Apple hit by boycott call over worker abuses in China

Apple, the computer giant whose sleek products have become a mainstay of modern life, is dealing with a public relations disaster and the threat of calls for a boycott of its iPhones and iPads.

The company’s public image took a dive after revelations about working conditions in the factories of some of its network of Chinese suppliers. The allegations, reported at length in the New York Times, build onprevious concerns about abuses at firms that Apple uses to make its bestselling computers and phones. Now the dreaded word “boycott” has started to appear in media coverage of its activities.

“Should consumers boycott Apple?” asked a column in the Los Angeles Times as it recounted details of the bad PR fallout.

The influential Daily Beast and Newsweek technology writer Dan Lyons wrote a scathing piece. “It’s barbaric,” he said, before saying to his readership: “Ultimately the blame lies not with Apple and other electronics companies – but with us, the consumers. And ultimately we are the ones who must demand change.”

"We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on. Why? Because the system works for us."

A “former Apple executive” speaking to the New York Times about working conditions at suppliers’ plants in China. 

(via officialssay)

theatlantic:

Why the iPhone Isn’t Building a New U.S. Middle Class:

Short answer: it’s not just wages. The vastly different wages paid to American workers, compared to contemporaries in Taiwan or China, is a significant factor in the shift of massive supply chain operations in the tech industry over to Asia, The New York Times says in its in-depth examination of Apple and its suppliers.

Takeaway factoid someone will repeat in your earshot this week: manufacturing the iPhone in the United States would add about $65 to the cost of each unit. Is that worth it?

But it’s not just about the wages. The biggest shocks of the paper’s examination of Foxconn, one of Apple’s major suppliers for the iPhone, are about physical scale, not payscale. The plant known as Foxconn City employes some 230,000 workers, with more than one quarter of them living on-site in company-built dormitories, The Times reports. The kitchens that feed the workers churn out 13 tons of rice per day, and guards work the hallways to prevent workers from trampling one another.

And the most chilling assessments of the U.S. labor market’s inability to share in some of this new manufacturing activity speak to simple inability to compete. 

Read more.

This Just In…

Apple looking to destroy textbooks:

Apple is slated to announce the fruits of its labor on improving the use of technology in education at its special media event on Thursday, January 19. While speculation has so far centered on digital textbooks, sources close to the matter have confirmed to Ars that Apple will announce tools to help create interactive e-books—the “GarageBand for e-books,” so to speak—and expand its current platform to distribute them to iPhone and iPad users.

androphilia:

‘Mass suicide’ protest at Apple manufacturer Foxconn factory | Telegraph

Around 150 Chinese workers at Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, threatened to commit suicide by leaping from their factory roof in protest at their working conditions.

By Malcolm Moore, in Shanghai

January 11, 2012

The workers were eventually coaxed down after two days on top of their three-floor plant in Wuhan by Foxconn managers and local Chinese Communist party officials.

Foxconn, which manufactures gadgets for the likes of Apple, Sony, Nintendo and HP, among many others, has had a grim history of suicides at its factories. A suicide cluster in 2010 saw 18 workers throw themselves from the tops of the company’s buildings, with 14 deaths.

In the aftermath of the suicides, Foxconn installed safety nets in some of its factories and hired counsellors to help its workers.

The latest protest began on January 2 after managers decided to move around 600 workers to a new production line, making computer cases for Acer, a Taiwanese computer company.

“We were put to work without any training, and paid piecemeal,” said one of the protesting workers, who asked not to be named. “The assembly line ran very fast and after just one morning we all had blisters and the skin on our hand was black. The factory was also really choked with dust and no one could bear it,” he said.

Several reports from inside Foxconn factories have suggested that while the company is more advanced than many of its competitors, it is run in a “military” fashion that many workers cannot cope with. At Foxconn’s flagship plant in Longhua, five per cent of its workers, or 24,000 people, quit every month.

“Because we could not cope, we went on strike,” said the worker. “It was not about the money but because we felt we had no options. At first, the managers said anyone who wanted to quit could have one month’s pay as compensation, but then they withdrew that offer. So we went to the roof and threatened a mass suicide”.

The worker said that Foxconn initially refused to negotiate, but that the workers were treated reasonably by the local police and fire service.

A spokesman for Foxconn confirmed the protest, and said that the incident was “successfully and peacefully resolved after discussions between the workers, local Foxconn officials and representatives from the local government”.

He added that 45 Foxconn employees had chosen to resign and the remainder had returned to work. “The welfare of our employees is our top priority and we are committed to ensuring that all employees are treated fairly,” he said.

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2012

[Photo © Club.china.com]

"

The women who are reporting this think it clearly shows that there’s something in Siri’s programming that is against abortion and day-after contraception. Looking at the evidence, it’s hard not to believe they are right.

The coincidences are too many, and the information is readily available all over the web. It seems impossible that Siri can’t provide these answers while it can happily tell you where to find hospitals for any illness or how to get to the closest strip club.

"

Is Siri Pro Life?

Go see Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview, if only for the fact that Jobs would think updating a 16-year-old interview from a dead medium to a dying medium would be the dumbest thing in the world.

(Source: villagevoice)

"

His accomplishments were far-reaching and impossible to easily summarize. But here’s one way of looking at the scope of his achievement: It’s the dream of any entrepreneur to affect change in one industry. Jobs transformed half a dozen of them forever, from personal computers to phones to animation to music to publishing to video games. He was a polymath, a skilled motivator, a decisive judge, a farsighted tastemaker, an excellent showman, and a gifted strategist.

One thing he wasn’t, though, was perfect.

"

What everyone is too polite to say about Steve Jobs (link)

timemagazine:

“We were just sitting, talking about creativity and everyday stuff. I was beginning to build a level of intimacy with him, and then he rushed off, and came back in and plopped down in that pose. He spontaneously sat down with a Macintosh in his lap. I got the shot the first time. We did do a few more shots later on, and he even did a few yoga poses—he lifted his leg and put it over his shoulder—and I just thought we were two guys hanging out, chatting away, and enjoying the relationship. It wasn’t like there was a conceptualization here—this was completely off the cuff, spontaneity that we never thought would become a magazine image.”

- Photographer Norman Seeff reflects on his iconic image of Steve Jobs, now featured on the cover of our special edition issue commemorating the life of the late Apple CEO.