“Apple’s iPods are made by mainly female workers who earn as little as £27 per month, according to a report in the Mail on Sunday yesterday. The report, ‘iPod City’, isn’t available online. It offers photographs taken from inside the factories that make Apple music players, situated in China and owned by Foxconn,” Macworld UK reports. “The report claims Longhua’s workers live in dormitories that house 100 people, and that visitors from the outside world are not permitted. Workers toil for 15-hours a day to make the iconic music player, the report claims. They earn £27 per month. The report reveals that the iPod nano is made in a five-storey factory that is secured by police officers.”
Macworld UK reports, “Another factory in Suzhou, Shanghai, makes iPod shuffles. The workers are housed outside the plant, and earn £54 per month – but they must pay for their accommodation and food, ‘which takes up half their salaries,’ the report observes. A security guard told the Mail reporters that the iPod shuffle production lines are staffed by women workers because ‘they are more honest than male workers.'”
Full article here.
“The situation is too murky for a rush to judgment on Apple’s ethics here, and it may well meet minimum global standards. But for a company that has staked its image on progressive politics, Apple has set itself up as a potential lightning rod on global labor standards. Sweatshops came back to bite Nike after its customers rose up in arms; and Apple can expect a similar grilling from its upscale Volvo-driving fans in the months ahead,” Leander Kahney writes for Wired News. “Tech companies’ records in China are in the spotlight for a wide variety of human rights issues. Google and Yahoo have weathered a lot of criticism — quite rightly — for censoring search results and cooperating with the Chinese authorities cracking down on dissidents. I’m not naïve enough to expect companies to behave morally like individuals, but I find Google’s corporate mantra ‘Don’t be evil’ to be especially galling. They dropped that one pretty quick.”
“All of this should put Apple on notice that doing business in China in anything less than an exemplary fashion is a recipe for a PR disaster,” Kahney writes. “Apple is just one of myriad companies using Chinese factories to make its products. And of course, it does so purely because of China’s low wages and other costs. The iPod is assembled by Invatec and Foxconn, two manufacturers headquartered in Taiwan that own factories in China and elsewhere. Foxconn is a trade name of Hon Hai Precision Industry, a $16 billion giant and one of the largest electronics manufacturers in the world, which makes everything from Playstations for Sony to iPods for Apple. Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the pro-globalization International Institute for Economics, said Hon Hai has an ‘excellent reputation.’ He says factories in China operated by big global companies like Hon Hai are very different from smaller, indigenous operations. International giants usually enforce the same work practices in China as they do in other parts of Asia, or Europe and United States, according to Lardy.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Regardless of the story’s validity (we need to know more from more sources first), Apple should make sure that the people who are assembling Apple products in China and all other countries are treated better than the accepted base standards. It’s good business, it’s the right thing to do, and it’s what we expect of Apple.
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Where’s Nick?
What would they make if they weren’t making iPods, soccer balls at $14 a month, or nothing at nothing a month?
Kake that pounds–even better.
How many of us Americans would pay an extra $100 for a special-edition “made in the USA” iPod if we had a choice? Probably not very many, but maybe enough to be sustainable…
MMMMM ! bad for the spelling police.
This is exactly what happens in every country during an industrial revolution. Anyone take 8th grade US history and study about the mills in Lowell, Massachusetts and other places? People, usually young women, were working 16+ hour days for low wages…. BUT, they were making more than most workers at the time AND the horrible labor conditions forced reforms that protected future workers. The same thing is happening in China. Give it time.
“If it was made by American workers, we’d have to pay nearly $1,000 USD per iPod just to cover parts and labor.”
I really wonder how much it would cost to make in the USA. The article is just talking about assembling the iPods. How much time does it take for each iPod to be assembled? An hour? If people were making $10 per hour here instead of $.10 per hour there, why would it cost three times as much money for each iPod? Seriously, help me understand the math.
MDN take on this: right on the head of the nail. Apple always strives to be THE better company. They shouldn’t behave differently and we as customers should expect nothing else when it comes to the rights of their Chinese workers.
Almost every other piece of computer technology is made in exactly the same shops.
Why is everyone blaming Apple? The industry has forced every manufacturer to do the same thing.
Where are Dells made? Duh.
I agree with ChinaGuy. The fact is unlike the U.K, Europe or the U.S.A. many countries do not have social support. If you don’t work you starve. Multinationals like Apple offer wage rates far higher than local employers that’s why there are massive waiting lists to be employed by the multinationals. The multinationals also offer better working hours and standards than is offered locally. FACT.
To compare wage rates in the developing world to those of the U.K. or U.S. is illogical and ignores the basis of world trade. The most efficient manufacturing plant in the world can’t compete if it’s based in Iceland where a coffee costs $15!
In the end the best way to enhance the wealth of everybody is through free trade, and yes I know that the agenda of all governments is to distort the free market in their countries favour. That’s why trade rounds always stagnate. Get rid of ALL tarrifs and let the free market decide. Yeah, like that’s going to happen
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There would be no Apple if all their products were manufactured and assembled in the USA.
There would only be companies that build everything in China.
To Nick.
I see you missed something in your basic math. Assume it takes one hour to assemble an iPod. If you pay someone $10/hour in USA, and $.10/hour in Asia, then each iPod costs $9.90 more at the manufactured level. That’s 100x as much. I think that’s correct. I’m a designer, not a mathematician.
