china

Mike Daisey is right about not being a journalist, but that doesn't mean he's… 1

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged apple china chinesefactories foxconn Google+ mikedaisey on by (updated 4620 days ago)

Mike Daisey is right about not being a journalist, but that doesn't mean he's not influential.

When his tale about working conditions in Chinese consumer electronics factories exploded onto the headlines it raised awareness about the human effect of the products we buy every day. Despite the exaggerations and fabrications in Daisey's version of the narrative, the reality is that China has a manufacturing advantage over the United States because of generally poor working conditions and low pay.

The flexibility and responsiveness that Apple likes to tout from its Chinese suppliers comes from having tens of thousands of workers living in crowded dorms adjacent to the factory that can be pulled in day or night and put to work. That sort of behavior would never be tolerated here and should not be tolerated in China. Cranking up production of a new phone or tablet is simply not so important that humans need to be abused in this way.

The blowback against Daisey's actions may well inoculate companies like Apple, HP and Dell as well as suppliers like Foxconn so that people ignore the problem that is all too real.

#China #chinesefactories #apple #foxconn #mikedaisey

Reshared post from +Dan Gillmor

Mike Daisey "undermined the cause he purported to advance. That's the real scandal."

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Worse Than Kony2012: The Tragedy of Mike Daisey's Lies About China
American
consumers can't do much for Central Africa or Afghanistan, but they
have real power to improve Chinese labor abuses. Will they be less
inclined to believe the next person who tells them ho…

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Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.

If you haven't already read the two pieces in the NY Times last week about Apple… 1

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged apple cheaplabor china Google+ on by (updated 4666 days ago)

If you haven't already read the two pieces in the NY Times last week about Apple and its manufacturing operations in China you should.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

One of the recurring reasons that Apple executives give for using Chinese manufacturing is speed and flexibility at the Chinese plants. They adamantly deny that it is about low wages and benefits paid to the hundreds of thousands of workers in those Foxconn factories. Unfortunately if you know anything about modern high-volume manufacturing this simply doesn't ring true.

The authors of the articles provide an anecdote about the weeks leading up to the launch of the original iPhone. The late Apple CEO Steve Jobs had made a last minute decision to switch from a plastic to a glass screen. As the first glass panels were arriving at the factory in China, 8,000 employees were roused in the middle of the night from their dormatory, given a biscuit and a cup of tea and put to work. The only way to get the kind of instant flexibility to change direction in a manufacturing operation is to use masses of human labor to do the assembly.

This sort of work could definitely be done in the US and it could also be done by automation. However, in the US labor regulations would make it much more difficult to get people working multiple 12 hour shifts and living in dorms where they could be sent to the assembly line at the drop of a hat. Automation requires more effort to program for such drastic changes. Both are substantially more expensive than "disposable" Chinese laborers.

Apple simply could not get the sort of flexibility they like to tout if Chinese labor were not so cheap. It really does come down to money and nothing more and that's why Apple is sitting on a $100 billion cash horde.

#apple #china #cheaplabor

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Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class
Building Apple’s iPhone in the United States would demand much more than hiring Americans — it would require transforming the national and global economies.

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