Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Tim Cook 'Deeply Offended' by BBC Documentary on Apple Factory Conditions
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
If you stick a knife in my back
"If you stick a knife in my back 12 inches, then pull it out 4, am I supposed to be grateful?" Malcolm X.
Notice how all the apple response is in the context of "we're improving but have a long way to go."
Right.
Like on project people can stay "95% done" FOREVER.
Yes, I am pleased Apple appears to be doing things to mitigate the horrid working conditions for the workers who make our products.
But, I'm guessing they could do more, Maybe A LOT more.
"If you stick a knife in my back 12 inches, then pull it out 4, am I supposed to be grateful?" Malcolm X.
Notice how all the apple response is in the context of "we're improving but have a long way to go."
Right.
Like on project people can stay "95% done" FOREVER.
Yes, I am pleased Apple appears to be doing things to mitigate the horrid working conditions for the workers who make our products.
But, I'm guessing they could do more, Maybe A LOT more.
Yep, because no one seems to take responsibility for their own actions and expect someone else to fix it.
The problem is that in a complete laissez faire economy, A corporation would have no incentive to provide fair and safe workplace enivronments.
This is why unions, and governments have to get involved with laws and regulations that enforce such social responsibility on a corporation.
It always comes down to the fact that a corporations number one motivator tends to be profit. The best way of maximizing profit, when you cant directly control the revenue, is to control expenses. The truth of it is that providing a working / living wage, security and safety of the individual workers, and environmental concerns is a cost to the bottom line of any employer.
This is why we see china being used for large scale manufacturing. Lax workplace laws, mixed in with an extremely high supply of available workers, has led a lot of western nations to purposely move production to China in order to take advantage of it. The bottom line shows that paying near nothing for employees, and in a country with little standards, they can produce things for such an extremely cheap rate to maintain large profit margins.
Its been perfectly clear that China recognises this, and is not going to pass labour laws to protect their own citizens. It's also pretty clear that in general, north American's don't care if they use this sort of labour as long as they get the new iphone every year on time.
By pressuring Apple directly, who is one a very large, prominent and visible client fo these factories, you can hopefully push change from the outside. If Apple's bottom line starts to hurt because people had enough of this corporate behaviour, Apple might help force the factories to change, or help bring about labour law changes. I'd like to believe that Pegatron / Foxxconn would take a serious step forward if Apple were to tell them "we wont do business with you till you fix yo ****".. or "we're willing to pay you X% more for every improvement to workplace safety".
So yes. Apple isn't responsible or directly capable of enacting laws and labour standards. But they aren't powerless to help
Yes? But there is salami on my DSLR camera and my cat is interested in this situation, so I need to redirect my attention to this for now.
Apple carefully crafts their words so skillfully, that the average consumer and even otherwise intelligent Apple enthusiast believes anything Apple says.
Not too much unlike the guy occupying space in the oval office, between vacations and golf outings. No wonder they get along so well....
Not too much unlike the guy occupying space in the oval office, between vacations and golf outings. No wonder they get along so well....
Would trust the BBC rather than Cook, Jobs, or another corp ceo. They are (just like politicans) natural liars.
If the BBC managed to find this stuff out, why can't Apple do the same? Or rather, why did the BBC have to find this stuff out? Why did not Apple do it first? These companies WORK for Apple for crying out loud! The responsibility is theirs, not the BBC's! Answer: because Apple did not particularly want to.
Putting on horse blinders to not have to see anything you don't look directly at and then trusting the words and promises of companies dependent on Apple contracts and Apple money for their prosperity just bloody isn't going to do it.
Apple NEEDS to be much more proactive on these sort of matters. They have to insert their own undercover investigators into these companies, to find out which ones are willing to violate standards of ethics and laws.
Tim "Person of The Year" Cook's (misdirected) mock outrage isn't going to do the employees being worked to death one bit of good if his company doesn't change its ways. Obviously, whatever Apple is doing isn't nearly enough, these sort of stories crop up time and time again, year after year.
The one Tim should be upset with is his own company. Nobody else. The onus is on Apple. They can't dodge this responsibility. When you award contracts to the rock bottom bidder, expect this sort of s***. You HAVE to keep your eyes open, ALL the time. Because they're gonna try to cheat whatever rules you set up. You know they will, and you can't blame them, because you encourage that sort of behavior by seeking the lowest bidder in low wage countries. The owners of subcontractor companies want to claw out whatever slim profit margins they can by stretching compliancy with regulations to the breaking point and beyond. You know they will, because that's what low-bid contractors always do.
