“Apple has issued a statement in response to the Mail On Sunday’s claims regarding working conditions within the facilities of some of its Chinese iPod manufacturing partners. ‘Apple is committed to ensuring that working conditions in our supply chain are safe, workers are treated with respect and dignity, and manufacturing processes are environmentally responsible,’ the statement explains,” Jonny Evans reports for Macworld UK.
“The company also explains that it is, ‘currently investigating the allegations regarding working conditions in the iPod manufacturing plant in China.’ Apple stresses that: ‘It does not tolerate any violations of its supplier code of conduct which are posted online,'” Evans reports.
Full article with link to the “Apple Supplier Code of Conduct” here.
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Related article:
iPods made in Chinese sweatshops? – June 13, 2006
I really don’t believe Apple at any stage would employ people in the conditions that were written in the original story. I’m sure Apple will investigate the claimed manufacturing plant and if it finds conditions as were told in that story they will shutdown the plant immediately and never let that supplier do business with them again and possibly report them so they never do business ever again. I worked for Apple for 12 years and they always had better than average working enviroments.
Apple is Apple and not Walmart or any of those other companies. Apple is a much higher class of a company than Walmart would ever be. If some little company in China is trying to pull a fast one on Apple, there will be no mercy from Apple if they find out any of these so called allagations are true. Everyone knows how intolerant Apple is when it comes to making even the slightest noise about new products, just imagine how much more intolerant they would be if such allegations are investigated and found true. In the end Apple will surely come out with the truth and I have a big feeling that whom ever is working in China is probably treated better at Apple than most other companies there. If Apple finds that these allegations are false I feel sorry for the publication company that will find themselves in hot water for making false statements that are damaging to the company just to get a story out. I wouldn’t doubt that some have stooped so low as to do this either.
I’m sitting here in Hangzhou, not far from Suzhou where ipods are made and have been to Shenzhen, where the other factory is. While “China” may be a very vague and undifferentiated (and sinister) concept to those who’ve never been here, those more familiar with the place will readily understand that residence and work in either Suzhou or Shenzhen is both highly prized and competitive, with workers from large geographic areas vying in a free market to sell their labor to companies in these places. There surely are sleazy, undesirable workplaces in China, but working for a huge multinational company near Shanghai or Hong Kong is not likely to be one of them!
Apple employs a company in Taiwan to make it’s iPods. The Taiwanese company outsources or contracts to a company in mainland China. The Chinese company employs the women in question.
The women in question make better money and work and live in better conditions than other women in the same area. That’s all any worker can ask for. There is a waiting list for their jobs if they want to quit.
What about all the other MP3 player manufacturers?
How are the Creative Zen facilities?
We took a tour to find out…
Here we are in a small facility, with 4 assembly stations. We approached several workers (who seemed to be on break) and asked them how it was to work there.
“It’s good here. We make about 50 Creative Zens a day between the four of us. Not much to do, just snap the flimsy plastic components together and your done.” said worker Hui Liu. “We handle the entire production run for Creative without much effort on our part. The air conditioning is good although we do pay for it out of our salary because apparently no one really wants the products made here. The boss says Creative is ‘bleeding money’ but I don’t bother myself much with international business, I just stick to my work.”
When asked which part of the process he works on, he said “I install buttons and sliders.” The cheap iPod rip-offs bristle with all manner of buttons that manage every little niggling feature, as opposed to being elegantly accessed via the click wheel and menus on the iPod.
The workers took their 3 hour break and played Nintendo for the duration of my visit.
————-
(In all seriousness, Apple, and all businesses, should do their double damnedest to make sure no companies in the supply chain abuse workers.)
^ Sorry to imply any insincerity, all I meant by “lip service” is that this is just the kind of statement you would expect any company to make. This is a heck of a sight better than Nike which denied and ignored claims for years.
One last note:
“The women in question make better money and work and live in better conditions than other women in the same area. That’s all any worker can ask for. There is a waiting list for their jobs if they want to quit.”
That the job may be better relative to other possible jobs does not excuse a violation of human rights or any other exploitive working conditions that warrant the term “sweatshop”. That logic fails.
Just because the sweatshop you work in gives you a nintendo in the break room and the workers in the sweatshop across the street would switch places with you in a second, does NOT mean your sweatshop is not still sweatshop.
There’s a thin line of morality that divides the very existene of Apple products with the market system economy. In the competitive consumer elecronics industry, Apple likely can’t afford NOT to have their products made for those wages in that part of the world. That being said, I think all companies should do their best to ensure best conditions they can given their market constraints.
Thus the capitalist message we mac geeks send to these places is, “I’d rather have my iMac at an affordable price, then you work with free air conditioning.” Relativity does not excuse this reality, but we all live with it every day. Let’s hope Apple can improve conditions as best it can, the rest of us can donate to a number of charities or NGO’s if we feel so moved.
Wha?.. No MDN “take”?
you cannot apply rules that work in your part of the world to places like china. they have a different mindset, a different mentality.
if you put every worker up in his/her own house, paid them once a month: they would not how to deal with that situation. conditions that would be unacceptable in europe or the us are the norm in many asian countries!
stop believing that your morals are the only ones that count in the world!
^^^^^ getreal, you are a scumbag.
Asia has a high tolerance for abusing its own, (or putting up with hard conditions), it seems, but this doesn’t mean YOU or I or the REST of the world need to take advantage of that.
It’s people like you that make sex tourism such a problem over their. I have no doubt you would apply a similar logic to abusive sex over there if your d1ck starts twitching. It’s “God’s blindspot”, right?
Screw you and your mock morals.
This issue is getting a bunch of (negative) press. Why not more of it linked to by MDN? Here’s one:
http://www.forbes.com/2006/06/15/apple-ipod-china-cx_po_0615autofacescn06.html
There about 63 others listed on Google News.
to “getreal sux”: too obvious from your post that you are american…
thanks for the laugh & the spelling…
how much time have you spent in asia? how much time have you spent researching sex tourism first hand, and not in some pseudo-liberal bullsh*t publication?
you really are too funny…