In this world, in this moment, if you want companies to "require" all their suppliers, and their supplier's suppliers, and so on, to have safe working conditions, then computers won't be manufactured. Not a single one, from any brand.
Hate to sound like a fanboy, but the very fact that Apple has addressed this issue has put them above and beyond the entire industry.
This type of thing isn't just and electronics industry problem. Running a grain elevator isn't really that safe, and big grain companies spend a lot of time on safety issues for a lot of the same reasons Apple does, but it doesn't prevent the deaths that happen every year (yes, every year in the US). These aren't overall farming deaths, I'm just talking grain elevators.
It isn't as sexy as Apple and it is a problem in the US, but everyone needs to eat. The other electronics companies are probably pretty happy Apple is taking all the heat. It should be interesting when the Brazil plant opens.
Yeah, and the reason is, if you do that, your product costs more, and you will beaten by your competition that doesn't have any problems with using slave labour. We do everything we can to make astronauts safe, but don't do a thing to stop subsidizing our products with the lifes of third world workers. It is precisily in this kind of thing where the goverment should meddle in the economy, like it did when it abolished slavery.
Foxconn makes everybody's stuff. Yet I don't remember ever hearing about how the Xbox is made with "Slave labor". Nor have I ever heard about Microsoft publishing a public report on auditing the conditions of workers in its supply chain.
I'm not bashing Microsoft. I'm just pointing out that the people who keep bringing up this issue are also the same people who use any excuse they can find to claim that Apple is evil, or Apple is going to fail, or whatever.
Frankly, I think the "Supplier Responsibility" report was a mistake. It is Apple giving in to the nonsense from people who are just throwing mud.
Foxconn's jobs are better than most in China, and when they have openings they have massive numbers of people who apply to fill them. These people are not masochists! Obviously Foxconn is offering them a better job than they would get elsewhere.
ITS JUST POLITICS
I think the bottom line on all this is that it is the political left in america, and american unions, picking a target that is high profile and raking muck to try and punish them for using nonunion workers.
We've seen this before-- Target and Walmart have nearly the same policies, but Target is more unionized, while Walmart is less so, and thus we've had a decade of attacks against Walmart from unions.
You don't see the NYT criticizing Sony for using the same workers. You don't see the NYT attacking Target. Or Dell, or HP, or Cisco, or Motorola, or Nokia, or RIM. But, Walmart, Apple, and other high profile company can expect to be regularly smeared.
BUT DON'T POLLUTE HACKER NEWS
But really, is union mud throwing appropriate for Hacker News? Scratch that. Is ANY mud throwing appropriate for Hacker News? Every time Apple comes up some jackwagon is going on about "stupid sheep buying the iThings made with slave labor."
It doesn't belong on Hacker News. This has nothing to do with hacking, startups, or even technology.
It's a purely political issue, and it only servers to pollute the environment here, making discussion of things relevant to hackers less prevalent.
Its getting rare to find stories on HN on hacks, engineering techniques, etc. About the best I can regularly find are "8 ways something helped my startup" and "heres what's happened with my startup" and the occasional "here's a new open source package relevant to hackers." But the least relevant to me of any of those type articles is an order of magnitude better than this "apple uses slave labor" BS.
EDITS
Edit: RE: Unions. Took out an editorial comment about unions because I don't really mean to start a debate about them.
But when it was in, I was not talking about cost differences, they're going to be there always between countries. Unions however make manufacturing more rigid. You can't improve efficiency without risking some segment (generally the workers whose steps are eliminated) striking and the whole workforce walking out. If you can't improve your plants domestically, you're more likely to move them abroad.
Apple, for instance, radically changes the way iPhones are manufactured from generation to generation. Even going so far as to buy large numbers of rare machines. The workforce in china is pretty fluid. They aren't striking because their job changed.
Edit2: I'm not going to rebut claims. To prove me wrong, show me articles attacking other prominent technology companies, then show me how they've been promoted on HN. Show me evidence that the people applying to Foxconn are desperate, not people who have other jobs. All I know is that there are a lot of them applying for each position.
The real point is-- this is Hacker News-- Politico News.
