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"forced labor" It's slavery...modern day slavery. Why are we mincing words? We stand on our soap boxes and preach about historical injustices and how we need t

• kortilla 6y ago
  > Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock said the company has confirmed that Lens Technology has not received any labor transfers of Uighur workers from Xinjiang. He said Apple earlier this year ensured that none of its other suppliers are using Uighur labor transferred from Xinjiang. >“Apple has zero tolerance for forced labor,” Rosenstock said. “Looking for the presence of forced labor is part of every supplier assessment we conduct, including surprise audits. These protections apply across the supply chain, regardless of a person’s job or location. Any violation of our policies has immediate consequences, including possible business termination. As always, our focus is on making sure everyone is treated with dignity and respect, and we will continue doing all we can to protect workers in our supply chain.”
  • Shivetya 6y ago
    Zero tolerance apparently does not extend beyond the facilities Apple needs to make its goods. As in, they seem to turn a blind eye towards the country's behavior they are in as long as they can keep their own hands clean. Simply put, Apple should be held accountable for simply doing manufacturing in a country which allows such abuse regardless if they or their suppliers actively use such labor. Apple isn't alone in this behavior but they are beyond most when it comes to virtue signalling.
  • daenz 6y ago
    Now post the next 3 paragraphs after those quotes. Apple is actively doing business in a location where slavery is frequently occurring, while pretending that their audits are thorough and comprehensive so that their hands appear clean. But the fact that they are playing whack-a-mole with constant slavery reports should be evidence enough that they know exactly what they're doing: they're trying to turn a profit while turning a blind eye to abuses, so long as they don't happen too publicly, and don't directly implicate them. This is wrong.
    • simonh 6y ago
      It looks like it may well be going that way, sure, but making this about Apple is headline bait. It's about China. The fact is you can't buy a single thing made in China and be sure it isn't implicated in this in some way. Think of the last few things you bought that were manufactured or sourced some parts in China. Can you honestly say the manufacturer audits their supply chain with the same rigour? At least Apple is trying to keep their supply chain clean, but ultimately that may prove to be impossible. If that's the case vilifying Apple for it won't fix it, the only way to fix it will be to shun Chinese products completely, but that's going to be a very painful and difficult process for more people than just Apple. Take Fairphone for example, those guys work really hard to do the right thing as much as possible, but they have dozens and dozens of suppliers in China some of them indirect. In their own literature they point out they can't answer for every single supplier. This is a really tough problem.
      • hobs 6y ago
        So we shouldnt shame the richest company on earth for using slave labor because its about "china"? If anyone has leverage, its Apple, so actually yes its a way to start fixing the problem. There's a simple way to keep slave labor out of your supply chain, stop doing business with people who are fine with that, not "performing audits to find out they are using slave labor again so we switched!"
        • simonh 6y ago
          How do you know which supplier is "fine with that", and how do you anticipate a supplier before they decide to change over to using illegitimate labour? Auditing suppliers, verifying supply chains and switching away from cheaters is one way to address the issue. Another is to not do business in China at all.
        • TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
          Not to defend Apple specifically - but do you really think it's just Apple? Maximising downward pressure on wages - as an economist might label this - is the natural, predictable, desired outcome of globalisation.
  • moocowtruck 6y ago
    ya see, apple said they dont allow it, now gimme my iphone!!
  • curtis3389 6y ago
    They have a zero tolerance in their particular factories, but is China just shuffling workers around to make sure they don't send the slaves to Apple factories? Apple is still making products in Hitler's Germany because the prices are too good to say no. Just because they aren't using the concentration camp labor doesn't mean they aren't complicit in the crimes. They're in the same boat as Fanta from my perspective. Doing business with murderers because money is more important than human lives.
    • esarbe 6y ago
      Yes. I don't get the downvotes here. Has anyone missed news about the concentration camps build for Uigurs[0]? [0] https://freebeacon.com/national-security/satellite-images-reveal-expansion-of-uighur-camps/ https://freebeacon.com/national-security/satellite-images-re...
