Buying the New iPad3: A Moral Dilemma

It was midnight when I found myself hunched over my iMac, one finger poised over the "pre-order" button for the new IPad3. Maybe my defenses were down. Or my lust for all shiny things Apple was overly aroused by the live blogs and ecstatic hype for a faster processing chip, a super-charged camera, and a retina display more dazzling than my HD television.

I'm sure my eyes were dilated, my breathing quickened, my body tense with excitement -- like any addict. But I'd carefully worked out my budget. And the iPad3 wasn't a luxury item. Every week I use my iPad2 to read and listen to books, to teach, to research, to take video and photos. With a wireless keyboard, I actually use my iPad2 as much as my computer. So why then did I hesitate to punch the "Purchase" button and send an iPad3 winging my way?

I was paralyzed by a moral dilemma. In my mind I kept seeing a re-run of those photos of Foxconn, the Chinese factory that makes our fabulous Apple products. I was troubled by the images of wide, rope nets slung on the sides of the gargantuan building -- to catch young and mortally stressed workers from jumping.

Would my ordering another iPad condemn some bleary-eyed worker-servant to run and take the fatal leap? Didn't every action affect everything else -- like those proverbial butterfly wings whose luminous, silken flaps somehow change us all -- even if we're on the other side of the world? Wasn't there now an ethical concern that I needed to factor into my purchasing power?

I decided to do my research -- loath as I was to discover anything more disturbing about my beloved Apple products. I jumped onboard the bright Google Chrome express to research and witness the many links to the story of Apple and Foxconn factory.

My favorite articles were on Mashable.Tech with its spotlight on popular petitions demanding that Apple improve labor conditions at Foxxconn.

Another excellent Mashable article pointed out that Foxxconn doesn't just supply Apple, but also Amazon, Sony, IBM, Dell, HP, Samsung, Panasonic, Motorola, Nintendo, Microsoft, Nokia, and Intel.

I was educated about Apple's dominance in a New York Times article that Apple sells "forty percent of the world's consumer electronics." And that "Apple revenue topped $108 billion, a sum larger than the state budgets of Michigan, New Jersey, and Massachusetts."

I also listened to the This American Life segment, adapted from Mike Daisey's one-man show, The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. Daisey, an avowed Apple lover, has decided to wait to buy any new technology. A kind of tech Time Out.

After all of this research, I signed a petition on TheSumofUs.org

The petition urges Apple to step up and lead the way in factory labor improvements. I joined in asking Apple to "make the iPhone5 and your other products ethically." The petition notes, "The quality of working conditions matters as much as the quality of your products." It cites an unnamed Apple executive telling The New York Times, "Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn't have another choice."

How humane and far-sighted to ask that Apple, the world's richest company, also lead the way in setting an ethical standard for workers. Now, that would be some Butterfly Effect.

This week, the iPad3 debuts in stores. Already Apple has announced it has sold out of the new whiz-bang iPad3 in pre-sales; there will be several weeks to wait for more. Will this huge demand further stress overworked factories?

I don't want to feel guilty and ashamed when I buy my new iPad3. I don't want to be haunted by those nets and workers who labor 12 hour days, six days a week, at less than $17 a day, with no overtime; young people who live in barracks and are exposed to toxic chemicals and forced to do repetitive motions until their joints wear away. It doesn't matter that these workers are often better off than other Chinese laborers or that the Foxconn suicide rate is still less than the Chinese average.

The world is watching how Apple will handle this moral dilemma. It just released an annual report on labor conditions, listing its suppliers by name for the first time. It also announced it was joining the Fair Labor Association. These are very good first steps; but they are reactions to exposes, not humane changes initiated by Apple.

Apple can do much more. Think of it as good old American competition to see whether Apple or Microsoft, our tech overlords, can really make a difference in our bettering workers' lives. Think beyond just profit. Think reputation, leadership, integrity.

One thing you have to say about Bill Gates -- he is a mighty generous philanthropist. Can't Apple also use its massive profits to change the world? In the same way that Bill Gates uses his vast fortune to fight AIDS in Africa, Apple could use its clout to change working conditions in China and other "cheap labor" factories that make our tech toys.

This Foxxconn dilemma offers Apple a new product to be developed: A People Product, in which Apple engages its considerable genius. Elevate those who make Apple products to the same esteemed level as Apple engineers, software designers, and buyers. Factor in the factory workers.

At the end of the Nightline story on Apple and Foxconn, the reporter asks Louis Woo, the Foxxconn factory spokesman, "If Apple said, 'Hey, out of the goodness of our hearts, because we're doing so well, what if we paid everyone who touched an iPad double?' Do you think that would work?"

"Why not?" says Woo, "it would be good for the employees, good for China. Good for them and for us. Because we would have more stable workers who would love to work for our company because they would get paid a lot more than anyone else."

What an inspired idea! C'mon, Apple. Break the sweatshop tradition. For every iPad3 that is sold, double the salary of those who do the hands-on assembly. Make us Mac people proud, once again.

Benda Peterson is the author of 17 books, including the recent memoir, I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth, which was named among the "Top Ten Best Non-Fiction Books of 2010" by The Christian Science Monitor. Hew new book is Leopard and Silkie: One Boy's Quest to Save Seal Pups."
For more: http://www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com

 

 

 

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Comments

[Brenda Peterson]

06:40 PM on 03/29/2012

And more news today from Apple and Foxconn that there will be changes in both overtime work and safety and wages. Let's see if it really happens this time and is not just PR.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/business/apple-supplier-in-china-pledges-changes-in-working-conditions.html?pagewanted=1&hp

[Brenda Peterson]

12:47 PM on 03/29/2012

Apple CEO visits Foxconn factory, a good beginning. But let's see some real change from the world's richest company. Here's the link to the NYTimes article on that visit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/technology/apples-chief-timothy-cook-visits-foxconn-factory.html?_r=1&hp

[P-Town Blazer]

03:15 PM on 03/17/2012

You never do tell us if you clicked that "purchase" button to buy the iPad3...

