He likes the benefits of keeping manufacturing costs low by using slave labor in China while also keeping prices high by introducing “new” models with only middling incremental technological tweaks.
Sigh. For the umptyumpth time. . . The wages paid at FoxConn, Apple’s assembler in China, which is a publicly traded Taiwanese corporation, not owned by the Communist Chinese government, when compared to the overall economic cost of living in China, are comparable to factory wages in the US and other industrialized countries when compared to those countries’ costs of living.
The workers who are employed by FoxConn have freely applied to work there and in fact have freely queued up by the thousands to apply for each and every job opening that becomes available because they are sought after jobs, which pay well, and offer good benefits. They are not forced to work there.
In fact, Apple has specified in its contract with FoxConn that the workers on its line are paid at a higher rate than those on the lines of any other consumer electronics devices made by FoxConn. Now be aware that FoxConn is the assembly contractor for approximately 60% of all consumer electronics sold in the world, contracting with over 600 name brands.
When there are more openings for jobs on Apple’s assembly lines at FoxConn, workers again queue up by the thousands to apply for what you call “slave labor.” It is not. That is a misrepresentation based on ancient history for 30 years ago and propaganda from China Labor Watch, a non-profit based in New York City.
The fact is that Apple products are assembled and manufactured in many countries including China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Brazil, Ireland, and the United States, contrary to your ignorant claim that Apple uses “slave labor.”
Apple places it’s own compliance monitoring staff on site on assembly and production lines to monitor working conditions, hours, employee ages, and worker complaints no matter in what country they are employed. Apple has pulled multi-billion dollar contracts from suppliers who employed underage workers and transferred to contract to the next lower bidder due to contract violation. So your “slave labor” propaganda is just that: propaganda. . . And proven so, multiple times over.
Don’t even try to bring up the suicide claims which were totally bogus propaganda also. Why? Because the suicide rate at it’s highest at FoxConn was TEN TIMES LOWER than the overall suicide rate of the general population rate for China in general, and 21 times lower than the suicide rate among people of the same age cohorts at American Ivy League Universities. It was a propaganda campaign by that same China Labor Watch! At the peak, the suicide rate at FoxConn was lower than 1 per 100,000 workers per year, and, pepsi_junkie, not a single one of the reported suicides occurred at an Apple Assembly line plant. The reported attempts and actual suicides occurred among workers working on Sony PlayStations, Microsoft Xboxes, Nokia phones, and HP Computers.
So, quit promulgating a lie.