      • dr-detroit 6y ago
        the average hackernews reader has 8 to 10 apple devices in their household
    • __m 6y ago
      Don’t trivialize nazi concentration camps by comparing them to some re-education camps. I highly doubt the number of deaths that occurred in these camps is anywhere close to the deaths that Apple‘s home country caused in its own war on terror, including torture and war crimes. With police brutality and the highest incarceration rate in the world, how can a company that values human lives do business in the US?
      • skinkestek 6y ago
        We shouldn't trivialize nazi atrocities. However we also shouldn't trivialize Chinese atrocities: A number of the things that happens there will hopefully get into the history wall of shame as soon as we dare challenge it. We are however in a rough place right now IMO: - US is weak and has little (but still significant) moral edge. - US has a military edge but a full scale conflict will >70% become really messy (think nuclear) - China has a number of other countries (and influential persons) around the world by the b*lls. - China has an advantage on manufacturing and logistics Anyone who wants to fix this - either needs a brilliant idea and probably lots of luck - or some serious skills in politics (to get local support for taking correct actions with the necessary firmness)
  • orange_joe 6y ago
    I don't believe that quoting a PR spokesperson is a meaningful response, Apple is obviously a biased party in this investigation. Moreover, Apple has opposed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act which would penalize companies with forced labor in their supply chains[1]. It also has a history of similar accusations with regards to their LCD screens [2] and their uniforms [3]. All of this is completely ignoring their history with foxconn and other suppliers that routinely abuse their employees without compelling their labor through outright force. Apple might say that they care about this issue, but its clear that their supply chain is setup to take advantage of poor workers from 3rd world countries at a minimum. [1] https://9to5mac.com/2020/11/23/anti-forced-labour-bill-apple/ https://9to5mac.com/2020/11/23/anti-forced-labour-bill-apple... [2] https://9to5mac.com/2020/03/02/apple-suppliers-implicated-in-reports-of-uyghur-forced-labor-in-china/ https://9to5mac.com/2020/03/02/apple-suppliers-implicated-in... [3] https://9to5mac.com/2020/08/10/apple-store-staff-t-shirts/ https://9to5mac.com/2020/08/10/apple-store-staff-t-shirts/
    • esarbe 6y ago
      Why the downvotes? These are reasonable arguments.
      • corty 6y ago
        Truth hurts. Voting on HN does not judge the quality of a text, it often just point out whether people like it for various reasons.
        • esarbe 6y ago
          They used to, it was the reason I'm exclusively on HN..
  • buckminster 6y ago
    The labour is not transferred from Xinjiang because the factory in question is in Xinjiang. This is a masterpiece of weasel-wording.
  • rasz 6y ago
    > supplier assessment we conduct, including surprise audits. These protections apply across the supply chain like in India?
• greggturkington 6y ago
  "Modern day slavery" is mincing words, slavery in the modern day is just slavery. Typically slavery refers to the slave being considered property, and ownership transferring to offspring. You can compare it to forced labor.
  • flatline 6y ago
    I agree, though chattel slavery typically implies the slavery of offspring. You can still have institutionalized slavery without that, like the Romans and a lot of other cultures throughout history. Slaves could be set free, could have semi-decent standards of living, while still being dehumanized. Or they could be treated brutally and enslaved for generations. The term seems to fit here in the broadest sense of the word.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • La1n 6y ago
    Not all slavery is chattel slavery.
    • greggturkington 6y ago
      A good example of another type being forced labor via debt bondage.
  • jeromenerf 6y ago
    "Slavery" etymology takes its roots with the "Slavs" people, who were, well, enslaved in medieval times. The term has been commonly accepted to describe various similar patterns before and after those times. I agree that yesterday or today slavery is just slavery, whatever subtile differences there might be.
