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They stand until their legs swell and they can’t walk, and they perform repetitive motions on the production line for so long that some permanently lose the use of their hands.
According to the New York Times, that’s what life is like for people working at a factory in Shenzhen, China, where Apple manufactures iPhones, iPads and other devices. To cut costs, managers even make workers use cheap chemicals that cause neurological damage.
Apple is hyper-conscious of its brand and reputation — so after this unprecedented international scrutiny, they’re scrambling to persuade the world they care about their employees. There’s never been a better time to demand Apple look after its employees.
Mark Shields, a self-described member of the “cult of Mac,” started a global petition on Change.org demanding Apple exert its influence on its suppliers to improve working conditions — click here to sign Mark’s petition right now.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Down with Asian exploiters, I say. You order lamb and you get cat.
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But does it taste like chicken?
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I got that one in the email. But I dislike the idea that I am calling for the company to change when I have bought their products. It seems like a false conscience to threaten the company if you bought their products. I guess that my choice not to take action in this way necessitates me to think before I make another purchase, to research the social behaviour of the company and to realize that whatever I buy is going to be doing damage. The alternative, in other words, is to feel bad, rather than to sign away my necessity to do so.
Gerard, are you sure your new phone is not just hanging around reading this stuff, waiting till you’re good and frightened before making an entrance?
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I spoke to this Southern Phone Co who left a flyer in my letter box offering this LG Phone for $19.- per month including 100 dollars of free calls. I asked and asked if this was true and she answered Yes.
This leaves me $ 80.- a month in front which seems a dream come true. I don’t think it can be true but will find out once this phone gets delivered. It’s called a LG Optimus Smartphone. It is a bit worrying that according to the picture it does’n’t have dial-up numbers. Perhaps one has to press a button and a keyboard will appear. (like magic)
The irony is that my old Nokia made a complete recovery having suffered first the drama of drowning and then wildly spinning around in a terrible heat condition. The fogged up screen has disappeared and the ringtone is normal. So… life is complicated now and I hope it will all fall into place and that no punishment of any kind will result of my lapse in falling for a new gadget.
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Have recently been looking at second hand Apple products with notion of maybe buying a Mac in tatters. It is a pipe dream as I am myself in time and financial tatters some since I have made purchases recently of basic necessities. I bought among other basics from all over eg an old fashioned AM Loop antenna from the UK because three hours out of Adelaide and I cannot get an AM station on any radio ranging from prehistoric to now and, that, I am so over. The isolation, nay, danger is enough to…drive me to television.
So I searched for two weeks high and low to purchase, borrow, beg a local AM loop antenna of the sort. I went online and searched the neighbouring commercial centres, then Adelaide, second hand sites (gumtree), homeworked the contemporary loop antennas, prices, read pages on radio reception, admired a rip snorter looking home-made backyard business AM antenna on ebay for $80.00 and opted for the exact item I started out to buy that I found new in Nottingham, England for a relative song … after much deliberation on antenna miles, fuel costs, colonialism, a new to me concept of ‘sending home’. What a trauma.
My eye was caught yesterday by the news article about the satellite going up to fill in the broadband gap for the 3% of the Aussie population who cannot get it and I thought for a misguided trilionth of a second it was speaking to me and my radio dilemma that is common to the population of the district.
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Bloody Chinese. They’ll be doing it to the farms they bought over here.
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Yeah, too right Blue. Wait till they hit the APPLE orchards.
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As the recent accidental purchaser of an ‘Apple’ product, to wit, a Chinese I-pod (yes… with a Chinese ‘menu’ etc…) which I ordered as an ‘mp3 player with voice recorder’ before Xmas, but which finally arrived last week, I suppose I really ought to sign your petition… all that holds me back is a recent experience with ‘Change.org’ and Gibson (the musical instrument manufacturers). I’d been persuaded to sign a petition to stop the government hassling Gibson over illegally imported hardwoods on the basis of the heavy-handedness of the US gummint’s approach and treatment of Gibson… then shortly afterwards discovered that Gibson may not have been quite as innocent as they were pretending… (although I’d still choose to believe Gibson over the US govt!)
What troubles me is the apparent ease with which people can be manipulated by just such polls… there are some respects in which the internet has come to resemble a ‘lynch mob’ from the ‘wild west’.
However, this case seems a bit more straightforward; a simple case of exploitation of the workers by unscrupulous employers in the name of profit maximisation… Okay, I’ll sign…
🙂
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Sign of intelligent life when reflex is replaced by reflection.
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Why, Voice, I think that’s quite possibly the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me! Merci bien! Tu me flattes…
😉
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Not much free truck after taking own life. Geez, all those staring at their Apple Ipone getting twinges of guilt, poor Chinese girl wobbling about. A Chinese girl interviewed by Stan Grant of SBS claimed she had never seen an Iphone or tablet in action even though she worked at Apple corporation in China.
My fancy phone must be in the male (mail) by now. Hope LG isn’t made by Chinese girls. I used to do process work in factories years ago. 10.000 bolts on a lathe machine with a counter on it. Terriblement. Only relief was the meat-pie at lunch time.
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I think you’re in the clear on the LG phone with respect to Chinese girls, gerard.
LG phones are manufactured in KOREAN sweatshops. And even though today’s Nokia products are manufactured by Foxconn in Chinese sweatshops, your own Nokia phone is old enough to have been manufactured in a Korean sweatshop as well.
So you can truthfully (if that is a concern) write that you don’t have mobile phones manufactured in Chinese sweatshops. What a relief.
Not so sure about undergarments however. What brand did you switch to when Bonds moved all their manufacturing to China? Have you heard of AussieBum? The concerned citizen’s undergarment brand.
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Read and done. I will put up a link to your article Gez on my Facebook page as well.
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…if that’s okey dokey with you?
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Sure, the more links the merrier.
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Gez, this one has been first championed by our old friend Mike Daisey (the Agony and the Ecstacy of Steve Jobs – performed recently at the Sydney Opera House in the Festival of Dangerous Ideas).
Kind of takes the gloss off my delightful MacBook Air and iPhone 4s.
Also… there was a report from SBS last night about sleep and sleeplessness. Apparently some car dealership in some hick town in the US ran a composition where people competed to win a free new pickup truck. They had to stand with two hands constantly on the truck and as soon as they fell asleep (taking hands off the truck), they were out of the composition. Winning times were about 5 fucking days ! One woman winner worked out that the painful legs could be prevented by shuffle dancing constantly (no mention of food, toilet breaks etc).
Competition was stopped after a losing competitor returned to the competition with a rifle – and took his own life. Hyper-fatigue – a dead certain killer.
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…the nub of ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They’.
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sandshoe, was that not a wonderful movie, it has stayed me, I can still feel the sweat, the desperation of the dancers, top stuff….
In France and in Holland they eat horse meat; I used say to Gerard: They EAT Horses, Don’t They…where you come from 🙂
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Mike Daisey is bloody brilliant. He doesn’t pretend that Apple is the only beneficiary of Asian sweatshops, but by highlighting Steve Jobs he gets the attention of the Apple fanboy demographic while making the issue fashionable for a whole demographic that previously would have dismissed objections as China bashing.
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