Workers describe noxious hazards at Apple supplier Catcher Technology’s China factory

MacDailyNews ^ | January 16, 2018

[Swordmaker]

“At a Catcher Technology Co. manufacturing complex in the Chinese industrial city of Suqian, about six hours’ drive from Shanghai, workers stand for up to 10 hours a day in hot workshops slicing and blasting iPhone casings for Apple Inc., handling noxious chemicals sometimes without proper gloves or masks,” Bloomberg News reports. “These conditions — some described in a report Tuesday by advocacy group China Labor Watch and others in Bloomberg News interviews with Catcher workers — show the downside of a high-tech boom buoying the world’s second-largest economy. Chinese recruiters play up the chance to build advanced consumer electronics to attract the millions of typically impoverished, uneducated laborers without whom the production of iPhones and other digital gadgets would be impossible.”

“Hundreds throng a workshop where the main door only opens about 12 inches. Off duty, they return to debris-strewn dorms bereft of showers or hot water. Many go without washing for days at a time, workers told Bloomberg,” Bloomberg News reports. “‘My hands turned bloodless white after a day of work,’ said one of the workers, who makes a little over 4,000 yuan a month (just over $2 an hour) in her first job outside her home province of Henan. She turned to Catcher because her husband’s home-decorating business was struggling. ‘I only tell good things to my family and keep the sufferings like this for myself.'”

“An Apple spokeswoman said the company has its own employees at Catcher facilities, but sent an additional team to audit the complex upon hearing of the CLW’s impending report,” Bloomberg News reports. “After interviewing 150 people, the Apple team found no evidence of violations of its standards, she added. Catcher, which gets almost two-thirds of sales from Apple, said in a separate statement it too investigated but also found nothing to suggest it had breached its client’s code of conduct.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s Supplier Responsibility report is here.

SEE ALSO:
Apple reviewing new claims of supplier’s labor violations in China – September 4, 2014

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “James W.” for the heads up.]

[Swordmaker]

I think this is the start of FUD season before the Apple Financial Report on February 1st. . . an attempt to depress the stock price.

The photos of the “dormitories” are stock photos China Labor Watch published SEVEN YEARS AGO when they were attacking FoxConn. The report video report from China Labor Watch, instead of using the name FoxConn for then was using HonHai, FoxConn’s mother company, to obfuscate the information and also brought up the well debunked 2010 suicide story which they ALSO brought up and laid at Apple’s doorstep even though the minor spate of suicides (suicide rate of less than 1 in 100,000 per year among FoxConn’s more than one million employees over an 18 month period of which ZERO were working on Apple products), and then went on to claim that APPLE had on-going problems with working conditions in China and that Apple had moved production to China for profit motives. ALL without noting that ALL tech companies had done so.

Bloomberg noted that the “80 dBl noise in the Catcher factory was about the same as any average factory.”

This is a hit piece. FUD!

[Swordmaker]

SHEESH! It's FUD Season in advance of the Apple Financial Report on February 1, 2018. The photo's that accompanies this ChinaLaborWatch hit piece on Apple supply chain manufacturer Catcher Technology Co, a company that does finishing work on iPhone frames, as well as work for other companies. However, the photos that accompany the ChinaLaborWatch of supposed dormitories are identical to photos used seven years ago for other hit pieces. CLW has been exposed before for faking evidence including using fake translations of worker interviews and even video tapes of other factories being misrepresented as video of targeted companies in propaganda. ChinaLaborWatch is headquartered in New York. Apple has it's own employee monitors in all supply chain locations to prevent such work abuse. — PING!

Apple FUD Season Opens
Ping!

The latest Apple/Mac/iOS Pings can be found by searching Keyword "ApplePingList" on FreeRepublic's Search.

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me

[datura]

That’s nicer than the dorm my wife stayed in years ago working in Beijing exporting ceramics.

If you think that is a hit piece, you don’t know jack or sh_t about China, and jack left the building.

[Swordmaker]

If you think that is a hit piece, you don’t know jack or sh_t about China, and jack left the building.

Trust me, it's a hit piece. The people it is aimed at will think ill of Apple based on what this portrays about working and living conditions compared to what THEY think they should be based on American standards, not China standards. They don't understand international comparisons or baselines of living standards.

For example, they will be outraged to learn that workers at this factory are paid a little more than the equivalent of $2 an hour, not grasping that is a GOOD wage in China given the overall cost of living. When you take that into account, it's the equivalent of earning about $24 to $26 an hour in the USA. , , but THOSE readers and viewers won't know that.

Apple assures that workers in its plants are paid better than workers who toil for other contract assemblers. It's part of the contract. They also assure that working conditions are better. To do this, Apple places monitors in ever suppliers' factory and plant to watch to assure these obligations are met.

Apple has even pulled multibillion dollar contracts from companies that have not fulfilled their end of these obligations and placed the contract with others who would do so..

The purpose of these FUD articles is to force the price of AAPL (Apple's stock) down, and to generate donations to ChinaLaborWatch, a NewYork based non-profit that does NOTHING for Chinese workers except raise money to pay their executives in the US. . . this pattern has been going on for years.

They were the organization that provided Michael Daisey with his information for "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" another FUD hit piece that had to be PULLED from the NPR when it turned out his sources were made up, his videos from CLW were faked, etc. They retracted it with a lot of egg on their faces and disavowed it after promoting it for several weeks in advance.

The three weeks before any major Apple event, these FUD articles start appearing. it's like clockwork. . . they are very predictable. . . and follow this pattern.

[rdcbn]

Yeah, two dollars an hour is really good money in China, especailly that area of China.

The dorm rooms are a mess and some people lack personal hygiene, but that is Chinese culture

[PIF]

Agreed. Catcher Technology Co makes lots of stuff for lots of other companies besides Apple.
Catcher Technology Co Product lists

[PIF]

And in the coming years, all these naysayers can personally tour the ‘evil’ Foxconn plant(s) in Racine County Wisconsin, where impoverished downtrodden Foxconn plant workers earn $50K a year to start ...

[mad_as_he$$]

Bloomberg noted that the “80 dBl noise in the Catcher factory was about the same as any average factory.”

Maybe in the last century.

[csvset]

The rooms are a mess. The room looks spacious compared to living spaces on Navy ships.

[rlmorel]

LOL, even though the spaces on the ships were cleaner, they were packed a lot tighter, as I am sure you know.

A guy’s feet at your head, a guy’s head at your feet, a guy to your side breathing into your face, a guy above you, and one below you...:)

All of them snoring, farting, mumbling...ah, the good old days!

Heheh, and they would issue you one little three foot section of blue curtain that would go down to your forearm level...and you had to deal on the blue curtain “black market” to obtain more sections that you could string together so you could surround your rack, then you had to put your pillow in your rack when you went to work because people would steal pillows...