• _pp0b 6y ago
  Equating slavery with forced labour belittles the gravity and awfulness of what actual slavery is (or was). Forced labour takes different forms, which includes forced paid work and by some definitions penal work. Slavery is when a person is treated as a property of another person. Being a slave may or may not involve forced labour. In addition, calling Uyghur work “slavery” in fact undermines the cause, allowing CCP defenders to legitimately call out “fake news”. Precision matters.
  • api 6y ago
    A person held against their will and forced to do labor is a slave whether they're called that or not, especially if they have committed no legitimate offense for which such a punishment could be justified. As near as I can tell the Uighurs' "offense" is being of a different ethnicity and being majority Muslim. What the Chinese are doing here is very close to what the USA did in its first century with African slaves.
    • strogonoff 6y ago
      You are right in your last paragraph. The situation in Xinjang is such that for an Uyghur it is in fact impossible to decline to do what the state says. Any work done with involvement of Uyghur population by default is a situation of forced labour. That’s what the article says. However, using the term “slavery” gives CCP ammunition to fight back. They can point out that Uyghurs are paid. They can claim they are free to refuse (we know they will not out of fear of retribution, but I suspect the need for such nuance only hurts the case).
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      • berdario 6y ago
        > The situation in Xinjang is such that for an Uyghur it is in fact impossible to decline to do what the state says ... > The situation anywhere is such that for anyone it is in fact impossible to decline to do what the state says FTFY As long as you have a police force and prisons, you'll never be able to NOT do what the state says. Now, it's a matter of: - do you disagree with what the state does? - do you agree with what the state does? And all the positions between these 2 extremes. On one end, you have anarchists (and what the state would call terrorists) On the other end, you have statists (and what the anarchists would call authoritarians/fascists/wumao)
• bstar77 6y ago
  "Forced" is the word the article uses. We don't know if that's accurate or hyperbolic. I think issues like these are worth scrutiny and intense investigation, but I'm not going to pull my pitch fork out just yet. It's so easy to sit in my desk chair, read an article like this and have an armchair outrage moment.
  • alisonkisk 6y ago
    pulling out your wallet without thinking is as bad as pulling out a pitchfork. Perhaps worse, since you are holding the global poor to a higher burden of proof than the billionaire elites.
    • bstar77 6y ago
      That's fine, but tell me where I can buy an ethically sourced phone? I develop for iOS, Android and Desktop systems. Each of these devices have thousands of components from different vendors that I have to support. The parent article is talking about some glass.
      • wizzwizz4 6y ago
        https://www.fairphone.com/en/ https://www.fairphone.com/en/ probably, https://www.pine64.org/ https://www.pine64.org/ maybe. Knowing something exists is the biggest step towards finding it.
        • bstar77 6y ago
          These phones can't do much to address a glass supplier that is mean to their workers. These are just more environmentally sustainable phones. I'm all in on putting pressure on Apple and others to clean up their supply chain, but it can't just be Apple that's held to this standard. Right now it is.
          • wizzwizz4 6y ago
            Fairphone actually does; their (screen) glass for the Fairphone 2 was from Korning. See https://open.sourcemap.com/maps/57bd640851c05c0a5b5a8be1 https://open.sourcemap.com/maps/57bd640851c05c0a5b5a8be1. Why did you say they “can't”?
• hdjtkrnrn 6y ago
  What is an influencer to do? Switch to Android, like poor people? Nobody who matters is going to boycott Apple. Apple will counter with a plausible narrative, "we didn't know, we cancelled contracts, ..." and everything will be fine again. Oh, and a new woke diversity ad to show how much they care about muslims. And everybody will share and clap and feel good.
