Before a rash of suicides focused attention on Apple’s manufacturing suppliers, few people in America knew or even cared much about its giant contract manufacturer in China, Foxconn.
The Taiwanese supplier came in for even more unflattering attention in a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of working conditions inside these out-of-sight factories, where hundreds of thousands of anonymous workers assemble the iPhones and iPads that have made Apple the world’s most valuable publicly traded company.
Foxconn is eager to present a different face, and agreed to give Re/code a tour of a sprawling manufacturing facility in Shenzhen in the south China province of Guangdong were it makes iPads and Macs. To be clear, we were not allowed unfettered access. A special assistant to CEO Terry Gou traveled from Shanghai to escort us on a tour that appeared to paint a picture of workers being treated well. We weren’t permitted to observe the factory floor — an unidentified customer wouldn’t allow that.
The undercover story by the Shanghai Evening Post reporter paints a grim picture. About workers’ living quarters, he writes, “The whole dormitory smells like garbage when I walk in.” He adds that when he opened his closet, “lots of cockroaches crawl out from inside and the bed sheets that are being distributed to every new workers are full of dirt and ashes.” His job at the factory: marking four spots on the back plate of an iPhone 5 with an oil-based paint pen. The marks had to be within 5 millimeters of the designated points and he was expected to complete five plates every minute. Supervisors repeatedly reprimanded the journalist for failing to place the marks accurately.
The journalist’s all-night shift lasted 10 hours with only one break for dinner at 11pm. When the shift ended at 6 AM, supervisors exhorted the workers to put in two hours of overtime, for a wage of just $4. The journalist describes a worker who couldn’t take the pressure: “A new worker who sat opposite me became exhausted and laid down for a short while,” he writes. “The supervisor has noticed him and punished him by asking him to stand at one corner for 10 minutes like the old school days.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2012/09/12/apples-new-foxconn-embarrassment/
Apple is such a hugely popular company and the buzz around the new iPhone is so great, reports of continued worker abuse will not dampen the public’s enthusiasm for Apple products or affect the company stock price. But the media and labor advocacy groups will continue to scrutinize Foxconn’s labor practices. Customers do not like the idea that their products are being produced in abusive sweat shops. Sumofus.org, a group formed this year that has been protesting labor abuses at Apple, issued a press release yesterday. “Back-to-back independent reports confirm that Apple and its suppliers are still treating workers poorly, and in some cases even worse than before,†it said. “As the richest company in the world, with a record-breaking profit margin for the last quarter of 44.1%, they have the power to pressure Foxconn and force change. Put simply, if Apple demands it, it’ll happen, and this is what their customers want.â€
The undercover story by the Shanghai Evening Post reporter paints a grim picture. About workers’ living quarters, he writes, “The whole dormitory smells like garbage when I walk in.†He adds that when he opened his closet, “lots of cockroaches crawl out from inside and the bed sheets that are being distributed to every new workers are full of dirt and ashes.†His job at the factory: marking four spots on the back plate of an iPhone 5 with an oil-based paint pen. The marks had to be within 5 millimeters of the designated points and he was expected to complete five plates every minute. Supervisors repeatedly reprimanded the journalist for failing to place the marks accurately.
The journalist’s all-night shift lasted 10 hours with only one break for dinner at 11pm. When the shift ended at 6 AM, supervisors exhorted the workers to put in two hours of overtime, for a wage of just $4. The journalist describes a worker who couldn’t take the pressure: “A new worker who sat opposite me became exhausted and laid down for a short while,†he writes. “The supervisor has noticed him and punished him by asking him to stand at one corner for 10 minutes like the old school days.â€
http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2012/09/12/apples-new-foxconn-embarrassment/