I know to expect downvotes, and this article, as predicted, is collecting a lot of "righteous" outrage that Apple would dare defend itself. But look at those comments.
Even if you agree with them, is this the Hacker News you want?
I don't. Karma be damned, I'm going to take a stand.
I don't think most foxcon workers are actually paid 10$ a day (it's less than that). But, exchange rates are odd things, you can live on 2$ a day worth of food in the US and buying the same food in China gives one exchange rate, but comparing housing gives vary different exchange rates.
Basically, working in one of those factory's sucks more than any job you ever had and pays a lot less. But, in that economy your still far from starvation. If you want a real eye opener just compare how long it takes to buy a lifetimes worth of food in the US. 70 years * 2$ a day * 365 days a year = 51,000$. Clean water is so cheap in the US it's hard to fathom, in much of the world and most of most of history it was a major issue.
Mind if I ask where you get those numbers from? I have seen numbers for base pay, but not base pay + over time or base pay + overtime - taxes. Also, 1750 yuan as base pay still seems rather high after taxes.
Apple had the second biggest quarter by a company ever. It's good journalism to acknowledge not only the great aspects of Apple - design, products, marketing but also acknowledge the unsavory parts of how these companies have to rely on brutal labor conditions to get things done.
Yes, other companies are doing it but it's not the point of the article.
I agree Apple should be criticized for any unfair labor practices that go on under their watch, just like any company should be.
What I think me and many others are starting to wonder is why is it almost always Apple that's singled out? I could probably find 20 items in this room that were made by Foxconn et al and don't have an Apple logo on them. But there seem to be constant articles, radio news segments, one-man plays, etc criticizing Apple's labor practices specifically and nearly none about any other company's products — when there are non-Apple-specific discussions of unfair labor practices, they tend to refer to broad generic terms like "the electronics industry".
My guess is that at least a part of it is because many of Apple's users have such an emotional connection with their Apple devices that go everywhere with them — it "hurts" in a way to hear about one's iPhone being morally questionable in a way that it doesn't to hear the same about your Xbox.
Because apple is one of the most profitable companies in history. Every quarter we see the staggering amount of money they make, and seeing that, many people go "why aren't they paying workers more, why aren't they sucking up the difference and manufacturing in the US?". There are logical answers to those questions, regardless of whether they make moral sense. However until we see other companies posting world-record breaking profits, we will likely see more articles concerning apple's decisions and their human costs.
Edit: I am not making any judgements or criticisms, this is just an observation on why people feel the need to criticize.
It comes with the territory of being the biggest and most secretive. Not to mention the richest. Years ago Nike got a lot of media hate for its sweatshops, I don't see this as a lot different.
Was Nike not particularly egregious in their use of sweatshop labor compared to other shoe manufacturers? Honest question, I don't know. I certainly got the impression at the time that Nike was way worse; if everybody else was doing the same, then I'd say it was also unfair to single Nike out.
No, nike wasn't. If you open a factory in a country that previously had little or no manufacturing sector, offer people jobs at 3-10 times the typical competing wage, and greatly improve the lives of said people, you'll still be accused of running a "sweatshop". However, using the lie "slave labor" against Apple's workers is particularly egregious.
This is really easy to reason out-- why would people work under these "appalling" conditions? Why wouldn't they just stay home or work somewhere else?
Simple: They are vastly better than these alternatives.
The core argument of these people who criticize giving third worlders jobs is that they would rather see those third worlders starve.
If these "sweatshops" weren't significantly better than the alternatives, they would not find any workers.
Of course, that simple truth is irrefutable, so you'll hear all manner of rationalizations about how these people are really masochists.
Of course the really ironic thing about this is, the same people making the "sweatshop" claims are often the same people who supported the brutal regimes (aka "workers paradise") that ultimately lead to the economic destruction that resulted in the "sweatshop" being a vast improvement.
Edit: Unless of course, you consider using giving foreigners jobs instead of local unionized workers to be a "particularly egregious" offense. In that case, nike was.
If the alternative is being unemployed, then people will take any job, no matter how bad it is. That doesn't mean the employer should be applauded just because they realized they could exploit the local labor market.
