Nightline's Look into Apple's Foxconn Factories

[Thunderhawks]

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.

Thank you for helping to spread the word.

Too many uneducated people not willing to research to learn that the kind of labor ( 1 million people) needed to produce like that is not available in the US at ANY price.

 

[bbeagle]

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

This is something you need to figure out for yourself. Spend some time and watch the same news story (it can be on anything, politics, crime, feel good story) and see what spin each news organization puts on it. Many times I'll watch a story on ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and then see a COMPLETELY different spin / viewpoint on BBC. Then determine which seems more correct.

Just like friends, you'll find the one more reliable to you eventually.

Myself, I find foreign news (Canadian or BBC) on politics more reliable than any of the American news organizations, and Fox in particular has the most spin.

It's so easy to find today with the web. For example, pick a news story in American politics about the republican primaries (because they are news right now) Notice that fox consistently has its own stories against Obama, while not covering bad things about any republicans. And those stories about Obama are usually outlandish fluff pieces made to make fox viewers hate Obama more. CBS is the most liberal, ABC and NBC are most neutral, and ironically Comedy Central is generally the opposite of Fox news, and seems to tell more of the truth than Fox.

 

[CplBadboy]

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.

Mmmmm... you know when I was growing up in school we had kids like you who would stomp around quoting this that and the other shouting "I am right I am right!" Usually the teachers pet would fit this description, the one person who had their hand so far up the teachers ass to answer every single question put to the class.
They knew everything about everything. Agree with me because teacher said so and I can regurgitate the **** teacher has fed me. Not one bit of real world know how but boy could they talk. In your eyes Apple can certainly do no wrong.
With kids like that ya just had to shrug the shoulders and hey they went away happy telling mummy and daddy how they shot down the little guy with all their education shoved up their asses from the teacher that day. Them kids probably still have shiny asses to this day but boy where they boring

I suppose well just have to agree to disagree. I think Apple arent man enough to address this problem correctly and you think Apple are the greatest with absolutely nothing to account for. If anything its an interesting insight into FoxConn.

 

[DanBig]

Looking from within

Did we forget how things where like here during our industrial revolution?

While the monotonous work is at an unhealthy level - IMHO. I can see how these poor folks burnout if they don't get a chance to rotate there job.

The alternative is to move to robotics. Look at Intel's chip manufacturing plants, less than a few hundred people running there largest fab plants.

Then where are these people to find employment?

We (the world) have more people than jobs to fill. Even at the best of times.

No easy answer here. While Apple's plants maybe better to work at, Apple needs to locate manufacturing at other locations around the world and work on higher degrees of automation. For their workers I would think they could offer free food & board.

We also need to refocus the lens on others. If Apple is the best to work at how bad is it out there?

 

[PracticalMac]

I counted at least twice Bill Wier mention Foxconn makes stuff for Dell and Nintendo.

Balanced reporting IMHO.

 

[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)

You should take a look at Germany. Their economy is doing amazingly well, despite the crisis, yet they have maybe the strongest unions in the world.

That is mostly because German unions, and German employers as well, have a totally different attitude to things.

From what I hear (no personal experience), US unions seem to be more like a mob finding cushy jobs for lazy people and prevent work from getting done. These horror stories that you get into trouble for plugging the power cable of your computer into a socket instead of waiting for a union electrician to turn up, both German employers _and_ German unions could only laugh about the stupidity of that. In the UK, unions seem to be all about class war. Destroy the enemy (which is the employer). On the other hand, employers who have nothing but contempt for the people they employ. There was a TV show about the destruction of the UK car industry: Apparently, in the UK a middle manager at Ford spent about 75% of their time handling unions (and 25% figuring out who to improve the building on cars), while in Germany a manager in the same position spent on average 4% of their time with unions.

In Germany, the attitude is that the unions want a big piece of the cake, and the best way to get a big piece is to make sure that you have a big cake in the first place. And the employers look at it more or less the same way. When there is a crisis, the question for everybody is: How can we make the business run well and profitable so that it (can employ lots of people and pay good wages if you are union) / (makes lots of profits if you are employer).

Yeah the unions in the us do not have that big picture attitude. Their primary motivation is job protection to protect how many people they collect dues from. They dont care about much else, especially the welfare of the business.

I know several people in big unions here and several of them have rejected promotions to management.because having a job you can't be fired from or layer off from is worth more than s promotion or a raise

The only way people leave the company/union is via retirement or death.

