ABC iPad Factory Tour: 'Nightline' Teases Glimpse Into Foxconn Facility (VIDEO)

On Tuesday 21 at 11:35 p.m. (EST), ABC's Nightline will offer viewers an exclusive look at factory floors inside China's massive electronics manufacturing company Foxconn, where lines of silent workers speedily assemble Apple's hugely popular iDevices.

Host Bil Wier explores what he calls a "hidden corner of our world" and sheds light on the working day of employees at the city-sized Foxconn branches in the Chinese cities of Chengdu and Shenzen, as well as the controversies plaguing these and other factories where high-tech gadgets are assembled.

ABC on Monday released a 90-second teaser video ahead of Tuesday's Nightline segment.

(Check out the preview below, and visit ABC to read Bill Weir's overview of his visit to these locations.)

The Nightline segment features interviews with workers who travel long distances by bus for a chance to score a job assembling iPhones, iPads, MacBooks and other devices for, according to ACB, less that $1.50 per hour.

From Bill Wier's written teaser of the upcoming "Nightline" segment, posted on ABCNews.com:

As China's largest exporter, only the government employs more people than Foxconn, and the company earns more revenue than their next 10 competitors combined. Apple may be their most famous customer, but Foxconn also churns out products for Sony, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Motorola, Toshiba and other major brands, keeping the details of each production line wrapped in total secrecy. [...] In order to make gadgets like the Xbox, the PlayStation and the Amazon Kindle this campus employs 235,000 people, roughly the population of Orlando, Fla.

Weir's coverage for Nightline also examines controversies, such as factory explosions and a string of worker suicides, that have plagued Foxconn since 2010 and have recently prompted Apple to take action.

Stressful and potentially dangerous working conditions inside Foxconn plants were detailed last month in a two-part expose by the New York Times and a broadcast segment of This American Life. Hundreds of thousands of Apple customers and concerned individuals signed petitions demanding Apple take action to improve working conditions for Chinese factory employees in the company's supply chain. Signers presented the petitions to Apple in early February.

Apple announced on February 13 that it had joined the Fair Labor Association to launch an investigation into working conditions at Foxconn and other assembly facilities. Although the initial word from FLA President Auret van Heerden was that conditions in Foxconn's Chengdu and Shenzen facilities appeared better than average, as reported by Reuters, Heerden soon said that inspectors were "finding tons of issues" at the Shenzen plant, according to a Bloomberg interview published on February 17. (Full details from the FLA report will be published sometime in the next few weeks.) The same day, Foxconn announced that it had increased worker salaries by as much as 25 percent in February, brining the monthly salary of junior-level workers in Shenzen to $290, per Reuters.

Ahead of Nightline's airing of its tour of Foxconn plants, Forbes has pointed out the close ties between ABC and Apple, raising the possibility of a conflict of interest.

"ABC’s parent company is Disney Corporation. The top dog at Disney, CEO Bob Iger, sits on Apple’s Board," writes Forbes' E.D. Kain. "Meanwhile, the late Steve Jobs (and now his family) are the biggest individual shareholders of Disney."

WATCH: [via ABC News]

Comments

[jeanny514]

05:01 AM on 02/23/2012

Apple should do more than suggest nets to catch workers that commit suicide. I can't imagine how I'd feel if one of those workers was my son__ they are hired, become prisoners at the facility until disabled and then tossed away without compensation. I would like to see the final report and a few interviews with ex employees if any are free or alive!

[Eric Mudasi]

03:13 AM on 02/22/2012

While minerals from the Congo have enriched lives, they have often brought violence, rape and instability to the Congo. That's because those armed groups fighting for control of these mineral resources use murder, extortion and mass rape as a deliberate strategy to intimidate and control local populations, which helps them secure control of mines, trading routes and other strategic areas. The child slaves who are forced to work in the mines in dangerous conditions. Apple has to be an industry leader in both supply chain management and making corporate social responsibility a priority. Apple has to take great strides to source minerals responsibly and control their supply chain.