Labor markets don't evolve via discontinuous jumps to higher levels of pay or better working conditions. It has to be an incremental process. I'm not sure how berating companies that are enabling those incremental improvements for not doing enough is helpful. And using a pejoritve term like 'exploit' rather than 'employ' shuts down meaningful discussion.
Maybe I'm wrong though. Any examples of labor markets magically transforming from 'sweatshop level' to 'McMansion/Country Club level' without going through the intermediate steps?
I disagree. I think it's prudent for hackers to think of the social and environmental costs associated with making great products. Hackers don't live in a vacuum, and even the best of companies should acknowledge that there are costs associated with becoming big and selling to customers all over the world. Moreover, there are some people who wouldn't like to work for a company that disregards or looks down on its workers; after all, that's why many of us young people think that the CS graduates who go on to work at a bank and take advantage of others' bad luck and misfortune are selling out. The GNU and Free Software movement arose out of a similar mindset, where companies were using copyrights and patents to take advantage of their customers and keep them locked in. Hackers should strive not only to make great software and products, but also ensure that they do so responsibly.
The reason we see so many articles about Apple or Walmart mistreating their workers isn't because of any union mudslinging. Unions have plenty of their own problems to take care of, with basic labor rights being called into question and the right to unionize slowly being taken away in states across the country, but that's besides the point. Any company that makes it big and becomes popular with the public will have its practices scrutinized by the media, by socially-conscious individuals, and by competitors. That we haven't heard much about HP or Dell mistreating workers isn't so much because the media is biased, but because those companies have lost mindshare and the public is less incensed when lesser-known companies take advantage of workers in other countries.
While I'd love to work for Apple and have an iPad, iPhone, and MacBook, I also would like to see them help the workers' living and work conditions at Foxconn and their other suppliers. Unfortunately, I also like having great products, and know that I'm a hypocrite for being bothered by the poor conditions in Foxconn factories and yet not caring enough to change or inconvenience myself. This doesn't mean that there aren't others who won't be bothered by this behavior, and it's important for the public to be aware of living and working conditions in the US and elsewhere so that companies are forced to at least respond to the problems that are exposed.
>Frankly, I think the "Supplier Responsibility" report was a mistake. It is Apple giving in to the nonsense from people who are just throwing mud.
Apple started doing these reports after they got a lot of bad press about these same kind of things back in 2006 for iPod manufacturing by FoxConn. Over five years ago. Same problems. Same oppressed China workers. How dare people single out Apple, right?
I've seen stories that either mentioned or headlined that Foxconn makes components for other companies, such as Microsoft and its XBox.
Granted, most stories revolve around Apple but that's probably because they try to portray themselves in a certain way and the reports from Foxconn contradict that image. For example, I don't see many stories from Microsoft talking about their image as a good company that cares about overseas labor so reports out of Foxconn wouldn't be much of a gotcha to blast the company with.
Apple probably follows all the rules and complies with all laws. So, why is there an issue, right?
Well, when a company pushes toward making roughly $1M profit per employee per year, a reasonable person would expect that all people in the supply chain are reasonably well taken care of. Anything less would reek of blatant greed, wouldn't it?
"Foxconn's jobs are better than most in China, and when they have openings they have massive numbers of people who apply to fill them. These people are not masochists! Obviously Foxconn is offering them a better job than they would get elsewhere."
And therein lies the root of the problem: The workers have choice but the entire 'job choice space' is rigidly controlled.
As a country, as a people and especially as business owners that might take advantage of the current climate it is important to realize the full cost of the decisions we make.
Apple likes to imply that you are doing good by buying an Apple product (versus, say, a Dell or Motorola product). As it turns out, this is not the case.
Also, when you're on top, there's no place to go but down.
"Everybody does it," is not consistent with the way Apple has branded itself, e.g. "magical," "nothing else is an iPhone," "think different" and "here's to the..."
In stories about Foxconn, people see a dichotomy between the images of children reading Winnie the Pooh and the sausage factory behind the iPad.
Other companies don't receive the flack in large part because the have not marketed their brands by implying their products are as wholesome as mother's milk.
It does not make it right but I think to make a real change you have to call out everybody who does it. These sorts of articles are really about criticising Apple and hoping to see them fall.