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)

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?

Nightline is a fairly reputable program.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

"We are unhappy about the pay!!!"

*watches a mob of people almost break down the door to get a job*

So why don't you haul your butt over to Communist China and apply to make $1.78 an hour and live 17 to a dorm room??? Honestly, the people on here that try to justify this garbage make me SICK. No wonder they commit suicide over there. Yeah, there are worse jobs in China. But would YOU want to live there and work like that? Please. Spare me the BS excuses.

China wants to take over the world superpower position at ANY COST and they are buying up our infrastructure as we speak. That's OK. They represent the way of life we should look up to as a world superpower and strive for. Stop eating donuts and eat a half cup of rice each day and get to work!

Look at Apple's profit margins and tell me they couldn't still make plenty of money making these things in a 1st world country like the U.S. with safe working conditions and at least minimum wage. When Apple moved assembly of the desktop Macs to Communist China, they didn't reduce prices here and pass even a fraction of the savings along to the consumer. They just padded their pockets. But go ahead and tell me how that's the way the world works and people are lining up to get those "great" jobs and you the shareholder are making money so you will tell yourselves it's OK.

Hey, there's an election coming. You all know which party to vote for to remove safety regulations, lower the working age and never raise the minimum wage in the U.S. again. Mitt's got a plan to make us "competitive" with the Chinese and it involves him staying mega-rich and the rest of us making jack squat. Be sure and vote Republican. You don't need a good paying job. You just need a job at any cost, even if it means working 16 hours a day with no breaks in a garbage dump land fill for $6 an hour. You'll need the extra 8 hours to make up for the wage reduction of $12 to $6. Have fun. It's just business, after all.

 

[bossxii]

Yes factory work is hard work, maybe not physically lifting etc... but the repetitive nature is stressful to deal with over long periods. However as many have mentioned I get the feeling with so many wanting these types of jobs it's not as bad as so many want to try to vilify Apple and Foxconn. Can things improve? Sure, but if my rent and food were taken care of here in the US for a weeks pay... I would only guess these people are happy to have a job, food and shelter.

Is this the ideal work conditions? not likely, but I'm pretty sure very few people understand (myself included) what it takes to employ over a BILLION people in such a concentrated area. The media loves to run headlines about suicides, working conditions etc... they need the web clicks and the viewers but you can spin it anyway that suits your side of the debate.

 

[WRP]

So they make $427.80/mo. Rent is cheap and so is food. They can save a lot of money and hopefully send some home to their families. In China I'm sure that is well above the national average and there are millions of people who are far worse off. They work in a clean, high-tech and safe environment. It's a hard but honest living.

If you brought those jobs to the US where workers would want $12/hr you would start seeing the price of your (Apple) electronics go through the roof.

For reals. I was thinking the same thing. They pay for their months rent with one shift. I have to work for a week to pay for my lease.

 

[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)

Did we forget how things where like here during our industrial revolution?

While the monotonous work is at an unhealthy level - IMHO. I can see how these poor folks burnout if they don't get a chance to rotate there job.

The alternative is to move to robotics. Look at Intel's chip manufacturing plants, less than a few hundred people running there largest fab plants.

Then where are these people to find employment?

We (the world) have more people than jobs to fill. Even at the best of times.

No easy answer here. While Apple's plants maybe better to work at, Apple needs to locate manufacturing at other locations around the world and work on higher degrees of automation. For their workers I would think they could offer free food & board.

We also need to refocus the lens on others. If Apple is the best to work at how bad is it out there?

There is good reason to keep these assembly jobs overseas. When robots do take over it will not put millions of Americans out of work. We have already shifted those jobs away from us. In fact it might create more jobs here long term.

Places like china with millions of factory workers will have a real problem.

It is long past the time to try and bring factory jobs to the us.

 

[CplBadboy]

So why don't you haul your butt over to Communist China and apply to make $1.78 an hour and live 17 to a dorm room??? Honestly, the people on here that try to justify this garbage make me SICK. No wonder they commit suicide over there. Yeah, there are worse jobs in China. But would YOU want to live there and work like that? Please. Spare me the BS excuses.

China wants to take over the world superpower position at ANY COST and they are buying up our infrastructure as we speak. That's OK. They represent the way of life we should look up to as a world superpower and strive for. Stop eating donuts and eat a half cup of rice each day and get to work!