So you gotta watch them, like hawks. With a thousand eyes. Always.
And Apple's not doing that. They've never done that.
Putting on horse blinders to not have to see anything you don't look directly at and then trusting the words and promises of companies dependent on Apple contracts and Apple money for their prosperity just bloody isn't going to do it.
Apple NEEDS to be much more proactive on these sort of matters. They have to insert their own undercover investigators into these companies, to find out which ones are willing to violate standards of ethics and laws.
Tim "Person of The Year" Cook's (misdirected) mock outrage isn't going to do the employees being worked to death one bit of good if his company doesn't change its ways. Obviously, whatever Apple is doing isn't nearly enough, these sort of stories crop up time and time again, year after year.
The one Tim should be upset with is his own company. Nobody else. The onus is on Apple. They can't dodge this responsibility. When you award contracts to the rock bottom bidder, expect this sort of s***. You HAVE to keep your eyes open, ALL the time. Because they're gonna try to cheat whatever rules you set up. You know they will, and you can't blame them, because you encourage that sort of behavior by seeking the lowest bidder in low wage countries. The owners of subcontractor companies want to claw out whatever slim profit margins they can by stretching compliancy with regulations to the breaking point and beyond. You know they will, because that's what low-bid contractors always do.
So you gotta watch them, like hawks. With a thousand eyes. Always.
And Apple's not doing that. They've never done that.
Load of tosh if you ask me, didn't Apple spout the same rubbish last year when reports of the dreadful conditions of it's suppliers employees came out? And they are just regurgitating the same BS to make their image 'appear' clean to it's customers.
I fully expect nothing to change, and Apple to change nothing, they won't impact their bottom line no matter what.
I fully expect nothing to change, and Apple to change nothing, they won't impact their bottom line no matter what.
apple needs regulations to tell them who to do business with? apple needs regulations as a guideline on what kind of treatment and conditions factory workers should be subjected to?
big business crying out for more regulation. strange
Yeah because nobody in the media lies or has an agenda.
what lies or agenda have you found in your endless consumption of bbc news?
I'm a Brit who is very proud of the BBC, but I am far less proud of it's ultra left wing ideals and dogma, it's the first place I go to read the news, but the last place where I would expect unbiased journalism (short of the daily mail).
These workers are there by choice, they do get paid fair - this is China we are talking about, and conditions are far from appauling.
Perhaps if the idiotic journalists and presenters left the metropolitan bubble of London and came into the real world they might realise how tough real jobs are. I've been working nightshift in a large logistics company since leaving uni (until a job I have lined up starts) and I've been doing 16.5hr shifts, 7 days a week at times. Few breaks and poor pay, but the bleeding heart liberal BBC wouldn't care about things like that.
But of course my taxes and TV licence pay for these freeloaders, the money these talentless presenters and executives get at the BBC is eye watering. Especially when they get astronimical payouts after screwing up. Totally at odds with what we the hard working and overtaxed British public put up with in our working lives.
£10 says all these jouranlists use iPhones, iPads and Macs while not giving a dam about the workers.
----------
Without these big companies these workers would be in far worse conditions toiling the land as peasant farmers. If Foxconn etc paid high wages then the work wouldn't be in China, it would more likely be in highly automated Western factories. Economics is everything.
These workers are there by choice, they do get paid fair - this is China we are talking about, and conditions are far from appauling.
Perhaps if the idiotic journalists and presenters left the metropolitan bubble of London and came into the real world they might realise how tough real jobs are. I've been working nightshift in a large logistics company since leaving uni (until a job I have lined up starts) and I've been doing 16.5hr shifts, 7 days a week at times. Few breaks and poor pay, but the bleeding heart liberal BBC wouldn't care about things like that.
But of course my taxes and TV licence pay for these freeloaders, the money these talentless presenters and executives get at the BBC is eye watering. Especially when they get astronimical payouts after screwing up. Totally at odds with what we the hard working and overtaxed British public put up with in our working lives.
£10 says all these jouranlists use iPhones, iPads and Macs while not giving a dam about the workers.
----------
Without these big companies these workers would be in far worse conditions toiling the land as peasant farmers. If Foxconn etc paid high wages then the work wouldn't be in China, it would more likely be in highly automated Western factories. Economics is everything.