All the other companies will simply continue to do what they are doing while everybody is distracted by Apple.
so we should turn our eyes the other way. really?! it's like saying "everybody does slavery, let's not care"... amazing...if what everybody does is good, great!!! but when it's bad, it should be brought to light in order to stop it.
"ITS JUST POLITICS"
if it's about bad practices being brought to light, i don't care if it's politics or not
"DON'T POLLUTE HACKER NEWS"
don't try to find a "getaway reason" to dismiss an uncomfortable discussion, hackers are not "robots", the more you know about our geopolitical world, the better hacker you are
that being said, good that those bad practices are being shown to the world, it will push Apple and co to do something about it, which in the end will better for everyone
Well I find it patently offensive that your executives make statements like "we aren't here to solve America's problems" when you are an incorporated United States company whose primary userbase is STILL in the United States. You benefit from the freedom, support, and infrastructure set up by a US democracy, and you hire much of your high level talent from the US.
Apple may be a multinational and it may not have customers just in the US -- but you have 60 some odd billion dollars in your bank accounts and you turn to people suffering, starving and dying (out of house and home and not looking for free hand outs but a chance to work hard) and say "we aren't here to solve your problems."
Do you not comprehend the arrogance of such a statement?
Apple pays its employees much better than what they would have been paid working at something else. That's why people flock there for a chance to work. My parents and grandparents are those exact people that would have had a much better quality of life if they had been given a chance to work at places like Foxconn. Luckily, they were able to escape China.
If you are so against it all (basic economics, the history of the world, etc), then don't buy products from Apple or any other company that uses Chinese manufacturing.
Apple has done far more for people than what you will ever do and you have the audacity to critique them. Do you not comprehend the arrogance of your statements?
My point still holds valid since any company that uses Chinese manufacturing instead of US manufacturing would come under fire from you. The thing is, Apple can't get the results they want from companies here and so they go where they can (there was an article about this recently on HN). American consumers get the products they want, China gets the opportunity to improve the quality of life for its citizens, and Apple continues to do what it wants. It's a win win win situation.
You're arguing for companies to use US manufacturing and that's a naive view in the long run. Any student of economics will understand that it's a GOOD thing for the market to not be controlled the way you want (arbitrary limits on where Apple should and should not go). Placing restrictions would make the market not as competitive as it could be and just result in greater inefficiency.
I see Jobs' Reality Distortion Field is still healthy in Cupertino.
To be fair, this isn't an Apple problem; it's the tech industry's dirty little secret. From massive environmental damage as a result of rare earth metal extraction, to deplorable conditions at the factories that make our consumer electronics, to the health calamities at the places where electronics are stripped and recycled for their valuable metals, ours is not the clean industry we like to pretend it is. So again, it's not an Apple thing, but Cook's crocodile tears and affected "outrage" at someone airing our dirty laundry is pretty transparent.
Apple is trying to be transparent about their suppliers and the working conditions there. This is pretty much voluntary, to my knowledge nobody is forcing Apple to release this information.
Now Apple is getting attacked and people are using the facts from their own report as ammunition. Other companies that either don't care at all (don't audit their suppliers) or don't publish this kind of information are safe from this kind of bad publicity.
I don't think this kind of activism is very productive. I would like to see more focus on the things Apple has managed to improve within their suppliers. Some people seem to demand Apple to stop working with suppliers not complying with the regulations. Is this really the best way to improve workers conditions there? The logic seems to be that if Apple is no longer buying from that supplier, it must do some improvements to stay in business. What if it doesn't, what if it just finds another client that does not care?
For all the focus on the negative, what about the fact that millions of people are being lifted up out of abject poverty?
Even a long-hours factory job with some safety risks could be better than facing starvation. Not saying conditions couldn't be improved, but, just to think about the situation in the bigger picture.
I made the assumption based on the idea that industrialization has historically provided better living standards than an agricultural way of life. If that is not actually happening, please forgive me for my ignorance of the situation. Maybe "out of poverty" is the wrong wording and it should be stated as "making life a little less difficult".
I at least would like to hope that the current conditions are a temporary, intermediate step in bigger improvements.