[yangcheng]

11:01 PM on 02/21/2012

[ Begging for Life] Complaint about IBM China CSR on Centennial

Please Google:

IBM detained mother of ex-employee on the day of centennial
or
How Much IBM Can Get Away with is the Responsibility of the Media
or
Tragedy of Labor Rights Repression in IBM China
or
IBM Advised to Treat its People with Humanism in China

[David LS]

03:38 PM on 02/21/2012

Between Iger sitting on the board of Apple and the holdings of the Jobs family in Disney there is very little hesitation in assuming a substantial bias in any investigation covering this topic.
The controversy is not over regardless of the "Nightline story".
Human consumption maladies has no place in creating the need for situational slave labor.

[johnnygoodwud]

02:06 PM on 02/21/2012

up until a yr. ago, i was still using my old moto razr and quite happy. but my bus. meant i had to get with the program. i now own three apple products, ipad,pod,phone, and i love them. this coming from a huge electronic nerd. for all the haters, typing comments on their made in china computers, foxconn manufacturers for other companies, samsung, motorola, etc. not just apple. foxconn pays much higher wages than most companies. i believe they employ close to one million people. with that many people you're bound to have suicides. the standard of living is much diff. than here in the us. would i like to work at foxconn, nope, but i don't live in china. if i did, i might rethink that.

[Joseph Scott]

02:36 AM on 02/21/2012

[this continues the typo correction, which involved a further sentence fragment, that I here correct] :"

....balance between the workers' need for a livable wage, and management's obvious need for regulation and enforcement, since without it, the acolytes of Ayn Rand and laissez fairre will obviously misbehave in greedy, shameless ways, to the point of crashing and destroying the economy, the very apparatus by which they make money in the first place, for a short term gain.

...........this was what Greenspan called his 'grave miscalculation.' He seemed unaware of the human expression of greed, in markets, having apparently not read anything besides Ayn Rand, his favorite, and forgot to read about how abused Wall Street markets hurt us once before. It's in all the history books. A great read! And in the not too distant past!

And these were the geniuses the Republicans had.
And now, they are trying to get the same thing again.
No regulation.
Breaks for the job creators, who apparently live in the home for the very, very nervous, and must be appeased.
Trickle down.
Vilify the poor, to excuse the unfairness of their policies.
Look for villans under every rock.

It's not what we want in America.
Most sane people I know want an adult government,
capable of negotiating and dealing with a complex world.
Not rushing back to the 1950's with debates about contraception.

Obama 2012
Bring back the factories

[theveggiedude]

12:16 PM on 02/21/2012

You can't 'bring back the factories' for one simple reason. China produces up to 98% of the worlds rare earth elements. These are required by everything from the Pentagon's high end weaponry to Prius's to iPhones to X-ray machines. Every gadgets uses them. China has restricted export on rare earth elements to insure they will own manufacturing forever.

[Natedc]

02:34 PM on 02/21/2012

China's down to more like 85% now, with the US providing about 20,000 tons per year and climbing. China makes around 120,000 tons per year. We have plenty of the stuff laying around it just needed to hit that magic number where it became profitable.

[Joseph Scott]

02:26 AM on 02/21/2012

typo alert: to, s/be "too" .....as in excessive and too many! as in the balance of power has shifted too far to the managements' advantage and must shift back to balance between the workers in need of a livable wage.

typo confession: I just wanted to say that thing about power, once again....sorry, double - dipped. it's just beyond the pale in posting etiquette.

[Joseph Scott]

02:23 AM on 02/21/2012

I heard the airing of the piece in This American Life with Ira Glass about work in a chinese factory....and it was masterful.

An American, a business cheerleader was talking about how he was "struck by how quiet the factory was," and that "no one was talking...," because they wanted "to work hard to make money," unlike Americans, was the implication.

The next moment, someone is informing the listeners that they don't speak because they are forbidden to speak...that it is a deep, human complaint from the workforce and in worker rights movements. Because a kind of grim silent determination to produce hovers in the air.
That would be my paraphrase anyway.

