whats the problem with this company?

[aguila]

I often ask myself: what is worse for some peoples/countiries (not only China):
Working in difficult and underpaid conditions ? Or not working at all ?

I realized that there is no a simple answer, it's not only black or white, good or bad...

Looking at the net around the building I can only think the managers have decided to ignore the root problems, and instead simply minimize the effects ...
and this is what I find really bad.

AS

I would not say that, look they are in a difficult situation:

on the one hand they need to respond to the accuses while on the other they have to lead their company. And in such a big company strict rules are inevitable.

And they have the same problem as southern european countries or Mexico: for a while they were cheap labor. But now labour costs are rising and the customers start moving on. India and southeast Asian countries have even lower wages than China and they are forgiven more than the chinese are today.

[AS]

I often ask myself: what is worse for some peoples/countiries (not only China):
Working in difficult and underpaid conditions ? Or not working at all ?

I realized that there is no a simple answer, it's not only black or white, good or bad...

Looking at the net around the building I can only think the managers have decided to ignore the root problems, and instead simply minimize the effects ...
and this is what I find really bad.

AS

I would not say that, look they are in a difficult situation:

on the one hand they need to respond to the accuses while on the other they have to lead their company. And in such a big company strict rules are inevitable.

And they have the same problem as southern european countries or Mexico: for a while they were cheap labor. But now labour costs are rising and the customers start moving on. India and southeast Asian countries have even lower wages than China and they are forgiven more than the chinese are today.

I would say that employees position is much worse than that of Foxconn managers, to the point they decide to suicide.
Strict rules may be a good thing, they are in place in any military force still soldiers do not decided to suicide theirselves, slave labor conditions has nothing to do with (strict) rules.
And yes, prices need to raise, many of us can safely live without the latest phone model, and in any case I prefer and older phone instead of a dirty blooded new one. I will stop myself here.

AS

[aguila]

The bad thing is that not buying the new phone you won't help the workers, buying it you'll only feed the greedy managers.

As you said before there is no easy solution.

[Village Idiot]

I have to say, and I'm sorry if it offends, but I believe these nets are paid for by the Apple company. Seriously. Think about it. I don't believe the nets are installed in all possible places. It's just a photo op. Please prove me wrong. 

I visited Dubai and Egypt last year and I was amazed how unsafe their building sites are. No handrails. To me and my traveling companion, it just looks strange. I even grabbed a multi-lingual guy in the street to assist me when I spoke to a construction worker about it. His attitude was you just don't go near the edge... How Egyptian does that sound! 

And it's true that construction work wont make you suicidal unlike any "i*" device production. Wow. It's no wonder. Making devices so expensive in terms of your own wage and no way you'd ever be able to afford one in your lifetime. Frankly, it's surprising to me that the number of berserkers ain't higher.

Sorry to be a buzzkill but I've seen all this before with the Nike shoe stuff. It's an insult to me that people are shocked. 

[Neal ManBear]

Shocked? No. Disgusted? Yes.

[Village Idiot]

Shocked? No. Disgusted? Yes.

Nar I mean shocked. These news types who are sensationalizing this whole non-story. And I am talking about those who don't care about the people who might have fallen to their deaths. It's more about about subtlety kicking Apple. As no fan of Apple products myself, but a business man, that is what disgusts me.

Yeah. Pretty disgusting.
 

[Neal ManBear]

I wouldn't call it a "non-story." That implies that the workers who lost their lives are unworthy of any notice.

[Village Idiot]

I wouldn't call it a "non-story." That implies that the workers who lost their lives are unworthy of any notice.

Sorry my bad. Poor choice of words. Not to make light of those people who did in fact lose their life, but when you compare the company's number of people in their work force and the rate of all particular incidents to an actual city, you see the figures are comparable with those who happen to succumb, unfortunately, without any media fanfare.

I think you are missing my point. Oh, wait.. we've had this conversation.  

 

Edit: spelling

[ThirdOfSix]

I do not understand how this is supposed to be an Apple problem.

It is more a Foxconn problem or more realistically, a China problem. Or, most realistically, a global political problem ...  but we shouldn't talk about that here.

