a student and I'm working as a web design intern. I make $9/hr making $10-20k websites from wire-frame, to Photoshop mockup, to HTML/CSS coding, to using WP as a CMS with custom-coded/modified plugins. Why should some factory worker doing repetitive, often mindless work make so much more than the two of us combined?

ALSO—PEOPLE NEED TO STOP HAVING SO MANY BABIES. Just stop it. Believe it or not, we are going to run out of food, water, and room one of these days. And if you didn't notice, the birth rate is increasing exponentially. That is a very, very bad thing. Expect more of this from more areas of the world as people are so ubiquitous that they are no longer considered human and are thought of as disposable machines.

In addition I'm pissed off that college costs so much and tuition increases twice the rate of inflation—but I'll save that rant for another day as I'm rapidly drifting off topic.

Yes, I don't get why people have more than two kids. have a boy and girl, what else is there to experience raising? are you hoping a dragon'll pop out?

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or an example of unions killing jobs, look no further than public education.

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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)



Probably because those jobs don't pay as much, relatively speaking as Foxconn jobs. Also our 17-25 year olds are clearly softer and lazier than their Chinese counterparts. Most of ours live off their parents instead of supporting their parents.

Somebody hates his kids, on a related note, most 17-25 year olds are furthering their education.

Right getting into deep debt with no real upside. Every kid should not be running up debt by going to college. We have developed a culture where kids have no responsibility until they get to 25.

 

[macjoshua]

For those complaining that Apple should bring manufacturing to the US: In what city do you think they could pull off something with the same scale as Foxconn? They have nearly a million employees and can shift a product line in days.

There is no city in the US with that kind of workforce, and because of that, there is no manufacturing company that can meet the demands of a company that sells so many devices.

I would venture to say that cost isn't the main reason Apple manufactures in China (though I'm sure it is one reason). Sheer production capability alone would rule out the US.

 

[Rogifan]

I couldn't agree more with you.

Because I'm not an American, I also don't know how 'trustworthy' ABC is a reporting network. I know that many people say that Fox News is mainly BS. How is this for ABC?

most news organizations in the US are crap. ABC is no better/worse than the rest.

 

[TallManNY]

I'm getting my head around the labor cost of making an iPad. Five days to make one = 120 hours (roughly) at a cost of $1.78/hr = $213.60 in labor only. I figure since each of the 325 hands that build the iPad are probably only handling it for a fraction of an hour, and that there is most likely minimal time an iPad is sitting around waiting for the next bit of work to be done, it's safe to say it's built fairly continuously for $1.78/hr.

If the pay for workers was $12/hr, and the iPads were being assembled continuously as estimated above, the labor cost would be $1440 per iPad. Wow. I guess that's why they send them to China.

Even if my math is way off, it's clear that they'll never build them in America, unless robots do most of the assembly.

Your math is fantastically far off. Most of those hands probably touch the iPad for seconds. The five days probably includes mainly time waiting for stuff to dry. No it is not built continuously at these prices. The cost of labor for assembling these products is supposed to be fairly minimal. It isn't labor costs directly that leads Apple to manufacture in China it is the fact that all the parts are being made there as well and you don't have to ship them far as the parts are made in the next town over.

 

[CplBadboy]

POSITION ON WAGES. Not their own wages.

I.e., do they think everybody's earnings should be dragged down to a lowest common denominator because it's "so unfair" some people earn more, or do they realise that some people will earn a lot more due to skill, talent, ability.

A good soldier, etc, can become a corporal or a major too, and those positions earn more. Is Tim Cook worth millions? Yes, because he is part of the team that has taken Apple to its current world-leading position.

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Conditions are so good (compared with alternatives in that country's current development situation) that the suicide rate is significantly lower than the national average.

Okay! okay!! No need to shout!

 

[babyj]

Well then, you need to take a long hard look at yourself then don't you? There are people always willing to work hard and do the job properly. If you didnt care ten Im glad you dont work there anymore

I was young and it was only a summer job!

Part of the problem is the safety net we have in the UK. If you don't have a job then there are plenty of benefits to keep you going, so some people can afford to be a lot more flippant when it comes to work. I know people, as I'm sure we all do, that live off benefits - one in particular that would need to earn £30k a year to have the same level of income.

The main difference being that if you live in China and get a job with Foxconn on the Apple production lines you ain't going to do anything to jeopardise that job as its a pretty decent job to have.

 

[linuxcooldude]

For those complaining that Apple should bring manufacturing to the US: In what city do you think they could pull off something with the same scale as Foxconn? They have nearly a million employees and can shift a product line in days.

There is no city in the US with that kind of workforce, and because of that, there is no manufacturing company that can meet the demands of a company that sells so many devices.

I would venture to say that cost isn't the main reason Apple manufactures in China (though I'm sure it is one reason). Sheer production capability alone would rule out the US.

Not only that, the sheer amount of raw material to manufacture the parts on a large scale.