The American apparently didn't even know this much about the work, the workplace or the managers and management style, before he quickly transferred the work . He was transferring to a work environment, in general, that made those horrific 19the century industrial nightmares and pollution look like kindergarten by comparison, considering the sheer scaled increase in worker numbers.
You can cut the air over there with a knife.

Workers?

The balance of power between workers and management has shifted to far to the managements' favor, and without a restoration of a prosperous work force due to union-level wages allowing for consumption and dignity for families, a strong economy cannot be had.....

....now, let's get factories back, inshore, insourced. I don't care how they do it...

[Chuck Dick]

11:54 PM on 02/20/2012

Funny how no one cares about the working conditions in the meat packing industry here in the US. Cheap, immigrant labor performed at packing companies whose safety records make bomb diffusing a safer job.

[Pectin]

09:11 AM on 02/21/2012

No one cares about the working conditions of the people at Foxconn, either.
If they did, they wouldn't be deriding one company out of the thirty or so for which Foxconn manufactures wares.
It's just another excuse to bash their favorite target: Apple.

[Chuck Dick]

11:51 PM on 02/20/2012

I hope they also tour the factory that makes the suits the TV anchors will be wearing. Vietnam and Bangladesh don't look any prettier than Chinese factories.

[esosa233]

11:17 PM on 02/20/2012

Why are all you people taking this as a surprise, we all insinuated this with our made in china jokes, the terrible working conditions in China has always been known. I bet most of you are reading this on your apple devices right now. It's not like cheap electronics have ever been anything other than a necessary evil. I mean Apple's own corporate evils are not even the beginning we have a long way to go in reform before we even reach Apple.

[nyyankeefan]

10:31 PM on 02/20/2012

Let me see if I understand. ABC is owned by Disney, the CEO of Disney is on Apple's board and the New IPad is about to launch. Let me guess, this report is going to show the worker's swimming in the swimming pool, eating steak and lobster at the cafeteria, while they get ready to catch a flick at the movie theater Steve installed.... Gotta sell a new image, Apple needs to launch the new Ipad...

[free speech isnt free]

10:05 PM on 02/20/2012

Total fluff peice by ABC want to learn the true story, please take the time to read:
http://sacom.hk/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/2011-05-06_foxconn-and-apple-fail-to-fulfill-promises1.pdf
http://www.alternet.org/story/154043/iempire%3A_apple%27s_sordid_business_practices_are_even_worse_than_you_think/
http://sacom.hk/archives/837

[JohnTheMac]

07:42 AM on 02/22/2012

from SACOM piece:
"workers feel it is helpless to bring changes. Therefore, they can only submit themselves
to the rules and culture of Foxconn or resign. A couple of interviewees with whom SACOM is in contact with have left the factory within 1-3 months to seek better jobs. This reflects human
management at Foxconn as merely a slogan."

This also reflects the fact that people are free to leave Foxconn to seek better jobs.

[maxfax]

09:31 PM on 02/20/2012

Monthly salaries of $290?

[theveggiedude]

12:25 PM on 02/21/2012

The minimum wage in Shenzhen is $240/mo, which is the highest in all of China.

So Foxconn is paying much higher than the minimum wage. And that's just for new employees. After a month the pay rate can be $440 in a city where a restaurant meal is $2.45.

[maxfax]

12:44 PM on 02/21/2012

And still no one of them can afford to own the product they manufacture. And the required nets around the building, very troubling.

[maxfax]

12:46 PM on 02/21/2012

Is that a forty hour week?

[Dadfirst]

09:29 PM on 02/20/2012

Who does Apple think they are employing these people? They would be much better off without a job.

[MichaelMcKLA]

02:20 AM on 02/21/2012

There are a whole lot of people in the USA without jobs and they don't seem much better off for it.

[xstevejx]

04:44 AM on 02/22/2012

People in China BEG to work at Foxconn factories (not Apple-owned/run factories) because it's better pay than they can usually get otherwise. Isn't it up to them to decide how they are better off?