“How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work” and “In China, the Human Costs That Are Built Into an iPad” It’s ironic and disheartening that the company that set out to change the world could accomplish the task only by employing vendors who subject workers to slave-labor wages and an Orwellian work environment.
With all due respect to the late, great Steve Jobs, if the famous 1984 Super Bowl commercial for Apple were reshot, the image of Big Brother on the giant screen might fittingly be his own.
In stark contrast to its counterculture origins, Apple seems to have evolved into the embodiment of everything it once despised — a greedy, callous, ruthless behemoth beholden only to fund managers who demand incremental profits every quarter at any cost.
I’m grateful that American workers do not have the “flexibility” or “diligence” of those who are manufacturing our electronics overseas.
Your articles and other investigations of the Foxconn plant in China where Apple products are made have noted terrible conditions there: under-age workers; a rash of suicide attempts by employees; workers stuffed into overcrowded dormitories; serious injuries and even death as a result of poor safety standards.
If we don’t want workers’ lives to look like this, we can’t be unscrupulous as consumers.
I can pay more for humanely produced beef. Maybe it’s time for stickers certifying humanely produced electronics.
I beg to differ with what Jennifer Rigoni, former supply demand manager for Apple, said about the American work force: “What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?”
I actually think that we have a huge population that would relish factory and dormitory life. We have many immigrants, recently discharged service members, homeless veterans and recent high school graduates who would gladly accept a roof over their heads, warm meals and a steady job.
But to employ this highly motivated work force, we need to improve our immigration policies and train our workers. Apple could use some of its $400,000 in profit per employee to lobby for immigration and education reform, and to build factories and train its work force on American soil.
Has Apple ever wondered who could afford to buy its products if Americans aren’t working?
Your series about Apple’s overseas manufacturing suggests that production in the United States is ultimately uncompetitive with China because of shortcomings in engineering talent, lack of low-wage worker drones at the ready, and a resulting inability to rapidly scale up (or down) when necessary.
For big business, you nailed it. However, for many small and midsize companies, the appeal of domestic manufacturing is extremely strong. Low-cost technology, lean manufacturing and rising freight costs have enabled aggressive entrepreneurial companies to succeed against the mass-production Chinese machine.
Domestic manufacturing, though, is no longer synonymous with jobs creation — at least, not the assembly line jobs that for generations defined the middle class. Government policies cannot alter this evolution. A paradigm shift has occurred, in which production jobs have been supplanted by marketing, design, engineering, finance and other more skilled roles.
It may be too late for an entire generation of wrong-skilled labor. But for American manufacturing, the next chapter holds extraordinary promise.
The Republican argument that unfettered capitalism will solve American unemployment dissolves as a myth when corporate executives observe, as one Apple executive did: “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”
If corporations don’t care, the government must.