Look at Apple's profit margins and tell me they couldn't still make plenty of money making these things in a 1st world country like the U.S. with safe working conditions and at least minimum wage. When Apple moved assembly of the desktop Macs to Communist China, they didn't reduce prices here and pass even a fraction of the savings along to the consumer. They just padded their pockets. But go ahead and tell me how that's the way the world works and people are lining up to get those "great" jobs and you the shareholder are making money so you will tell yourselves it's OK.

Hey, there's an election coming. You all know which party to vote for to remove safety regulations, lower the working age and never raise the minimum wage in the U.S. again. Mitt's got a plan to make us "competitive" with the Chinese and it involves him staying mega-rich and the rest of us making jack squat. Be sure and vote Republican. You don't need a good paying job. You just need a job at any cost, even if it means working 16 hours a day with no breaks in a garbage dump land fill for $6 an hour. You'll need the extra 8 hours to make up for the wage reduction of $12 to $6. Have fun. It's just business, after all.

Spot on post MVM
Hit the nail on the head reference Apples move to China only to line their pockets and not pass on any saving what so ever to its customers. unfortunately people on here love Apple so much that I actually think they could get away with committing murder and people would still lap it up.

 

[BobbyRond]

Mmmmm... you know when I was growing up in school we had kids like you who would stomp around quoting this that and the other shouting "I am right I am right!" Usually the teachers pet would fit this description, the one person who had their hand so far up the teachers ass to answer every single question put to the class.
They knew everything about everything. Agree with me because teacher said so and I can regurgitate the **** teacher has fed me. Not one bit of real world know how but boy could they talk. In your eyes Apple can certainly do no wrong.
With kids like that ya just had to shrug the shoulders and hey they went away happy telling mummy and daddy how they shot down the little guy with all their education shoved up their asses from the teacher that day. Them kids probably still have shiny asses to this day but boy where they boring

I suppose well just have to agree to disagree. I think Apple arent man enough to address this problem correctly and you think Apple are the greatest with absolutely nothing to account for. If anything its an interesting insight into FoxConn.

I am actually wrong so many times. The difference between you and me is that I dare to admit I'm wrong. (Remember my "Touché" on stacking apartments?)

I am everything but a teachers pet. I did always participate well in class, but my grades did (and do) balance around the C average. Nothing fancy.

I think you are right that we have to agree to disagree. I do find it striking though that again you didn't go into any of the questions I have asked you. I, on the other hand, have answered every question you asked me.

Lastly, Apple can definitely do a lot of wrong. Here's a list:

- Coming up with Mountain Lion is one of them. That should have been 10.7.4 in stead of 10.8. People shouldn't pay for those little enhancements.
- Gatekeeper sounds like a first step towards a Mac App Store lock-in. This scares me to death. This would kill every lucrative project software wise.
- Apple shouldn't have released the iPhone 4 with the revolutionary antenna. The idea was marvelous, but up until the iPhone 4S, the antenna wasn't as good as it should have been.
- Apple had MobileMe. That sucked.
- Apple now has iCloud. In theory it's a lot better, but still needs so much more improvement.
- iTunes Match has a lot of flaws and needs improvement
- Apple is controlling the news apps with the Newsstand app. All digital content contracts should run trough Apple. Thus Apple will make money on every New York Times, Washington Post of Financial Times contract. Smart move, but not very nice.
- AppleCare in the EU is being pushed in a way that is not very customer friendly. Europeans have better consumer laws than in the US but are still strongly pushed towards buying AppleCare.
- Apple should stay true to the prosumers. They are the ones that stuck with them through thick and thin and are now being phased out slowly. Even if it doesn't make them as much money as the iOS devices, I would always stay loyal to them as they have always been loyal to Apple.

But still, Apple does a lot of good and I love their products. No doubt about it.

 

[nickelt]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

So why don't you haul your butt over to Communist China and apply to make $1.78 an hour and live 17 to a dorm room??? Honestly, the people on here that try to justify this garbage make me SICK. No wonder they commit suicide over there. Yeah, there are worse jobs in China. But would YOU want to live there and work like that? Please. Spare me the BS excuses.

China wants to take over the world superpower position at ANY COST and they are buying up our infrastructure as we speak. That's OK. They represent the way of life we should look up to as a world superpower and strive for. Stop eating donuts and eat a half cup of rice each day and get to work!

