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Apple’s Profit Skyrockets, Workers Die at Its Factories
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Hours after Apple released its first quarter earnings, which showed a mind-blowing 44.7 percent profit, the New York Times published another in a series of articles illustrating some of the reasons behind Apple’s profit margin. Describing the conditions in which Chinese workers assemble iPhones, iPads and a panoply of Apple products, the report states:
Employees work excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week, and live in crowded dorms. Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped build Apple’s products, and the company’s suppliers have improperly disposed of hazardous waste and falsified records, according to company reports and advocacy groups that, within China, are often considered reliable, independent monitors.
More troubling, the groups say, is some suppliers’ disregard for workers’ health. Two years ago, 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens. Within seven months last year, two explosions at iPad factories, including in Chengdu, killed four people and injured 77. Before those blasts, Apple had been alerted to hazardous conditions inside the Chengdu plant, according to a Chinese group that published that warning.
A separate article details a New York Times survey that found Apple consumers are less likely to worry about the conditions in which products are made.
Over all, 52 percent of the public said it was very important that the products they buy were made in the United States; only 42 percent of owners of Apple products agreed.
Earlier this month, the Fair Labor Association, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending sweatshop conditions in factories worldwide, announced Apple was admitted as a “Participating Company.” That means that Apple promises to clean its supply chains from labor abuses during the coming two years.
The International Metalworkers’ Foundation expresses skepticism that Apple will carry through on it promises.
In fact, if Apple and other companies that outsource their work corrected the massive abuses of workers at their factories overseas, their incentive for shipping jobs from the United States would be greatly reduced.
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11 Comments
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It is just terrible for anyone to do business whith China; what mind set of people would do such a thing? I can only guess it is the free-trade Wall Street bunch and we know who they are. The few control the many.
When you can get a tax break for shipping work overseas, and you can go to the cheapest place, where the labor force is controlled by the government, this is what happens. When Steve Jobs died and they were eulogizing him, it was turning my stomach. I knew what was happening and Jobs did nothing to alleviate the situation. He may not have been a major shareholder (I don’t know) but he never opened his mouth. Apple has caused way too many deaths by turning the roduction of products over to the chinese. As for those who willing buy apple products, SHAME!
I always thought Steve Jobs was a cruel and hartless Businessman
EVERYONE should listen to this brilliant radio documentary about Chinese workers who make Apple projects. I cried while I was listening to it :
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory
We all are going to die. It just that some go faster then others.
Your words are so comforting, Mr. Sweartogod. Did you ever think of becoming a funeral home director or grief counselor?
If you say you are not going to die I say you are crazy. If you say we are going to be judged at death you are correct.
And Sally, if you are going to have anyone address issues you did not bring up and mis-interpret what you say, it will be from The Swear-toWHOoligan.
Thousands of Chinese laborers died building the Great Wall under the reign of Emperor Qin Shi Huang (c. 259-210 B.C.). This inhumane treatment of laborers and the emperor’s harsh rule led to revolt against his dynasty after only 12 years.
Now, Apple Corporation planned to build a huge saucer shaped headquarters in Cupertino CA on the backs of Chinese laborers. I wonder how long would Apple Corporation dominance last?
all nations and companies eventually die. Now its the USA that will die . Can you not see the decadence and the sin that is prevalent in the USA. Europe is going to show the way.
And how long will it be before you too will die, Swearto-WHOoligan, which will save the world from all of your vile senseless propaganda?