I'm not sure whether you have a significant other, but let's pretend you do. If I pay a hitman $10k to off that person, only the hitman is at fault?
What if Samsung paid my business $5m to steal the next iPhone from the design lab. My business is the one committing the act, and based on the comments so far, I'm assuming nobody here will blame Samsung, because after all, it wasn't Samsung, it was my business.
I think it is fair that the BBC went after Apple.
Apple are the world's biggest tech company. As the world's biggest tech company, Apple sets the standards that other companies are going to follow.
Right now Apple is keeping standards low, if they raised them the whole industry would improve (I believe).
Wal-Mart is very similar. Watch the documentary, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, if you're interested.
Apple are the world's biggest tech company. As the world's biggest tech company, Apple sets the standards that other companies are going to follow.
Right now Apple is keeping standards low, if they raised them the whole industry would improve (I believe).
Wal-Mart is very similar. Watch the documentary, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, if you're interested.
I'ts very disgusting so see how many people like this one defend Apple. How does the fact that other companies have the same problem excuse Apple in anyway? Makes me glad how I don't have a screwed up sense of whats right. Truly pathetic no matter how you people spin it.
The BBC is a not for profit organisation. What they receive in income they spend on wages and programmes.
Apple is keeping standards low? Based on what? An unaudited BBC program? Apple might be the biggest tech company based on market cap but a company like Samsung sells way more consumer electronics/appliances than Apple does. Why aren't people asking Samsung to take the lead?
----------
Yet you still chose to own Apple products.
Such working conditions are illegal in the UK so I don't believe you. I am an employer and I'm fully aware of the EU Working Time Directive Regulations. If you tell me the name of your employer I will report them to the Health & Safety Executive.
Even if you opted out of the WTDR your employer must provide breaks in accordance with the law depending on your working day and cannot pay below the national minimum wage.
Yes, because if you are maimed by people who actually want to do it, instead of being unwitting party to it; the pain is so much sweeter... (sic)...
Apple factories have the best condition in all China; unless Apple knowingly allow abuse, how are they hypocritical? You may ask that they be on Foxconn like a hawk; but, considering the scale of the operation, is it even possible? How do they even audit this; undercover workers?
To what standard do you want to aspire to? Workers in Luxembourg? Compared to them, US workers are poor saps with no vacation pay..
There is a certain amount of condescension about workers in third world. Yes, we must improve their condition; but, the reason they get the work in the first place is that their cost of living is lower and they have a lower pay. If you put pressure on wages, eventually the jobs will move elsewhere in Asia (or even Africa) because most other companies unlike Apple don't have a profit margin to spare.
In tech, things can turn on a dime; so, Apple needs to be careful with their cash, or they'll find themselves on the trasheap of tech history. Paying significantly more than the market rate while everyone pays less than market rate is a recipe for disaster long term.
The "but other companies are worse" is an old and dilapidated argument. Retire it already.
Notreally good journalism
After watching this episode, this really looked bad for the BBC. The first comment made in this thread made a good point. At least Apple is doing something about this. They don't (and can't) know where everything is sourced from. And I'll bet that when they visit Chinese factories the scene is spruced up more than a little (even s*** can be made to shine). They probably only saw what the factories wanted them to see.
What bothered me the most was the fact that it seemed that the BBC was more interested in making Apple look bad. It seemed like such a sham bit of journalism. They weren't looking for a story at all. They were looking to slam Apple.
Granted, Apple is a big corporation...they are out to make money, and lots of it. But at least Apple tries to improve things. Like the world is supposed to be perfect. Only two people try to make us see the world as perfect - idealists, and journalists with an agenda. The former due to denial, the later due to dishonesty.
After watching this episode, this really looked bad for the BBC. The first comment made in this thread made a good point. At least Apple is doing something about this. They don't (and can't) know where everything is sourced from. And I'll bet that when they visit Chinese factories the scene is spruced up more than a little (even s*** can be made to shine). They probably only saw what the factories wanted them to see.
What bothered me the most was the fact that it seemed that the BBC was more interested in making Apple look bad. It seemed like such a sham bit of journalism. They weren't looking for a story at all. They were looking to slam Apple.
Granted, Apple is a big corporation...they are out to make money, and lots of it. But at least Apple tries to improve things. Like the world is supposed to be perfect. Only two people try to make us see the world as perfect - idealists, and journalists with an agenda. The former due to denial, the later due to dishonesty.