How can you say that boycotting Apple is a reasonable response when Foxconn actually makes motherboards and other computer components for many/most of the big names in the industry. Even many of the non OEM motherboards with very recognizable names are produced by Foxconn.

If you open up enough machines, you will get used to seeing "Foxconn" printed on many of the assemblies in different makes of computers.

Some of you are not old enough to remember what "made in Japan" meant in the fifties. Every time manufacturers find a new source of cheap labor, the same things happen. The problem just moves from country to country.

It is of course, the poorer people in those countries who are always hurt until the government "leaders" wise up and fix the problem. Unfortunately, about that time, a new source of poor people becomes available to exploit somewhere else.

[Neal ManBear]

My point is media or no media attention, those people are important to the story.

...the company's number of people in their work force and the rate of all particular incidents to an actual city....

Sorry but the story is about a company, the people who work there and the people who died there. It isn't about a city, nor does comparing suicide rates per city to suicide rates per company make sense to me. Do a comparison between companies, and then there will be something to talk about here.

[Village Idiot]

Third of Six:

Ok. I understand where you are coming from. I think.  

No body heard about foxconn until it was discovered that that was where all these Ipads were coming from. I don't know how to make it any clearer than that.

Secondly, in Australia, the notion of "made in Japan" was a see-saw of public opinion over the decades after the war. Nowadays of course most people here believe that the war was a long time ago. But, some of the best manufacturing quality came from Japan. Until, of course our car manufacturing industry was threatened in the 70's and all imported cars had to have(at least) some Australian built aspect such as screwing on the wheels.

And Japan is a developed nation. So developed in fact that they are losing manufacturing plants to other countries by the second.   The irony.

edit: 

[Village Idiot]

My point is media or no media attention, those people are important to the story.

...the company's number of people in their work force and the rate of all particular incidents to an actual city....

Sorry but the story is about a company, the people who work there and the people who died there. It isn't about a city, nor does comparing suicide rates per city to suicide rates per company make sense to me. Do a comparison between companies, and then there will be something to talk about here.

Ok I understand. I have no information about comparable companies. I cannot offer any reasonable comparison between companies as that data is not apparently reported. Sorry am I answering two people at once here.

edit: sorry spelling and Telstra (my isp) giving me crap.

[JerryP]

Shocked? No. Disgusted? Yes.

Nar I mean shocked. These news types who are sensationalizing this whole non-story. And I am talking about those who don't care about the people who might have fallen to their deaths. It's more about about subtlety kicking Apple. As no fan of Apple products myself, but a business man, that is what disgusts me.

Yeah. Pretty disgusting.
 

I must not be following your reasoning here (won't be the first time - gettn' old).  

What I don't get is where are the bleeding heart liberals (sorry but I just can't think of a more PC descriptive) who DO make big deals about clothing manufacturers and celebs who erroneously (and I think honestly, mistakenly) tie in with the wrong manufacturers. I tend to think that they are hypocritically sitting in the sun (or Starbucks) enjoying their iPhones and iPads etc... They can do without Nikes (after all there is always Sketchers) but after tying up rather large amounts of $ in a cool product they MUST have to keep up with the Jonses. Then again it's the media that foments the furor for "news" and (for "$ome rea$son) they are just not really pushing this as hard as "we" might want or expect.
I guess the general consensus is, "pretty disgusting" but beyond sharing the emotion I can't see that anything will be done about it until it reaches some critical point of disaster and I don't think it will happen. When life in this/these countries is not valued as it is in less populated and more developed countries and it's in their religions/philosophies/customs/cultures it's a rather hard row to hoe to reformation.

[Village Idiot]

@JerryP

You make perfect sense though I am drunk and have no idea what you are talking about. 


@Neal

You are dead right. My argument is a dry argument. I now need to scorn the peoples who supplied me with such a dubious preoccupation.

[Neal ManBear]

I learned about foxconn before I heard about the ipad. I watch PBS. Sometimes you can get bits of information from their programs long before there's any "major media" attention.

"Cheap labor." Yea. Well for those who would have no job otherwise, it could be seen as good. I suppose. It is a sad truth that the focus is on getting out a product. Cheaply. Corporations don't care about the people. They never have, I think. [sarcastic-mode] After all, there's always another desperate worker waiting to get a job, right?  [/sarcastic-mode]