Foxconn and Apple Respond to ABC Report

How many of these workers make it out of their teen years, you can bet that $349 a month requires a lot of overtime. They make them live in these barracks which I'm sure they chage them for living there plus charge the workers for food, so at the end of the month that $349 has become maybe $100 or less

I can understand exaggeration in any report. It sells news, but when you have to demur something for 3,000 units, THAT'S STILL 3,000 AND A FRICKIN RIDICULOUS QUOTA TO MEET.

I frequently travel to China. Maybe Apple thinks most Americans are stupid, but making $2.18 an hour in Shenzhen is like making $4.50 an hour in San Francisco or $7 an hour in New York City. In addition, many Chinese companies are like "Company Towns" of the U.S. in the 19th century where railroads and the mines owned every business in town and that many workers or miners end up in indentured servitude because they had to pay their employer for everything and went into debt because of it. These Chinese companies are no different. You pay rent in the dormitory, you pay for the food you have to eat, you have to pay for your uniforms, and so on. None of this is cheap when the only supplier around is your employer.

OT in China is only on the books, the government doesn't enforce it, and most employees have no one to complain to if they don't get it.

USA at its height had 4 Million slaves before emancipation.

Apple today , as a company counts on 1 Million slaves, so
that Tim Cook gets to collec ta $378 Mil paycheck.

Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou told his senior managers that Hon Hai has a workforce of over one million worldwide and “as human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache.” Hon Hai is the parent company of Foxconn, which makes iPhones and iPads for Apple. Gou added that he would “like to learn from the director of the Taipei Zoo, Chin Shih-chien, as to how animals should be managed”.

On a happier note, according to China Daily, 15 of their billionaires were murdered, 17 committed suicide, seven died from "accidents," 19 died from illness, and 14 were executed (the average age of those who died from illness was only 48).

"Private capital tends to become concentrated in [a] few hands. The result is an oligarchy of private capital, the enormous power of which cannot be checked by a democrat society since legislators [are] largely financed by capitalists. The consequences of this are that the representatives do not protect the interests of the poor and underprivileged. Moreover, capitalists control, directly or indirectly, the main means of information (press, education, etc.). It is almost impossible for an individual citizen to make intelligent use of his [or her] political rights." -Albert Einstein, "Monthly Review," 1949

As American financier & plutocrat Jay Gould (leading American railroad developer and speculator, mid to late 1800's) said after hiring strikebreakers: "I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half."

Sometimes I wonder if some of those suicides had help off the roof ?
A convenient way of getting rid of troublemakers ?

92% of the millionaires in China are the children of high level government officials.

Group suicides, company "dormitories", and as a result of the poor publicity, FoxConn just gave their employees a (very modest) raise? These facilities are basically "prisons" and the workers are prisoners - or at least indentured servants. These conditions are abhorrent!!! But although Apple is getting most of the negative publicity, most other manufacturers are doing the very same thing. Driving that Quarterly EPS for the shareholders. What a greedy society we now live in...

Sounds like when the Red Cross was invited to inspect the Nazi Camps durring WWII. Everything was sanitized before they got there, and went back to "normal" after they left.

I live in Shenzhen, China. I know foxconn employees. Regardless of what is shown on tv or what Apple says. Working at a factory in China(any factory) is hauntingly close to being a slave. In slavery the "master" provided a place to sleep, food, healthcare and clothing. It's the same for a factory worker. They get dorms, food, health insurance and enough money left over for clothes and such. The only difference between slavery and being a factory worker in China is the slaves could run to a free state, while the factory workers can only go work for another "master". It's a very sad life anyway you look at it.

Apply wants ..... Foxconn wants to build .... a deal is struck (many other companies in many other countries want the same deal). Foxconn invests $m's in plant assets, accomodation etceteras to quarantee a million person daily labor force. Bunkhouses essential - no city has rental space for that many folks - no relying on public transportation each shift - no worrkes that folks are eating poorly and unable to concentrate. Apple buys low and sells high ... as does everyone. Foxconn does whar it must to stay in play.

How about launch a compaign to overthroww Foxconn?

Recent Foxconn's pay raise amounts to nothing more than sleight of hand.
What they offered in pay raise with one hand, they take away with the other by
starting to charge for cramped lodging. Net-net, it was a pay reduction , not a pay raise.

Apple makes $400 to $600 in profit per iPhone , paying Foxconn some $5 to manufacture/assemble each iPhone. Little wonder why Foxconn resorts to
sweatshop conditions, and hiring under-aged workers all amid no occupational safeguards
working with toxic chemicals.

Apple is one rotten company, evil, immoral and unethical.

I watched the ABC report. As bad as you may think the conditions are at Foxconn, it is obviously better than the alternatives available to the workers. Nobody is forced to work there. If Apple did not have its factory there, the people would be WORSE off. Over a thousand people crowded the gates in the early morning to get a chance to work there.

BTW, to compare this to slavery trivializes the suffering that real SLAVES had to endure.

American workers make a lot more money working in a factory, but the mind control, petty work rules, management abuses, right to hire and fire, sex harrassment, poor wage increases, constant increases in insurance costs, work conditions, time off hassles, overtime abuses, changes in work rules for more productivity all make the jobs just as much a slave mentality as in China. Add the commute, housing costs, childrens school rules, food costs, utility cost for housing, police infringment on traffic and public attendance, Welcome to the Brave New World.

What do you expect? China is suppose to be low cost, that's why everyone moves there. Not anymore. Five years ago the average monthly wages for a garment worker is about RMB800-1200 now it's about RMB3000-4000.

Labor conditions are much worse in Cupertino.

It doesnt matter that thousands line up outside the gate and will probably work for less. What matters is not about getting away with mininum pay but with pay that they too can enrich their lives. Cash and wealth hoarders are doing nothing for the rest of us. Our current capitalist system needs to be advanced to fit the population. Right now its not favoring most.

Nobody seems to understand that the costs of living in China are 10x's less than in the USA..For about 300RMB($40) a person can eat extravagantly in China..Steaks..Imported food..A square meal, every day..easily..They can go out to eat..It might even be LESS...These so-called "poor slaves"..(Last I checked a slave meant you had no choices and you were forced to work for someone...Ask the African Americans about that)..aren't even paying RENT..That means they can save up to about $3,000 in one year..around 18,000RMB..THEY CAN BUY A HOUSE WITH THAT....With just a little bit of discomfort...In the USA, when your teenager move back home because $3,000 can't even pay a half years rent..Just think about who is the "slave"..You Americans are allowing teh Chinese to steal the American Dream with your "generous benefactor" Hollywood administrations..In fact your children will be the slaves of these so called Chinese "slaves"..These "slaves" who work under NO TAXATION...NO REGULATIONS....NO CREDIT...NO RENT..NO LAW ENFORCEMENTS...(unless of course it hints of foreign intervention)..You Americans are being duped by your own media ....You will end up relying on government..either in wellfare or in war...Because the Chinese intelligesia have a strategy of approproiation..Read their literature of philospohy..They evoke and recognize it as a legitimate strategy of progress..Brain Drain...Americans, Unless you are willing to fight for equity..One that demands that those you treat generously and fairly, treat you the same.....You are the slaves.

I want the job of slave driver so that I can use my cat-o-nine tails freely.