You might be aware that there was a time when the US had pretty bad environmental conditions in many places. In 1969, the Cuyahoga river was so polluted that it caught on fire (http://www.cleveland.com/science/index.ssf/2009/06/cuyahoga_...). In general, pollution had been bad for a long time, but it seems like a "tipping point" had to be reached where the problem was obvious to everyone. Reforms eventually came and succeeded in cleaning things up.
So hopefully, given enough time, the kinds of issues you've described can be solved.
47 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 98.1 ms ] threadWe insist that all of our suppliers provide safe working conditions
Notice the word "insist". How about requiring it? There is a massive difference between insisting and requiring.
And this is after five years of these reports...
Hate to sound like a fanboy, but the very fact that Apple has addressed this issue has put them above and beyond the entire industry.
It isn't as sexy as Apple and it is a problem in the US, but everyone needs to eat. The other electronics companies are probably pretty happy Apple is taking all the heat. It should be interesting when the Brazil plant opens.
Foxconn makes everybody's stuff. Yet I don't remember ever hearing about how the Xbox is made with "Slave labor". Nor have I ever heard about Microsoft publishing a public report on auditing the conditions of workers in its supply chain.
I'm not bashing Microsoft. I'm just pointing out that the people who keep bringing up this issue are also the same people who use any excuse they can find to claim that Apple is evil, or Apple is going to fail, or whatever.
Frankly, I think the "Supplier Responsibility" report was a mistake. It is Apple giving in to the nonsense from people who are just throwing mud.
Foxconn's jobs are better than most in China, and when they have openings they have massive numbers of people who apply to fill them. These people are not masochists! Obviously Foxconn is offering them a better job than they would get elsewhere.
ITS JUST POLITICS
I think the bottom line on all this is that it is the political left in america, and american unions, picking a target that is high profile and raking muck to try and punish them for using nonunion workers.
We've seen this before-- Target and Walmart have nearly the same policies, but Target is more unionized, while Walmart is less so, and thus we've had a decade of attacks against Walmart from unions.
You don't see the NYT criticizing Sony for using the same workers. You don't see the NYT attacking Target. Or Dell, or HP, or Cisco, or Motorola, or Nokia, or RIM. But, Walmart, Apple, and other high profile company can expect to be regularly smeared.
BUT DON'T POLLUTE HACKER NEWS
But really, is union mud throwing appropriate for Hacker News? Scratch that. Is ANY mud throwing appropriate for Hacker News? Every time Apple comes up some jackwagon is going on about "stupid sheep buying the iThings made with slave labor."
It doesn't belong on Hacker News. This has nothing to do with hacking, startups, or even technology.
It's a purely political issue, and it only servers to pollute the environment here, making discussion of things relevant to hackers less prevalent.
Its getting rare to find stories on HN on hacks, engineering techniques, etc. About the best I can regularly find are "8 ways something helped my startup" and "heres what's happened with my startup" and the occasional "here's a new open source package relevant to hackers." But the least relevant to me of any of those type articles is an order of magnitude better than this "apple uses slave labor" BS.
EDITS
Edit: RE: Unions. Took out an editorial comment about unions because I don't really mean to start a debate about them. But when it was in, I was not talking about cost differences, they're going to be there always between countries. Unions however make manufacturing more rigid. You can't improve efficiency without risking some segment (generally the workers whose steps are eliminated) striking and the whole workforce walking out. If you can't improve your plants domestically, you're more likely to move them abroad.
Apple, for instance, radically changes the way iPhones are manufactured from generation to generation. Even going so far as to buy large numbers of rare machines. The workforce in china is pretty fluid. They aren't striking because their job changed.
Edit2: I'm not going to rebut claims. To prove me wrong, show me articles attacking other prominent technology companies, then show me how they've been promoted on HN. Show me evidence that the people applying to Foxconn are desperate, not people who have other jobs. All I know is that there are a lot of them applying for each position.
The real point is-- this is Hacker News-- Politico News.
I know to expect downvotes, and this article, as predicted, is collecting a lot of "righteous" outrage that Apple would dare defend itself. But look at those comments.
Even if you agree with them, is this the Hacker News you want?
I don't. Karma be damned, I'm going to take a stand.