There are other factories building parts for the iphone & iPad, let alone Foxconn doing the assembling.

Apple is the largest user of flash memory, among the other parts needed.

 

[Gemütlichkeit]

Wages can't be compared apples to apples.

 

[haylo]

Hi, I own an Android phone. Having said that;

This whole report is absolutely ridiculous. Since when was it Apple's responsibility for Foxconn's employees? Since when were client's of a company the representatives of said company? Why is Apple being treated as if Foxconn *was* Apple?

The two are completely independent companys, so why the hell should Apple even 'allow' the media to look into Foxconn's factories? THATS FOXCONN'S CALL.

Am I the only one that thinks "WTF?!?" about all this????

It's all about ethical supply chain. Ensuring your suppliers meet the same high standards you set yourself.

 

[Thunderhawks]

it takes 5 days and 325 hands to make a single ipad? why??

At 325 hands one person must have only one hand and is holding up production!

Really?

 

[haylo]

Wages can't be compared apples to apples.

I see what you did there...

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

It takes 5 days to complete production, but in those 5 days many iPad are made. The 5 days stand for the first to the last step.



The iPhone would indeed be more expensive to make, but Apple will probably have enough profit left to be profitable as a company. I agree with you on that.

Fact is: you can't bring manufacturing back to the US. People are not willing to work 6 days for 12 hours. For $12 an hour people would start working there and within a couple of month people want more time off, better working conditions, etc. So Western people are simply too spoilt to do this kind of work.

Also you would need to find 235,000 people willing to do this work. Seems like a bit much.

Add to this the fact that you need to build a load of factories and dorms. Doesn't seem very plausible or profitable.



http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/Ne...8,-IHS-iSuppli-Teardown-Analysis-Reveals.aspx

1st: Manufacturing costs are $8, not the complete phone.
2nd: There are no 20 man dorms, but 8 man dorms
3rd: Let's say we would go from 8 man dorms to 4 man spacious living, we would massively increase the size of the living quarters. 200 sq ft for 4 people to live in (spacious enough?) would mean 1,000,000 workers taking up 2 square miles. This would be if all the rooms were adjacent. So make it 4 square miles. Good luck with that.
4th: For the last time. Apple ≠ Foxconn. Apple is not failing at giving decent living standards. Apple is not responsible. And yet they are making a huge effort. Get your facts straight. Read this and then come back to me with a solid argument:

http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/
http://abcnews.go.com/International...apples-chinese/story?id=15748745#.T0TEvpgb1vA

OK here s the solid argument. Why dont Apple bring back the manufacturing to the US or elsewhere???? Employing 235 000 people within such a large economy and country as the US wouldnt be too hard. O ye of little faith.

Your 3rd point is linear. Ever heard of accommodation blocks?? You know like a hotel?? Your looking as if its every man on the bottom floor.

The point is Apple is responsible and should be more demanding of Foxconn. Apple should have the same working and living standards as it does for its workers elsewhere.Would Apple allow workers in the US to live and work like this in the US. Forget about it being an Apple factory lets just call it FoxConn US under the Foxconn umbrella. Now are you telling me Apple would get away with these conditions and pitiful pay scales? How about you look at it like that.
Truth its very easy for Apple to turn a blind eye to this whole issue then pay off Nightline to go have a look and make it look as though everything is sweet with rainbows and fluffy clouds. Whatever way you look at it Apple condone the use of underpaid cheap labour for maximum profit. The problem like everything else corporate is: GREED. Its all about the spondullies.
You really think that Tim Cook needs to earn millions of dollars a year??? Does anybody??? No but the balance between Apple and the workers at Foxconn could certainly be levelled out.

A Foxconn employee in china has a better relative quality of life compared to an apple store genius in palo alto.

 

[TallManNY]

$1.78/hr isn't terrible when your monthly rent is $17.50 & meals are $0.70. i know the living conditions aren't great, but are there alternatives?

i'm not knowledgeable about the cost of living in china, but we can't look at this from an American view. Sure minimum wage here is around $8/hr, but rent for a cheap apartment is $600-800/month. Split that with 8 friends and it's still much higher than $17.50...

I think the rent and meal cost should give you a sense about the cost of living in China. Basically these workers are making many times what they would make back at the farm. After a few years, they will be able to buy property back in their villages. Probably they can send enough money home that several people living in a rural village could stop working and be supported just by the one Foxconn worker (not saying that happens often, but I suspect there are quite a lot of parents out there that breath a big sigh of relief when their kid gets a Foxconn job knowing that kid can now support them in their old age).

Also, the 12-hour shift may seem long, but if there are two hour meal breaks in there, then it really isn't. And if you were living in dorm dwellings, I suspect you would want to put in extra hours at work. Better to crank at work while you are there and then take off a few more whole days to travel back home to visit your family. I'm sure there would be riots if the workers were told that they could only work 8 hour days.