There is a now fairly famous (infamous?) article in The New York Times yesterday on Apple and its iPhones and computer work. It asks why the company doesn't bring and keep those manufacturing jobs here in the States. (see first link at bottom) If nothing else illustrates what Apple and apparently other manufacturers want and think they need, it's this quote:
"A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day." Did you get that? "Immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormotories...", gave them "a biscuit and a cup of tea" and got them to work right away. I ask you, is that not just saying you need slave labor? It certainly seems so to me. Between this ability they want and the wages they notoriously pay, it seems clear and obvious they've come to the conclusion that only this kind of slave labor will do. The American worker and so, the middle class, is screwed here. Oh, and according to the article, it's been estimated that having Americans manufacture their products would add approximately $65 cost to each phone. Now that's just too much to ask, isn't it?
Link to original article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general
Links to articles and information on Apple's working conditions here: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_joelinchina/all/1; http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/12/2701990/foxconn-150-suicide-threat;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides
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4 comments:
Careful, MO. When I mentioned this last week on TKC, I was vilified. One commenter compared me to Karl Marx. Another demanded to know why I didn't build a factory to make computers here in WV.
'Money' only cares about maximizing profits. 'Money' doesn't care about American Workers, in fact, it vilifies American Workers.
Watch Downton Abbey to see our future.
Well, you may have a point but I don't get the numbers--or the types--of readers Tony gets. I get far fewer knuckle-draggers.
If you read the article, you find that, besides getting 8,000 people out in the middle of the night because a truck arrives with supplies:
--they work 12 hour days
--they start each day at either 7 am or 7 pm
--they get $17 per day. That's a little over $1 an hour, as we know
--they have all these people nearby in "dormotories which sounds rather like "the company store" arrangement Tennessee Williams sang of years ago
And that's just a partial list of conditions which lead to quantities of suicides.
Finally, did you read that, at the end of the column? Economists estimate that having Americans do these would add approximately $65 per phone. That doesn't seem to much to ask, by a long shot, and it doesn't seem too much more to pay but that's my take.
We're not that bright, as a country, are we?
Downton Abbey would be our future if I were ever that wealthy. (And that's another subject--did you see the story before DZ last evening? Did you see their staff's ACTUAL working conditions? It was dreadful. DA makes the help's lives look easy by comparison).
Yes, I read the article, but I was made aware of this factory when the workers threat of mass suicides made the news. The conditions in China now are similar to the conditions in Russia a hundred years ago. There were whole generations who were born, grew up, married, raised children & died without ever leaving the factory. What's funny to me is that there are still people who refer to 'Communist' China. If a workers' revolt breaks out in China, a lot of people will be confused.
My allusion to Downton Abbey was as an economic model. Where the only work available to the lower class is to be servants at 'The Great House'. When I watch this show I never imagine myself as the aristocrats, but only as the servants.
The aristocrats in this fictitious show are shown as nice people, which makes you care about what happens to them. I'm sure in real life some of the aristocrats were as nice to their servants as they knew how to be, just as some of the southern slave owners were as nice to their slaves as they knew how to be. Did you notice that most of the 'bad people' depicted in the show are servants?
Only a few of our 1% realize that it is in their best interest to improve the conditions of everyone, & that only looking out for themselves is actually counter-productive. Most of our economy is consumer driven, but without decent wages there is no disposable income to buy the products. Without the gift giving tradition of Christmas our economy could not sustain itself. Its time to start building factories again, even at the short term loss, for the long term good.
And yes, I see/saw what you meant about us being knocked down from Downton Abbey, too. Like you, I relate to the help, not the owners.
That's what disappoints me about DA--that it gives this wonderful, romantic, idyllic view of life at the manor house, especially for the staff. In that hour show before last evening's episode, did you see the pictures of the help? The hours and duties of the staff--for instance taking buckets of water up the back stairs, repeatedly, just so one of the family could take their bath, etc. I wish it were more true to how things were. I know that couldn't be but I wish it could be so. It would have been a far better education, if not entertainment.
It seems we should kill tax credits and deductions to take manufacturing AND profits offshore. That seems obvious and easy, even though the corporations and "1%" want.
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