Debate on the Internet kicked up this week on whether Apple iPods are being manufactured under “Dickensian” sweatshop conditions in the People’s Republic of China. Human rights and corporate ethics watchers cried foul about low wages and bad living conditions. Foxconn (the China subcontractor) and Apple have been playing defense saying it abided by labor guidelines. What is the truth? Well it lies somewhere in between.
But more interesting is that the best balanced on-the-ground investigative journalism on this was done by PRC reporters and is being actively discussed in the open on Tianya.cn. ESWN has an English translation of the original Chinese piece which is titled, “Foxconn workers: As little as 340 yuan a month and 700 persons living in one house. NetEase Technology Report.”
For folks used to China’s so-called “totalitarianism,” this may come as a surprise, but it’s not unusual – investigative journalism in China happens a lot more often than you would think.
After the press conference was over, this reporter declined the offer of a ride provided by Foxconn to the train station and went instead to speak to ordinary workers in the technology park.
In fact the above headline is a bit sensational – while the reporter did find sketchy and smelly living conditions and low wages, they did not find a dorm with 700 people – a claim made by a worker who was interviewed. Nevertheless, the article has a whole lot more useful reporting than the speculation and second-hand churn in AppleInsider and Ars, both of which I respect.
The bottom line – there are violations in working hours, the pay is slightly under the minimum; some workers moved out of dorms to their own apartments, but they get healthcare and free lunch. Given the chance of working longer hours, the workers would actually want to do so as long as they are paid.
“When I joined Foxconn in 2004, those were good days for the first two years.” When Little Zhang thought about the overtime work, his spirit was lifted. “At one time, my highest monthly wage was 1,600 yuan.” “In those days, I could work three hours of overtime per day. With two more days on the weekend, the wages rose up.” Little Zhang counted with his fingers. “Saturday and Sunday are for double pay, at 6.70 yuan per hour. On both days, we worked 11 hours, so that we made more than 100 yuan.” In Little Zhang’s view, that is a very good wage. When the writer asked whether continuously working like that for one or two months would be physically impossible to cope with, he impatiently rubbed his thumb and index finger together and said, “Who cares as long as the money is there!”
In a commentary on the Apple conundrum, BusinessWeek reporter Arik Hesseldahl has suggested Apple go ahead and open its own factory in China, and raise the standards, like Motorola and Plantronics have done. It is not a bad idea for companies to do this – take fate into their own hands and create a core in China for the long term. For certain technology products this is possible. However, it’s hard for Apple to go this route.
Their entire existence is in finding contract manufacturers that they can switch out very quickly to meet demands of their lifestyle marketing designs and innovations done in California. (Buy a new iPod or MacBook, and you’ll see that heralded on the packaging.) It’s why they can lead the industry with iMac flavors, iPods, MacBooks, etc. The recent shift of the Mac line from PowerPC to Intel Core Duo processors would have been much more painful with company capital sunk into product line manufacturing. Instead, Apple finds companies like Alpha-Top and Flextronics in Taiwan to do the job using the economies of scale advantages they have in mass producing laptops and other consumer electronics.
But Apple has typically enjoyed from 30-50% margins on their products. That’s much higher than other industry norms. Stepping up working conditions at Foxconn to comply with Chinese labor laws (which are already very modest) can be accommodated by that cushion. Shareholders will be happy, Steve Jobs can sleep better, and Chinese workers will be happier. Win-win-win?
I think this was the most important thing in the article:
“When the writer asked whether continuously working like that for one or two months would be physically impossible to cope with, he impatiently rubbed his thumb and index finger together and said, “Who cares as long as the money is there!â€
See the thing about Americans is that they are really a bit more lucky that the rest of the world and are very…well…spoiled. So spoiled that while the world is suffering and the term “survival of the fittest” applies, in America, something like obesity thirves.
Uneducated American’s start to complain and campaign about these factories THEY CALL “sweatshops” and say the conditions aren’t fitting. What they don’t realize is that when they complain and close these sweatshops down, it isn’t them who suffer, but the supposedly mal-treated employees in that “sweatshop”. Meanwhile, they lose their jobs that feed their family of five – all because some spoiled Amcerican group wants them to have the same luxury that that American can have. First of all, where do those American’s get the time to picket the streets. Shouldn’t they be working?
Oh..that’s right, they have the luxury to picket. Because they make so much money anyway in that job that probably should fire them for missing work to help a cause that only makes sense to a spoiled American.
You might think I’m being a bit harsh, but the truth is…this is the truth.
They should have a TV show: Switch an American family working comfortably with a Chinese family happy with the work they have.
Danni,
Americans also have the luxury to think for themselves [though few of them actually do], rather than accepting the values handed to them by advertisements and state-run media, i.e., unabated greed and desire for modern goods. I’ve spent quite a bit of time at factories in southern China for work, and conditions aren’t as bad as protesters imagine, I’ll agree. They even have nice recreation facilities and motel-like accomodations at some. But please, do tell me why you think it makes sense for a farmer to stop producing food for his/her family, leave home and kids for 11 months out of the year to work for piddlings, and return to a broken home with nought but a few modern trinkets to show for it? Progress my arse. As much as China glorifies its worker-oriented tradition and social engineering, they’ve got a stinking mess of a dysfunctional society outside the gleaming walls of its corporate towers and mega-malls. The greatest asset of Chinese culture is its strong family ethic, and this is quickly dissolving. Only time, greater press freedom, and a handful of altruistic people such as these ‘annoying protesters’ can possibly reveal these irreversible mistakes to the world before it is too late.
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