Fisher Capital Management: Disturbing Labor Conditions at Apple Factories in China
Apple is now facing a major PR disaster as threats of boycotting their iPads and iPhones started circulating online in the wake of their outsourcing partner’s labor violations as a result of a warning review from Fisher Capital Management.
Apple’s largest contract manufacturer, Foxconn Electronics Inc, has a plant in southern China which is the center of worker maltreatment controversy that caused a stir in the US tech industry.
Foxconn workers reportedly suffer in working long shifts in hazardous conditions with very few of the labor rights we normally have. There were also reports of explosions in an iPad factory in China that killed 4 and an iPhone factory where 137 were injured after using a dangerous chemical to clean iPhone screens.
This month, Apple even took a strange step of publicizing a list of companies in their global supply chain as part of their 2011 human rights conditions review. The report revealed that more than 60% of the 230 facilities they are in parternership with do not comply with their 60-hour per week optimum working policy — around one third even have a problem with dangerous chemicals and waste.
Apple has issued a statement that says they care about every single worker in their supply chain and that any concern on working conditions is definitely troubling. However, they denied the accusations and called them offensive.
Foxconn has a huge facility in Shenzhen, China, which is more spacious than American cities, employing around 400,000 people. They even have on-site restaurants, security, movie theaters, fire station, swimming pool and other modern facilities you can normally see in a city.
Apple profited to the tune of billions of dollars, partly because of the cheap Chinese labor costs. Others from Fisher Capital Management are voicing concern about all the workers that have died just to build the iPad/iPhone you are now using.
China is now the global manufacturing hub, but not only because of the low labor costs, it’s also because manufacturers there are not held accountable to bad practices that nobody will tolerate in the US.
It might be true that China wants economic growth and they are surely getting it — but with the expense of its citizens.