Look at Apple's profit margins and tell me they couldn't still make plenty of money making these things in a 1st world country like the U.S. with safe working conditions and at least minimum wage. When Apple moved assembly of the desktop Macs to Communist China, they didn't reduce prices here and pass even a fraction of the savings along to the consumer. They just padded their pockets. But go ahead and tell me how that's the way the world works and people are lining up to get those "great" jobs and you the shareholder are making money so you will tell yourselves it's OK.

Hey, there's an election coming. You all know which party to vote for to remove safety regulations, lower the working age and never raise the minimum wage in the U.S. again. Mitt's got a plan to make us "competitive" with the Chinese and it involves him staying mega-rich and the rest of us making jack squat. Be sure and vote Republican. You don't need a good paying job. You just need a job at any cost, even if it means working 16 hours a day with no breaks in a garbage dump land fill for $6 an hour. You'll need the extra 8 hours to make up for the wage reduction of $12 to $6. Have fun. It's just business, after all.

Spot on post MVM
Hit the nail on the head reference Apples move to China only to line their pockets and not pass on any saving what so ever to its customers. unfortunately people on here love Apple so much that I actually think they could get away with committing murder and people would still lap it up.

What a load of crap. I moved to Poland almost a year ago and when converted there are alot of jobs here at about the same rate and it is in the E.U!! Converting everything to usd is comparing apples to oranges!

 

[jackc]

Look at Apple's profit margins and tell me they couldn't still make plenty of money making these things in a 1st world country like the U.S. with safe working conditions and at least minimum wage.

And if they did, those Chinese workers that you claim to care about would have even worse jobs.

And what's so dangerous about the working conditions?

Hey, there's an election coming. You all know which party to vote for to remove safety regulations, lower the working age and never raise the minimum wage in the U.S. again.

I'm not a Republican, but you seem to think minimum wage laws are the only thing keeping us from making $1.78 an hour, but that's why you don't understand how the world works. Why do you think most workers make more than the minimum wage? Companies have to compete for labor.

 

[overcast]

Its all relative. Then again, most north americans are clueless when it comes to matters outside of their borders. CNN did a report once, they found that 12% of americans between the ages of 18-24 couldnt even find USA on a map.

Having said that, I'll use Poland as an example;

The average monthly income per person is around 1500-2000 zloty (or at least was a couple years ago). As far as I know, not much has changed.

To put that into perspective, thats about $700 CAD (OR USD, which is more or less the same seeing how much the american dollar has dropped in value).

Rent in Poland varies depending on location, but typically goes for, say... 1,0000 zloty, leaving the 500+ zloty for whatever else. 1,0000 for rent is a hell of a lot less than in north america. But then again, *everything* costs less there; phone services (mobiles) cost a lot less than it does for us, without contracts. Food is ridiculously cheap. I remember buying a kilogram of fresh cherries (real cherries, not this chemical infested crap were used to here) for no more than 10 zloty, which is about 3 dollars. Alcohol is ridiculously cheap, beer goes for a couple bucks. Going to restaurants is also more affordable, I was about to buy a complete dinner (mashed potatoes, schnitzel, salad, soup and drink) for about 6-7 dollars. This doesnt cost us much, but to them, it adds up the same as it would for us.

Like I said, its all relative as to the costs of living in that country. To live in Poland is cheap, but their currency doesnt convert directly to reflect ours on an equal basis. Just like language and words dont translate directly.

The same goes for China.

12% of ANY population couldn't find their own country on the map.

 

[Hustler1337]

Hi,

Just wanted to find out how us peeps outside of the USA can watch the full episode of Nightline. Any pointers to third party websites is much appreciated.


Thanks

Note: if posting the links is against forum rules please feel free to remove this post.

 

[linuxcooldude]

Mmmmm... you know when I was growing up in school we had kids like you who would stomp around quoting this that and the other shouting "I am right I am right!" Usually the teachers pet would fit this description, the one person who had their hand so far up the teachers ass to answer every single question put to the class.
They knew everything about everything. Agree with me because teacher said so and I can regurgitate the **** teacher has fed me. Not one bit of real world know how but boy could they talk. In your eyes Apple can certainly do no wrong.
With kids like that ya just had to shrug the shoulders and hey they went away happy telling mummy and daddy how they shot down the little guy with all their education shoved up their asses from the teacher that day. Them kids probably still have shiny asses to this day but boy where they boring

I suppose well just have to agree to disagree. I think Apple arent man enough to address this problem correctly and you think Apple are the greatest with absolutely nothing to account for. If anything its an interesting insight into FoxConn.

