Recently I've had the good sense to purchase a shiny new Apple computer, with all of the bells and whistles Steve Jobs so lauds. Its impending arrival has been the source of some tiny excitement for yours truly, and I have consulted the "tracking status" of my bundle of joy online several times thus far. Clever product placement, savvy marketing campaigns, and the impassioned testimony of several friends and colleagues have, no doubt, made my decision to support this company inevitable. My long-suffering PC will be resigned to the closet, lest my new Mac fails me. (Sincere apologies to John Hodgman.)
In between alternating bouts of self-satisfaction and anticipation in my cozy, air-conditioned office, I decided to inquire as to the true origins of my package. I had long believed in Apple's relative benevolence when it came to workplace rights in developing countries, however what I discovered was quite the opposite, and thus, a source of ineradicable unease.
You may recall Apple in China making headlines recently, as a string of employees in factories in the far east of the country have committed suicide as a direct result of various job-related pressure and profound anxiety, instigated by supervisors facing (likely) similar pressure from the top down. Apple houses a host of employees in China earning less than $130 per month, and for manufacturing products routinely sought out by relatively affluent consumers such as myself for thousands of dollars. Many of these employees and their families live in abject poverty, their destiny stagnant.
Concerning Apple's principal Chinese factory:
"...It's the same old story of workers having to put in excessively long hours to make a living wage...there is also a quasi-military style of management that seeks to isolate individual workers. They actively discourage social interaction."
During his 28 days of investigation, Liu Zhi Yi was shocked to discover how the factory workers live in a sort of indentured servitude. They work all day long, stopping only to quickly eat or to sleep. They repeat the same routine again and again except on public holidays. Liu surmised that for many workers, the only escape from this cycle was to end their life.
Of course, none of this was really news to me. I like to think of myself as a conscientious consumer insofar as possible, and I was aware of the conditions of much of Chinese labor. However I still placed my order; I still followed it online as it departed Suzhou, and though I wondered for a few moments what life was like there for the souls who produced it, evidently it wasn't enough for me to cease my consumption. This fleeting consideration was swiftly superseded by the tiny excitement of a new toy, in what is surely vanity on a scale most grotesque.
However, I shall use this new toy, and I will enjoy it. It will provide me with the services to accomplish much of my work and study, as well as a great deal of entertainment. But still I wonder about the fingers that put it together, the hands that packed it away for me, and the eyes that witnessed its very creation, long before my own. This excuses nothing.
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Its people have no true freedom.
They are used as slave labor to enrich the Chinese Communitst Party.
China refuses to trade fairly, they put resrictions on imports from the U.S. and refuse to value their currency appropriately.
China is a mercantilist totalitarian state.
CHINA is NOT a country we should trade with.
We shook look to other Pacific Rim countries and avoid them.
TRADE WITH CHINA SUPPORTS HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE on their citizens.
Let me elaborate: the majority of factory workers in China are single, young -- in their teens or 20s -- people, often from rural areas -- i.e., migrant workers. Most of these workers willfully come to factories for the opportunity to quickly start making money, and this income is much, much more than they can take in on their family's land. Actually, families will sometimes send the young people out to make money. In any case, some money made at the factories is often sent home families, thus becoming an important source of income for that family' survival.
In these factories or factory cities, workers often change employers, gradually making more money or finding better positions due to experience. Some end up in the administration. Others continue to work hard, saving enough to go to school. And still others might get married and go back home or make a new life in the city.
Moreover, if you ask most of these workers if they want to work less, they will invariably say, "no". The work may be difficult and long, but overtime is where the real money is for these laborers. The above article is misleading and inaccurate.
"If the workers want to keep working this way" - of course I cannot speak for anyone but myself; nor can you. However, I don't believe that the people in these factories "want to keep working" under such conditions. Lack of opportunity and poverty drives people into these situations. You are absolutely correct that people take these jobs willfully, sometimes even pressured by their own families. However, I don't know how anyone can object to attempting to raise awareness of the basic issue of conscientious consumption, regardless of my own personal shortcomings.
This post was a reflection on the paradoxical nature of consumption in my own life, and I make no attempt to pass myself off as an expert on labor conditions in developing countries. Anyone reading this and seeking a nefarious agenda will be disappointed, as this blog post was just that - a blog post; a personal reflection.
Chinese workers don't earn overtime. They work until they drop.
The reason 'young people' work these jobs is because they wear out workers before they get old.
Have you ever worked an assembly line? Its brutal, even under safe conditions working 8 hr. shifts.
You seem to have a very Romanticized version of life for chinese workers.
Perhaps, you've been listening to some of the elite chinese students who come here sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party?
Apple in China? What are they selling, the slant-IPad?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7330986/Apple-admits-using-child-labour.html
And they continue to encourage outsourcing......
And this new Visa program?
Is this the average Middle class American's future?
It is one thing to acknowledge that we really have no freedom of choice because EVERYTHING is made in China and it is damn hard to find American made things to buy. I've been buying only American made clothes for about two years now and I'm pretty much down to just t-shirts and blue jeans.
But it is another thing to somehow claim to be a thougtful consumer and then place the order. Order something else. At least try to find something American made before you just give in.
It may have something to do with the fact that Federal tax breaks are given to companies that ship and maintain manufacturing jobs in foreign countries. The corporate managers who ship and maintain manufacturing jobs in such countries commonly explain their actions on the grounds that they have a duty to maximize their profits to their company shareholders.
It may also have something to do with the fact that the shareholders of major corporations commonly not only include the super-rich but Washington politiicans and persons related to Washington politicians as well.
Candidate Obama promised to do away with those tax breaks, or at least make a serious effort to do so. Of course, as some of his Obamabots will explain, he's only been in office for about 18 months.
American manufacturing jobs are not coming back. The current economic problem is not the result of a cyclical swing. The high-level unemployment is now structural in nature.
The loyalty of American politiicans to this country and the economic success of this country is now over. It's done. They may come up with additional bogus unemployment numbers, and politicial rhetoric, but the jobs and the econmy will not be coming back.
Great post.