Costs escalate as they go through the manufacturing and distribution process. Ever wonder why you pay $25 for a spindle of blank CDs that can cost the manufacturer no more than a penny (okay, maybe a nickel) each? That $9.90 gets magnified any number of times, and could easily ramp the retail cost of the product up to three (or even more) times the current cost.
I think the poor condition of Chinese workers is especially galling when you consider that the “People’s Republic” of China is supposed to be communist. You know, “worker’s paradise”? To see workers exploited in such a nation really puts the lie to the whole regime.
“Why are people so eager to jump on this anti-
corporate, bleeding heart bandwagon?”
Why is it when people stand up for what’s right and good, ethically and morally, suddenly it’s a bleeding heart story. So I guess what we can assume from Thorin and people like him is he’s all for the exploitation of people for corporate profit.
Thorin says YAY SLAVERY!
Coming soon to a country near you.
I don’t know about everyone else here but after a single woman has paid for her the rent, her monthly grocery bill, her transit passes and her medical insurance I doubt if many of them have $50 left over.
These Chinese workers are better off than most undereducated North American workers. Ask any waitress.
MACROMANCER:
Please understand me. I am VERY against exploitation of the downtrodden. One of my main personal interests is the rotten situation in China and the DPRK (North Korea). My point is that everyone is so eager to BELIEVE IT. Publish something negative and most people swallow it whole without question. I do not make light of the situation in China and elsewhere. But if you want to express compassion for the Chinese, look to the countryside where farmers are starving while industry poisons thier farmland. The factory workers have it best. WAKE UP!
“I see you missed something in your basic math. Assume it takes one hour to assemble an iPod. If you pay someone $10/hour in USA, and $.10/hour in Asia, then each iPod costs $9.90 more at the manufactured level. That’s 100x as much. I think that’s correct. I’m a designer, not a mathematician.”
Oh my God this is so depressing.
Okay, I’ll start over: if it takes an hour to assemble an iPod, then that’s $10 of labor here or $0.10 of labor in China. So how would a $299 Chinese-assembled iPod then cost $1000 to assemble in the USA? I’ve only seen a $9.90 cost difference so far, not a $701 price difference.
iPod.
iSlave.
Steve Jobs has said that stealing is bad karma many times in reference to digital music & the same applies to the labor of people in poor & developing countries.
Communist China (not the Republic of China) is full of companies that exploit people and entrap them with low wages and mandatory dormitory fees. These people have few,if any, workplace safety protections and no right to organize for better wages and working conditions. It’s the 1800’s all over again, only in an oligarchy masquerading as a communist worker’s state.
Most of the people working in these factories are peasants, mostly very young adults) from rural China, driven to the cities to find work and to help support their families. They quickly find themselves trapped in a system stacked against them and designed to keep their prospects and wages low.
The factories have few, if any, environmental regulations and most pollute at a rate far greater than the factories in the developed world that they have replaced. Water and Air quality have suffered greatly in China over the last 15 years as a result.
A peasant’s labor is about all that they have to sell, and they should not be exploited as they try to feed their families and school thier children. The ChiComm government and a long list of western companies are stealing from these people. Paying them below subsistence wages in a repressive and tightly controlled labor market is theft of their labor plain and simple.
Apple and all other western companies have an obligation to see to it that the people making their products are paid a living wage and are treated fairly.
Put your liberal ideas and ideals to work Steve.
I believe this is decent to good pay in China. I’ve been to Bejing, Guangjoh, and Harbin. With 1.6 billion people, there are fewer good jobs to choose from, and this is probably considered a good and steady job there at decent wages, and with Apples market share and quality product, the job should be long-term.
The US dollar to yuan is somewhere around 8to1 last I checked. Funny how the price changes on the street when an American buys an ice cream or gets a taxi there. They love US dollars, but always hold them up to the sun to see if they are counterfeit. Quality clothes and food are so so cheap there, so bring an empty suit case if you go.
This is bullshit.
This story is applicable to every company that has products manufactured in China not just Apple.
And if you ask the folks working there, their standard of living is IMPROVING!
Furthermore- it’s inevitable that (just like what happened in – Japan, Taiwan, Korea, India) their incomes and lifestyles will continue to improve.
This is how Capitalism will supplant Communism in China.
S
According to iSuppli:
Market research firm iSuppli set out to satisfy the curiosity by buying the $199 2-gigabyte version of the Nano and tearing it apart. The verdict? It costs Apple $90.18 in materials to build the unit and $8 to assemble it, leaving a profit margin before marketing and distribution costs of about 50%. That’s consistent with the margins on earlier iPod versions and serves as a reminder of what a profit machine the iPod family of products has become for Apple since it was introduced in 2001.
$8.
$0.31: The legal hourly minimum wage in China
$0.23: Average hourly wage at 15 Chinese factories making clothing, shoes,
and handbags to be sold at U.S. Wal-Mart stores, 2001
73: Average number of hours worked per week by employees at those 15
factories
Take a look inside the China the iPods come from. The program is about Wal-Mart’s suppliers in China, but the situation is the same. In Real Media from PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/view/4_hi.html
Nick- It’s not just the cost associated with assembling the iPod. You need to look at the entire supply chain.
Most of the subcons are probably Chinese as well so they are also cheaper. Add in the logistics costs of sourcing close to the assembly point and the costs implications become quite clear.
Much cheaper in developing nations.
My prediction of the next Mfg Mecca- (once China becomes too expensive) Africa.
As I suspected, Steve Jobs is the devil incarnate. He can’t compare to the saintly acts of Gates and should use him a role model.