Please, just stop with political crap!
EDIT: OH, right. You're telling politically motiva...
Basically, working in one of those factory's sucks more than any job you ever had and pays a lot less. But, in that economy your still far from starvation. If you want a real eye opener just compare how long it takes to buy a lifetimes worth of food in the US. 70 years * 2$ a day * 365 days a year = 51,000$. Clean water is so cheap in the US it's hard to fathom, in much of the world and most of most of history it was a major issue.
So you think wrong.
The problem are hazardous working condition and excessive over-time, in the end of course repetitive jobs that have no way up.
ex: new recruits would get 1,350 yuan http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/work-j17.shtml
taxes: http://www.beijingobserver.com/income-tax-calculator-china.h...
Not around these parts.
No. It's more likely that there is an undersupply of jobs/oversupply of workers.
If the jobs were better @ Foxconn, you'd see more currently employed people applying.
Yes, other companies are doing it but it's not the point of the article.
What I think me and many others are starting to wonder is why is it almost always Apple that's singled out? I could probably find 20 items in this room that were made by Foxconn et al and don't have an Apple logo on them. But there seem to be constant articles, radio news segments, one-man plays, etc criticizing Apple's labor practices specifically and nearly none about any other company's products — when there are non-Apple-specific discussions of unfair labor practices, they tend to refer to broad generic terms like "the electronics industry".
My guess is that at least a part of it is because many of Apple's users have such an emotional connection with their Apple devices that go everywhere with them — it "hurts" in a way to hear about one's iPhone being morally questionable in a way that it doesn't to hear the same about your Xbox.
Edit: I am not making any judgements or criticisms, this is just an observation on why people feel the need to criticize.
This is really easy to reason out-- why would people work under these "appalling" conditions? Why wouldn't they just stay home or work somewhere else?
Simple: They are vastly better than these alternatives.
The core argument of these people who criticize giving third worlders jobs is that they would rather see those third worlders starve.
If these "sweatshops" weren't significantly better than the alternatives, they would not find any workers.
Of course, that simple truth is irrefutable, so you'll hear all manner of rationalizations about how these people are really masochists.
Of course the really ironic thing about this is, the same people making the "sweatshop" claims are often the same people who supported the brutal regimes (aka "workers paradise") that ultimately lead to the economic destruction that resulted in the "sweatshop" being a vast improvement.
Edit: Unless of course, you consider using giving foreigners jobs instead of local unionized workers to be a "particularly egregious" offense. In that case, nike was.
Maybe I'm wrong though. Any examples of labor markets magically transforming from 'sweatshop level' to 'McMansion/Country Club level' without going through the intermediate steps?
The reason we see so many articles about Apple or Walmart mistreating their workers isn't because of any union mudslinging. Unions have plenty of their own problems to take care of, with basic labor rights being called into question and the right to unionize slowly being taken away in states across the country, but that's besides the point. Any company that makes it big and becomes popular with the public will have its practices scrutinized by the media, by socially-conscious individuals, and by competitors. That we haven't heard much about HP or Dell mistreating workers isn't so much because the media is biased, but because those companies have lost mindshare and the public is less incensed when lesser-known companies take advantage of workers in other countries.
While I'd love to work for Apple and have an iPad, iPhone, and MacBook, I also would like to see them help the workers' living and work conditions at Foxconn and their other suppliers. Unfortunately, I also like having great products, and know that I'm a hypocrite for being bothered by the poor conditions in Foxconn factories and yet not caring enough to change or inconvenience myself. This doesn't mean that there aren't others who won't be bothered by this behavior, and it's important for the public to be aware of living and working conditions in the US and elsewhere so that companies are forced to at least respond to the problems that are exposed.
Apple started doing these reports after they got a lot of bad press about these same kind of things back in 2006 for iPod manufacturing by FoxConn. Over five years ago. Same problems. Same oppressed China workers. How dare people single out Apple, right?
Granted, most stories revolve around Apple but that's probably because they try to portray themselves in a certain way and the reports from Foxconn contradict that image. For example, I don't see many stories from Microsoft talking about their image as a good company that cares about overseas labor so reports out of Foxconn wouldn't be much of a gotcha to blast the company with.