I guess you used the spoiled child analogy because you can't come up with anything remotely better. At least be in the ballpark, other then Apples evil, without much explanation.

 

[heisenberg123]

So why don't you haul your butt over to Communist China and apply to make $1.78 an hour and live 17 to a dorm room??? Honestly, the people on here that try to justify this garbage make me SICK. No wonder they commit suicide over there. Yeah, there are worse jobs in China. But would YOU want to live there and work like that? Please. Spare me the BS excuses.

China wants to take over the world superpower position at ANY COST and they are buying up our infrastructure as we speak. That's OK. They represent the way of life we should look up to as a world superpower and strive for. Stop eating donuts and eat a half cup of rice each day and get to work!

Look at Apple's profit margins and tell me they couldn't still make plenty of money making these things in a 1st world country like the U.S. with safe working conditions and at least minimum wage. When Apple moved assembly of the desktop Macs to Communist China, they didn't reduce prices here and pass even a fraction of the savings along to the consumer. They just padded their pockets. But go ahead and tell me how that's the way the world works and people are lining up to get those "great" jobs and you the shareholder are making money so you will tell yourselves it's OK.

Hey, there's an election coming. You all know which party to vote for to remove safety regulations, lower the working age and never raise the minimum wage in the U.S. again. Mitt's got a plan to make us "competitive" with the Chinese and it involves him staying mega-rich and the rest of us making jack squat. Be sure and vote Republican. You don't need a good paying job. You just need a job at any cost, even if it means working 16 hours a day with no breaks in a garbage dump land fill for $6 an hour. You'll need the extra 8 hours to make up for the wage reduction of $12 to $6. Have fun. It's just business, after all.

you were making good points untill you brought up political parties, do you really think the world leaders care what "party" is voted in?

 

[zukernik]

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

Either someone lost his hand or there is a mutant with 3 hands.

 

[heisenberg123]

Either someone lost his hand or there is a mutant with 3 hands.

good old credible ABC

 

[BobbyRond]

So why don't you haul your butt over to Communist China and apply to make $1.78 an hour and live 17 to a dorm room??? Honestly, the people on here that try to justify this garbage make me SICK. No wonder they commit suicide over there. Yeah, there are worse jobs in China. But would YOU want to live there and work like that? Please. Spare me the BS excuses.

No, I wouldn't want to live there and no, I wouldn't want that job. I'm not standing in line with 3000 others for a job as they do.
I have had the fortune to get a great education and am now applying for better paying jobs. A lot better paying jobs. Do I feel guilty? No. The reason why? Because I live in a different environment. Should I stop drinking fresh water because in Africa they don't have it? No, that's just plain stupid. Do I wish they had clean water? Yes I do. But facts are facts. They don't.

Apparently for 1,000,000 people. A job at Foxconn is worth the while. Their rent is $17.50 a month. My rent is about $1000 so I can't work for $1.78 an hour. My salary is a lot higher, but so are my spendings. Nothing to get sick about.

China wants to take over the world superpower position at ANY COST and they are buying up our infrastructure as we speak. That's OK. They represent the way of life we should look up to as a world superpower and strive for. Stop eating donuts and eat a half cup of rice each day and get to work!

Agreed. They are trying to become the new world's economic superpower. If you remember the Education Event last month, Apple showed that the Chinese are #1 in Math, Language and Science (if I remember correctly). The thing Americans didn't realize back then, is that because they felt too good to do cheap manufacturing labor and the Chinese didn't, that we were indirectly helping them to become that superpower. It's our own fault.

Look at Apple's profit margins and tell me they couldn't still make plenty of money making these things in a 1st world country like the U.S. with safe working conditions and at least minimum wage. When Apple moved assembly of the desktop Macs to Communist China, they didn't reduce prices here and pass even a fraction of the savings along to the consumer. They just padded their pockets. But go ahead and tell me how that's the way the world works and people are lining up to get those "great" jobs and you the shareholder are making money so you will tell yourselves it's OK.

