It has become the raging news topic, have you caught it? It was not only in the New York Times Sunday front page, which is inserted into the Sunday edition of The Independent. It was also in the Sunday Edition of The Guardian, one of many newspapers in the United Kingdom. A US broadcaster ran a feature length piece on the issue with CBS Sunday Morning. Maybe you missed it, the hot topic is the revelation of working conditions in Apple's factories in China.
I have to be honest with you in that I feel bad for the public relations department at the Cupertino, CA headquarters of Apple, I don't think they are getting much sleep. But then again, maybe for the first time they are beginning to experience the average working day for anyone of the 230,000 employees at their factory in Shenzhen.
The revelations have hit fever pitch at a particularly awkward time as well. Apple just announced their earnings for 2011, $110 billion in revenue, nearly $26 billion in profit. They have become the most valuable company in the world. Move over BP, this tech giant has come to claim the crown. Things get lonely at the top and Apple is perched upon an empire which shows no signs of crumbling anytime soon.
But once you combine their success with what is being reported regarding their factories, run by Foxconn, your stomach should turn. Journalist began investigating the conditions after reports of several suicides and plant explosions emerged. What was thought could only be rumors were confirmed: suicides were rampant with employees throwing themselves off buildings, conditions were terrible as employees cleaned the gleaming computers with toxic chemicals and two explosions killed four and sent nearly 90 to the hospital.
Apple's response? Well, it will go down as a record failure. Foxconn, the managers of the factory, responded by saying the suicide rate at their factories is actually lower than the national average. Plus they've installed safety netting around all buildings to catch any future jumpers. That is so generous!
The pieces also highlighted how Apple went from a company proudly declaring all products were made in the US to having no remaining manufacturing operations on American shores by 2004. An Apple board member responded to the question by saying, "Listen, the Chinese factories give us a flexibility that we could never have in an American factory." He went on to recall how they were able to mobilize several thousand factory workers at 12 midnight to make last minute changes to the iPhone before its launch. The workers, who were awoken from their factory dormitories, were kindly treated to a biscuit and a tea before starting their 12 hour shifts. Did the board member of a major company just say that, really?
We should be clear, Apple is not the only transgressor. There are many more, honestly, take your pick. Anything made over there carries the fingerprint of this brutality. They're all guilty. We're all guilty! How tragic is that? Have we become so engrossed in our rampaging consumerism so as to demean human life to this extent? It was once commented, "We use to use things and love people, now we love things and use people." What a shame. Because while things will always mesmerize and captivate, the most mesmerizing and captivating thing out there is the one made in God's image. That'd be you, me and the factory worker in China.
Seth, I totally agree with the moral outrage over poor working conditions and low wages for much of humanity; I think that we, as Christians, should always be outraged by poverty, and should always seek to share the love of Christ in tangible ways, including structuring our economic decisions around principles of justice, rather than personal pleasure.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I think this issue is a bit more complex, ethically. The article you referenced in the second to last paragraph didn't just state that Apple mobilized several thousand workers overnight, they actually HIRED several thousand. Such rapid hiring by Foxconn is possible for a few reasons. The first is, obviously, unemployed in Shenzhen and similar cities, where people are desperate for any new work opportunity. An equally large factor, however, is that Foxconn has some of the highest wages and best working conditions of any job available in Shenzhen. It's incredibly sad that such is the case, but it is true.
The state of the average factory worker in China is pretty bleak, but it is actually much better than anything that was available even twenty years ago. Making the equivalent of 50 cents an hour while working 12 hour days in a factory is terrible, but it is better than making the equivalent of 30 cents an hour while working 14 hour days on an impoverished and tiny plot of land. The plight of the city manufacturer is simply more visible to us, because we buy the product they produce. The quality of life for a poor Chinese has, on average, greatly increased due to the rise of manufacturing outsourced from the West.
I don't mean, in any way, to exonerate the Tech companies necessarily. But the system is broken in a much more complex way than the factories. By and large, the average, poor Chinese would love to have a job in a factory tied to a Western company, where external scrutiny is far more intense than in non-Western affiliated companies.
You might find the following article interesting: http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/smokey.html
The article is by Paul Krugman, who is anything but a Laissez Faire economist: he's a liberal and a supporter of the welfare state. The Economist has called him "a thinking person's Michael Moore." So coming from him, this is especially interesting. He's totally right, though I wish he'd apply himself to coming up with solutions.
The solutions are probably both more systemic (what to do with corrupt governments, i.e.) and more personal (how is the young church in China addressing this?) than boycotting technology or foreign-made clothing. Not that you suggested any such thing ;).
Anyway, we should talk about it sometime when you're back, cause it's important and confusing. In the meantime, keep up the blogging, I'm really valuing your thoughts as you study over there. In fact, I'm rather jealous!
Hope to talk soon, brother!
I saw some of these reports as well. Interestingly enough, it seems that the whole investigation into the factory conditions was paid for through Apple. Odd. I don't know if you're following the stock market much, but today was a bad one for AAPL stock. Started the day up $18 early (HUGE gain), but plummeted through mid day into the afternoon... finished down $12 (BIG loss). A $30 turnaround within one day is a big deal! This drop off came on the heels of another announcement from a chinese company that claims the legal rights to the term "iPad." They are suing Apple to stop sales of iPads in China... kinda a big deal to the bottom line!
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