Well, when a company pushes toward making roughly $1M profit per employee per year, a reasonable person would expect that all people in the supply chain are reasonably well taken care of. Anything less would reek of blatant greed, wouldn't it?
And therein lies the root of the problem: The workers have choice but the entire 'job choice space' is rigidly controlled.
As a country, as a people and especially as business owners that might take advantage of the current climate it is important to realize the full cost of the decisions we make.
Also, when you're on top, there's no place to go but down.
In stories about Foxconn, people see a dichotomy between the images of children reading Winnie the Pooh and the sausage factory behind the iPad.
Other companies don't receive the flack in large part because the have not marketed their brands by implying their products are as wholesome as mother's milk.
"Everybody does it" doesn't make it right.
All the other companies will simply continue to do what they are doing while everybody is distracted by Apple.
Apple may be singled out because the contrast of the scandal and their lofty position as market leader makes for a compelling story.
And it seems odd that for someone who calls for a non-political HN chooses to so fierily push his/her own political views.
so we should turn our eyes the other way. really?! it's like saying "everybody does slavery, let's not care"... amazing...if what everybody does is good, great!!! but when it's bad, it should be brought to light in order to stop it.
"ITS JUST POLITICS"
if it's about bad practices being brought to light, i don't care if it's politics or not
"DON'T POLLUTE HACKER NEWS"
don't try to find a "getaway reason" to dismiss an uncomfortable discussion, hackers are not "robots", the more you know about our geopolitical world, the better hacker you are
that being said, good that those bad practices are being shown to the world, it will push Apple and co to do something about it, which in the end will better for everyone
Apple may be a multinational and it may not have customers just in the US -- but you have 60 some odd billion dollars in your bank accounts and you turn to people suffering, starving and dying (out of house and home and not looking for free hand outs but a chance to work hard) and say "we aren't here to solve your problems."
Do you not comprehend the arrogance of such a statement?
If you are so against it all (basic economics, the history of the world, etc), then don't buy products from Apple or any other company that uses Chinese manufacturing.
Apple has done far more for people than what you will ever do and you have the audacity to critique them. Do you not comprehend the arrogance of your statements?
You're arguing for companies to use US manufacturing and that's a naive view in the long run. Any student of economics will understand that it's a GOOD thing for the market to not be controlled the way you want (arbitrary limits on where Apple should and should not go). Placing restrictions would make the market not as competitive as it could be and just result in greater inefficiency.
To be fair, this isn't an Apple problem; it's the tech industry's dirty little secret. From massive environmental damage as a result of rare earth metal extraction, to deplorable conditions at the factories that make our consumer electronics, to the health calamities at the places where electronics are stripped and recycled for their valuable metals, ours is not the clean industry we like to pretend it is. So again, it's not an Apple thing, but Cook's crocodile tears and affected "outrage" at someone airing our dirty laundry is pretty transparent.
Now Apple is getting attacked and people are using the facts from their own report as ammunition. Other companies that either don't care at all (don't audit their suppliers) or don't publish this kind of information are safe from this kind of bad publicity.
I don't think this kind of activism is very productive. I would like to see more focus on the things Apple has managed to improve within their suppliers. Some people seem to demand Apple to stop working with suppliers not complying with the regulations. Is this really the best way to improve workers conditions there? The logic seems to be that if Apple is no longer buying from that supplier, it must do some improvements to stay in business. What if it doesn't, what if it just finds another client that does not care?
Even a long-hours factory job with some safety risks could be better than facing starvation. Not saying conditions couldn't be improved, but, just to think about the situation in the bigger picture.
I at least would like to hope that the current conditions are a temporary, intermediate step in bigger improvements.
You might be aware that there was a time when the US had pretty bad environmental conditions in many places. In 1969, the Cuyahoga river was so polluted that it caught on fire (http://www.cleveland.com/science/index.ssf/2009/06/cuyahoga_...). In general, pollution had been bad for a long time, but it seems like a "tipping point" had to be reached where the problem was obvious to everyone. Reforms eventually came and succeeded in cleaning things up.
So hopefully, given enough time, the kinds of issues you've described can be solved.