That's the way the world works and people are lining up to get those "great" jobs and I the shareholder am making money, so it's OK.

Happy?

Please be so kind to look at all your electronic devices, list them here on this forum and then see which ones are manufactured in China.

Mine:
MacBook (China)
iPhone (China)
Philips LCD TV (China)
LG LCD TV (China)
Playstation 3 (China)
Nintendo Wii (China)
XBOX (China)
XBOX 360 (China)
XBOX 360 Hard Drive (Thailand)
Onkyo Home Cinema Set (China)
Logitech Harmony Remote (China)

Makes you wonder, no?

Apple is a company looking to make a profit, just like any other company. You can blame them for making too much profit. You think they should lower the prices or increase the wages for the Chinese worker. If they don't, I think that's their prerogative. If I don't agree. I should buy other products.

Hey, there's an election coming. You all know which party to vote for to remove safety regulations, lower the working age and never raise the minimum wage in the U.S. again. Mitt's got a plan to make us "competitive" with the Chinese and it involves him staying mega-rich and the rest of us making jack squat. Be sure and vote Republican. You don't need a good paying job. You just need a job at any cost, even if it means working 16 hours a day with no breaks in a garbage dump land fill for $6 an hour. You'll need the extra 8 hours to make up for the wage reduction of $12 to $6. Have fun. It's just business, after all.

I have no say in this, because I'm not a US citizen. Secondly, I know nothing about this.

 

[iCarabma]

Let's solve China

Can we all agree that:

- Apple took a big PR risk last night, and all things considered it paid off. The report, correctly, framed this as an industry wide problem. One that Apple receives most of the scrutiny because they have had the most success.

- That as bad as things are in China, if our goal is to help the people in the factories, just bringing the jobs home isn't the answer. (it's also just not going to happen.) Are the workers lives better with or without these factories?

- And finally that we are not going to solve these global issues on this blog.

With that all agreed to, can we now get to the important work of analyzing the parts we saw last night?

They were there over the weekend, I can't that they haven't been making 3's for months. If they were 2's on the line that seems to be further evidence that the 2's are staying around at a new price point.

 

[applesith]

So why don't you haul your butt over to Communist China and apply to make $1.78 an hour and live 17 to a dorm room??? Honestly, the people on here that try to justify this garbage make me SICK. No wonder they commit suicide over there. Yeah, there are worse jobs in China. But would YOU want to live there and work like that? Please. Spare me the BS excuses.

China wants to take over the world superpower position at ANY COST and they are buying up our infrastructure as we speak. That's OK. They represent the way of life we should look up to as a world superpower and strive for. Stop eating donuts and eat a half cup of rice each day and get to work!

Look at Apple's profit margins and tell me they couldn't still make plenty of money making these things in a 1st world country like the U.S. with safe working conditions and at least minimum wage. When Apple moved assembly of the desktop Macs to Communist China, they didn't reduce prices here and pass even a fraction of the savings along to the consumer. They just padded their pockets. But go ahead and tell me how that's the way the world works and people are lining up to get those "great" jobs and you the shareholder are making money so you will tell yourselves it's OK.

Hey, there's an election coming. You all know which party to vote for to remove safety regulations, lower the working age and never raise the minimum wage in the U.S. again. Mitt's got a plan to make us "competitive" with the Chinese and it involves him staying mega-rich and the rest of us making jack squat. Be sure and vote Republican. You don't need a good paying job. You just need a job at any cost, even if it means working 16 hours a day with no breaks in a garbage dump land fill for $6 an hour. You'll need the extra 8 hours to make up for the wage reduction of $12 to $6. Have fun. It's just business, after all.

Yeah and Obama is increasing regulation, which pushes more jobs out of the USA.

 

[oliversl]

Talking about info leakage, I'm sure competitors would love to find out more about that factory.

Anyway, Apple can not solve China´s problems and is not the only one that buy stuff from China.

So I keep thinking in a conspiracy theory against Apple, it has too much money and people want that money.

 

[e3boy9876]

hmmm, why am I not surprised?

Perhaps because...

• Nightline is produced and broadcasted by ABC.
• ABC is owned by Disney.
• Disney has a very close relationship with Apple.
• Apple has Disney's CEO Robert Iger on its board of Directors.

Hence, no surprises.

i'd also add;
Steve Jobs was largest individual shareholder of Disney.
Now it's the Steven P. Jobs Trust.