The Dark Under Belly of Apple
Apple is an amazing company. Products, brand, share price, profit. They have shipped more than 200 million iPhones and now make over $400,000 profit per very happy employee that works at Apple. That statistic can be mis-leading though, as it only counts the 63,000 Apple employees that are listed on the books. There are another million (yes, 1,000,000) people that indirectly work for Apple via Foxconn who are the company in China that actually put the devices together.
This is where things begin to look bad on Apple.
These 1 million people in China are paid on average $17 per day for a 12 hour shift, that's just over $1 an hour. Oh, and that is for 6 days a week and a quarter live on site so they don't risk being late for work and can be called upon at a moments notice. This is slave labour whichever way you slice it.
The Apple PR machine has already been all over this stating that many companies use China for manufacturing, and they would be correct in that. However, for a company that now has $100 billion in the bank and is reporting profits at record levels for any company, ever, you may expect a few morals here and there. Apple state their main reason for using China is for their expertise, as there aren't a million skilled workers available in the US. I'd totally agree with that, once you add the caveat of you're only paying $17 for a 12 hour shift, too right you won't find a million people queuing up for those jobs, apart from in China.
Apple also states China's adaptability and speed to get stuff done as a key reason to use them. A classic example of this is when Steve Jobs saw a version of the iPhone in 2007 and just weeks before launch demanded the screen be redone to throw away the plastic screen, and to use real glass that was scratch proof instead. Once news of this redesign hit the Chinese factory the owner rounded up 8,000 workers and built a new production line that was spitting out 10,000 iPhones a day, all within 15 days of hearing the news. It's estimated that a US firm would have taken 6 months to find that many people and amend the production line to cope with the new requirement.
So, Apple uses China because of expertise and flexibility, right?
The only reason Apple use China is because slave labour is legal in China. Foxconn (the company responsible) front it up and state that everything they do is legal and no employee has their human rights violated, but everyone knows that is bullshit. Foxconn can gather 8,000 people in a matter of days because they house them in camps imprisoned by their low wages and terrified of being fired and left homeless and jobless. You don't have to be Chinese to be great at building Apple products, any country in the world could do this and suggesting they couldn't is laughable. Only difference is other countries don't have companies that have 1 million skilled workers who will work all hours, live on site and get paid a pittance.
It's estimated the price of an iPhone would increase by around £50 if the manufacturing moved to the US and paid proper wages. My argument would not to do that, leave it in China and pay those workers a proper salary for the great work they do. For the richest company in the world Apple should be leading the way not only product-wise, but morally as well. They aren't doing this.
And where should that £50 extra charge go? Well, from the Company that made $6 billion in a single quarter, maybe they could eat that up without a price hike for the consumer. If companies such as Apple don't do it, then no one will.
Companies shouldn't have to use slave labour to make huge profits, and from a company who's image is whiter than white, Apple should set an example and ensure workers are paid properly and not bury their heads in the sand any longer.
