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Guardian – Why doesn’t apple employ more US workers
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[Craig Shields] “Unfortunately, this is how businesses are. They don’t care that workers aren’t making a living wage. They don’t care that workers are committing suicide. It’s all about the profits. I have no doubt that Apple would use 10 year old children in those factories if it was legal and could save them some money.”
Foxconn plants manufacturing Apple products pay above the median wage paid to factory workers in China — and factory jobs are quite attractive compared with many available alternatives. A common pattern is for young people from rural areas to move to large manufacturing centers, get jobs, and send much of their income back to their families — in other words, the wages paid by such factory jobs aren’t just “living wages” for a single individual, but are often raising the standard of living for entire families.
The suicide rate of Foxconn employees is far below the average rate in China (or the US, for that matter). The absolute numbers look a little worrying if you forget that Foxconn employs ~1.3 million people, i.e. about the population of the entire state of Maine.
And there is zero evidence that Apple condones the hiring of underage workers. Apple mandates screening of new hires and periodic reviews to find underage workers who have slipped through. Apple also publishes this data for public review (which most other companies do not) and has now invited in independent oversight organizations.
Would US workers be happy with Foxconn factory jobs? Probably not. But China is a developing country. That’s not a realistic standard to apply. If it had somehow been possible to force companies to pay US wages to Chinese workers, companies simply wouldn’t have moved manufacturing to China in the first place, and development wouldn’t have occurred, or would have occurred far more slowly. As things stand, the population below the poverty line (defined as $1.25/day in China — Foxconn workers make more than this per hour) has fallen from above 80% to below 5% over the last 30 years.
None of this is to say that there are no labor abuses about which anyone should be concerned. There are, both at Foxconn and elsewhere (it’s much worse in the garment/textile industry, to say nothing of, say, the mining industry). But these things need to be understood in context — it’s a little more complicated than helpless downtrodden workers being abused by greedy corporations. It’s development, and it’s a process. It isn’t always a pretty process, but nobody has ever figured out another way to take poor countries and (eventually) make them rich.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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In context hey. Ah, the right speaks.
Nope. It’s still all wrong, sorry. And Foxconn pay above average do they. Well, let’s look at the context. Is the average a fair rate? Doubt it.
There is no intellectualising the pain and misery ladled onto people for the price of a dollar. And if anyone thinks Apple, or anyone, don’t know what’s what, they’re slipping into dangerous denier territory.
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[Jules bowman] “Ah, the right speaks”
Haha. No.
[Jules bowman] “Nope. It’s still all wrong, sorry. And Foxconn pay above average do they. Well, let’s look at the context. Is the average a fair rate? Doubt it.”
Define “fair”. Seriously, this isn’t a flippant question. It’s the entire issue on which this debate hinges.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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Not personal? Read Rand?
OK…
“The smallest minority on earth is the individual.
Those who deny individual rights cannot
claim to be defenders of minorities.”
– Ayn RandMarvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
skype username – vidmarv -
[Bobby Mosca] “Oh, and read some Rand already.”
Uhh… what exactly are we supposed to learn from a woman who idolized William Edward Hickman?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Edward_Hickman
Shawn
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[Marvin Holdman] “Not personal? Read Rand?
“I have. It was like reading cartoons without the colorful pictures.
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[Jules bowman] “Corporations are socially destructive. I believe the current economic malaise is a pretty good indicator that the grand modern capitalism venture is fundamentally flawed.”
If only it were that simple.
What they have managed to conveniently side-step in all these papers, discussions, etc. is the real reason it can’t be done here.
You couldn’t build these factories in America if you wanted to. The environmentalists wouldn’t stand for anything that big or dense, even if it had zero pollution.
And even if you got past that, it would take years to get it through the approval process. City managers would be trying to blackmail Apple for free iPads for all the local school children, like they did in CA over the new campus.
And even if you got past that, during excavation they’d find a bone or an errant snail darter and that would be the end of the project while we do a 7 year environmental impact study.
No, America doesn’t really want jobs… they just want to talk about it…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill
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How to justify bad behavior?
Best,
John -
“Personal” and “individual” are not interchangeable in this context.
I’ll be in PCB in June! Been a while, so I’m looking forward to it.
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A business should not operate for the interest of its employees, but for the interest in its customers.
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