Every week at my school, I hear person after person complain about their Dell laptop. Students constantly wonder why our school doesn't use Apple products. We've all been told the reason is because of insurance and financial convenience. But recently, worker conditions at Apple factories, along with Apple's response to this situation, have both shown themselves to be factors that may substantiate the school's choice of products.
In the last month, Apple Inc. has released an audit stating that nearly 100 of its factories force more than half of their workers to work over 60 hours every week, with extremely abusive conditions throughout each day. Apple has also announced that it was responsible for multiple aluminum dust explosions in factories in China that killed four workers and injured 77 others. Workers are reportedly woken, having slept in crowded dorms on site of the factories, in the middle of the night and forced onto 12-hour shifts whenever Apple needs to make any adjustment to a product. Not only that, but Apple has also admitted to child labor.
With Apple's reputation usually being perceived as reliable, it was expected that Apple would fix this surprising dilemma. Although the company looked at this situation in a more serious light than a previous situation of a string of worker suicides, it appears as if Apple just wants to change the image of working conditions in factories and not the conditions themselves.
Through "reputation management" consultants, Apple has been giving apologies in an extremely vague manner, leaving a huge gap of transparency, as well as getting involved with the Fair Labor Association. However, this seemed to be enough for most means of media and, surprisingly, even some activists. These meaningless actions did not slip by some more doubtful thinkers who have rightfully said that these apologies came about as a result of consumer pressure.
The way Apple is handling this leak of knowledge mirrors how Nike first handled a situation when information of their horrible, sweatshop-like factories got out to the public. Nike became affiliated with the FLA, just as Apple has, and was known to spend hundreds of million of dollars on factory "monitoring," all of which led to little avail. Apple, which seems to be going down the same path, will hopefully have a different outcome. The reason why this type of monitoring does not make any real impact is because the workers' rights 'experts' who are hired either work directly for the corporation they are monitoring or in 'NGO' mode. As stated in an article on AlterNet, "NGOs sell their monitoring services to the big brands that are seeking cover while their supplier factories continue the same profitable patterns of worker abuse." Through this, which will lead right back to the same issue, it is clear that Apple has not made astounding progress, for just last week Terry Gou, CEO of one of Apple's manufacturers, Foxconn, referred to his workers as 'animals.'
This transparent attempt to conceal the abusive conditions of Apple's factories leads to a less than desirable impression. The fact that Apple appears to be just trying to hide these horrible conditions in order to save its reputation actually seems to lessen the company's reputation as a whole. In my opinion, having these conditions present in the first place is wrong, but apologizing solely to please the media without taking action to better the factories far surpasses being just wrong.
This being said, an order of over 500 Apple laptops, chargers, disk drives, and other accessories would most likely take a toll on these strained factory workers. Insurance and convenience may be two practical reasons as to why my school chooses to use Dell products, but the state of Apple's factories may now serve as one ethical reason that supports the school's choice.
Jared Bernstein: Manufacturing: Why We Should Help the Sector (But Not Too Much)
I understood that most companies including Dell used the same labor providers for their Chinese factories, so although I don't excuse or condone Apple's use, why do the others get off scott-free?
Your students need some serious educating in the realities of economics and federal government budgeting. Hmmm - as do most of the kids out there. I just shake my head, but I know very well if I had kids today they'd be right up there moaning at me for iPads.
However, Google banned Windows from all their employees about 4 years ago. Visit the Googleplex. the employees walk around with MacBooks. Same with Facebook and Twitter, and even at Genentec.
My fellow students prefer different OSs for different reasons, but I don't know anyone whose goal is to work in a cubicle environment with an office manager. One of my classes this quarter is about how to create video prototypes for our mobile applications. We're learning how to create our own industry vs. relying on corporations for jobs that don't exist and may not exist in the future.
Using Apple hardware doesn't have an impact on being able to use or learn Windows. It's easy to run Windows in boot camp or in a virtual machine.
Apple made more money off iPhone sales last quarter than Microsoft made from all of their products combined.
In my experience, all artistic companies used Macs. Everything from graphic design to fashion design seems to use Apple most of the time. Even some companies that are all Microsoft seem to have artistic departments that use Apple.
This is still the minority of businesses though. Every other type of company I've worked for with one exception has been PC only. Chances are, if you are an artist type of person, you have a good chance of getting a job on an Apple, otherwise get ready to use Windows unless you win the lottery or somehow convince investors you are smart enough to invest millions in.
"The continuing reports of deaths and distress at Foxconn have created a PR problem for Apple, which is seen as the principal user of the company's facilities. So far Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Dell, which also use Foxconn for assembly work, have not commented on their use of its factories."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/feb/20/foxconn-raise-wages-apple-contractor?newsfeed=true
So is Foxconn.
Tech is cheap now, Apple just trying to be strong. Fair Labor Association is a PR stunt.
They just doubled pay for the 3rd time again. I prefer Korea products over China or America.
China workers $8 per iPad ($1.36 per hour), 1.6 percent of the sales price.
China workers $6.50 per iPhone ($1.36),
Korean workers $34 per iPad ($14.20), 6.8 percent of the sales price
United States $61 per iPad ($25.65),
References:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-57378208-17/are-chinese-factory-workers-getting-just-$8-for-every-ipad-sale/
Manufacturing Production Workers Unit Labor Costs (2008 USD)
http://www.cargofacts.net/group/acmgresearch/forum/topics/china-maintains-significant?xg_source=activity
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/12/29/the-innovation-trap-how-the-iphone-isnt-saving-america/
“The entire supply chain is in China now… You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours.” - New York Times
These conditions were only allowed to exist because Americans put 'lowest price' above all other factors, and American corporate executives place 'highest margin' above all other factors.
When you care more about *how* something was made than *how much*, this will change. Not until.
In my several visits to China, I found the factories i toured to be almost exactly the same in regards to their quality of life concerns, that is, there were none.
Perhaps the recent focus on Apple's factories will bring into sharper focus the conditions of all factory workers in the world, but to think that Dell factory workers have any advantage over Apple factory workers might be a bit of a stretch.
They aren't. Not purchasing Apple products won't solve the problem because there's no such thing as "fair trade" technology. Dell is doing the exact same thing, and so is every other company you could purchase a laptop or mobile phone from.
Apple responded by beginning to have their factories audited independently. So far no other company has followed suit... including Dell, Microsoft, HP, etc. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2017612845_chinalabor28.html
This isn't me defending Apple - the situation is awful, and they should be ashamed. But what they need doesn't currently exist in the U.S. and their only solution would be to create the factories here.
Thank you Susannah!
I look forward to reading your articles again.
http://person1234.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/the-controversy-over-apple-and-dell-factories/
Mr. Cook's team recommended a 24 hour "Care Center" and required Foxconn to install nets.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1357833/Apple-responds-suicides-Chinese-Foxconn-factory-hanging-nets.html
This isn't me defending Apple - the situation is awful, and they should be ashamed. But what they need doesn't currently exist in the U.S. and their only solution would be to create the factories here.
You can buy once or cry twice. Buy Apple and cry once. Apple computers are just all around better: better quality, better OS, more stable, includes all the software a basic user needs, isn't nearly as suceptible to viruses, and most importantly, you'll enjoy using it without problems for many years.
When you compare Apple products to similar quality Dell products, there should be almost no differences in reliability.