[Lindsay Pyfer]

03:30 PM on 03/16/2012

Having read through the various commenters' remarks, my takeaway from this piece is that it's important to be conscious of how our purchasing choices affect other people--both in this country and in faraway lands. And it's never wrong to hold companies accountable for the conditions under which their products are made.

[Brenda Peterson]

02:25 AM on 03/16/2012

I found another very interesting and thoughtful article on this subject by a writer I admire. Here's a link to David Pogue at The New York Times:
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/what-cameras-inside-foxconn-found/

Thanks to all of you who are writing in with more information and ideas. There is a cross-cultural element to this dilemma that is instructive. And yes, to TaiJi2, Americans should pay as much attention to our own country's inequities.

[TaiJi2]

12:32 PM on 03/15/2012

If only Americans paid this much attention to the problems in their OWN country!

[s002wjh]

10:25 AM on 03/15/2012

i do agree consumer has power to do something about it. but the truth is, its chinese government job to improve working condition etc, not the consumer.

[Brenda Peterson]

01:47 AM on 03/15/2012

I'm grateful to all of you who are writing in with more research, links, and information about this issue. It really helps those of us weighing this issue as consumers and Apple enthusiasts. One thing good about all of this publicity -- it makes us more conscious of the real price tag of our technology and how we are all connected. This includes such issues as electronic waste as well as how to use our consumer purchasing power. I'm going to enjoy following these comments and following all the links.

[Martel LXIV]

01:20 AM on 03/15/2012

The real question is how to bring that manufacturing back to the U.S. That would require a national training program for low-level manufacturing management people (because there is a drastic shortage of such people in the U.S.), faster turnaround for construction projects related to manufacturing facilities, and a willingness for people to do very grueling work (if not particularly physically debilitating work) for eight straight hours at about $8 per hour. The wages would be about 3-4 times what a Foxconn worker earns, but that shouldn't be any real impediment to manufacture in the U.S. since most of the products would be sold in this country anyway.

[Highball]

03:36 AM on 03/15/2012

Martel, please stop confusing people with facts. :)

[Martel LXIV]

01:18 AM on 03/15/2012

Suicide is a nonsense issue as it relates to Foxconn. The suicide rate across all of China is 22.23 per 100,000 per year. Foxconn employs between 250,000 and 300,000 workers. They are experiencing about 17 to 20 suicides per year across their workforce. That's a rate of 8 per 100,000 workers per year, which is a bit more than 1/3rd of the rate across all of China. In fact, it's lower than the rate across all of the United States, which is 11.8 per 100,000 per year. If we were interested in working to reduce suicides, we should start with Lithuania where the rate is 34 per 100,000 or with South Korea where the rate is 31 per 100,000.

So, sure, working conditions in China are not comparable to working conditions in the U.S. Should they be? I think so. Is there anything significant that Americans can do about it? Well, sure, we could put American companies out of business by not buying their products if they manufacture in China...which will also put the Chinese workers out on the street. We could just buy (for example) Samsung products instead, which are manufactured under precisely the same conditions by precisely the same company, by precisely the same workers in precisely the same buildings.

[Martel LXIV]

01:17 AM on 03/15/2012

Apple does not employ these people. They are employed by Foxconn, a Taiwanese owned company. Foxconn manufactures products for Microsoft, HP, Sony, Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Panasonic, IBM, Nintendo, Intel, Amazon and about 2 dozen more multinational mega-companies. Products assembled for Apple (or any of Foxconn's clients) are assembled in buildings which will be housing assembly of another company's product 3 months later...and by the same workers. In order to force Foxconn to pay the employees more, all of the Foxconn clients would have to agree to pay Foxconn more. One company insisting on higher wages for its contractor's workforce is not going to succeed because they aren't going to pay the same employees more money for a few months and then pay them less for assembling the next client's products. That's just reality. If we want to improve pay for these workers, then ALL of the client companies have to be boycotted.

An even more intractable problem would be worker abuse, which is widespread and almost systemic in China. China is in desperate need of independent trade unions, but good luck with that.

[ReliStuPhD]

12:38 AM on 03/15/2012

Hmmm. But you apparently kept your iPad 2. Interesting response to a moral dilemma.

[Highball]

11:49 PM on 03/14/2012

More FUD.

You mention that Foxconn produces items for over 30 other companies, then brush it off.

What about your Samsung Blu-Ray or HDTV? What about practically any CE item you have?

[nightfly4257]

10:33 PM on 03/14/2012

Here is an insane idea to solve your moral dilemma. Apple should sell the New iPad as kit that you can assemble at home. On the back of these iPad, it should say "Design by Apple in California, parts made all over world, and assembled in your own backyard.

[Highball]

01:24 AM on 03/15/2012

Where the heck do you think those parts are made? And in what sort of plants?

Even if it's something produced here, which is very unlikely, where do you think the minerals were mined that went into it? You know where 97% of the rare Earth metals used in phones and the like come from? That's right, China.

[suzannebma]

09:15 PM on 03/14/2012

I blogged about this moral dilemma yesterday, with an infographic that shares some pretty shocking statistics. As of last year, 156 overseas factories produce Apple products, of which 5 were employing children and 1/3 were negligent in handling hazardous substances causing workers to fall ill. Find out more: http://www.suzannema.com/2012/03/13/ikill/