  • api 6y ago
    You're right, and that's why governments must step in. Markets are not configured or incentivized to address ills like this, nor are corporations. Asking a corporation to right large scale social wrongs is like asking the DMV to operate your military or walking into a restaurant and asking them to come fix your roof. It's just the wrong socioeconomic tool for the job. If you try to really pressure or force them to do it, they'll do something half-assed much as you describe. Boycotts can work a little, but a boycott large enough to be effective and overcome other market forces is very hard to organize and sustain. I'm not totally letting Apple off the hook, just pointing out that without the government doing something here any measures Apple or anyone else takes will be ineffective. Even if Apple starts pushing back on this, other manufacturers will fill the void and take advantage of that cheap labor instead. Apple might even find it tough to police this since Chinese companies may lie about where work is being performed or who is doing it. They're likely to demand that Apple pay more for different labor and then pocket the money and use forced labor instead.
    • ryandrake 6y ago
      Boycott is a fine tool if we're talking about influencing the corner grocery store in a town of 100 people. You might actually put a dent in their business and cause them to change whatever you're boycotting about. On the other hand, boycotts are totally pointless vs GlobalUltraMegaCorps. If everyone on HN stopped buying from these massive companies, it wouldn't even be noticed. Apple sells roughly 200 million iPhones yearly. Do you think it's possible to get even 1% of those customers to act on a boycott?
  • MaxHoppersGhost 6y ago
    Exactly. No one is ditching their iPhone. It’s all about the blue text bubbles. If Americans would just switch to WhatsApp or something else like the rest of the world we could get past the Android stigma.
• jordan_curve 6y ago
  It’s not slavery. They’re similar atrocities though. It would be weird to refer to the people in Auchwitz-II as slaves.
  • UnpossibleJim 6y ago
    I'm no necessarily disagreeing with you, as far as saying "it would be weird to refer to the people in Auschwitz-II as slaves", but may I ask why? I can't come up with a reason, really. They were dehumanized, worked to death, treated as property and less. Would calling them slaves be giving the Nazis too much credit, at that point?
    • jlokier 6y ago
      Because Auschwitz-II took dehumanisation to a whole extra level of depravity, far beyond slavery. While you could logically argue that people there were also slaves, it would be an injustice to leave it at that. Generally speaking, slaves had some kinds of rights that were far better than those in Auschwitz-II. It's one thing to be treated as someone's property and forced labour, as a slave. It's another thing to be subject to awful medical experimentation (often to death), torture of kinds that are barely imaginable, and mass killing with on-site factories literally built to murder the occupants and other occupants forced to dispose of the body parts of their friends afterwards. All of this in large numbers. There's a reason Auschwitz-II had sections called "Crematoria I-IV". Auschwitz-II makes almost every evil in the world look mild in comparison. It's that bad.
      • UnpossibleJim 6y ago
        I'm just trying to get the comparison of terms down. While, yes, as an American, English is my first and primary language, I'm afraid some of its phraseology still confuses me. I think it has to do with parts of society that I don't understand, granted. The visceral reaction to the word "slavery" seems much more than to the more sanitized phrase "forced labor", or even "labor camp". Those are what we are what we're discussing here, like it or not. Uighurs are being sterilized and used as forced labor, but the phraseology is so sanitary as to not disturb our modern pallet of consumerism, we dare not draw a comparison to Nazis. While there are no crematoria, there are certainly shallow graves and executions, and parallels to be drawn. The word slave and forced labor is, at best, an argument of semantics of note only to those on the sidelines I'm sure, while those in bondage don't care what they're called.
• nomoreusernames 6y ago
  being sold at a slave market in the middle east, is quite different from being forced to work or being put in a detainment camp. a slave in this context has no human value. its owning a human being, not simply forcing them to work. it can even be hereditary. its practiced daily since a certain religious figure did it and granted his followers the same "right". (to own another human being)
  • alisonkisk 6y ago
    Being a slave in China vs Middle East is not different in the key aspect that matters most. Perspecit and proportionality matters.
    • nomoreusernames 6y ago
      id argue there is a difference. i know im wrong though and there are many types of slavery. the reason i choose to make a difference between them is because ive seen both and i cannot to this day process what i saw, and the attitude of people. a slave from my experience is seen as subhuman. and when religion is used to justify it, its to me different from china. but i mean chinese citizens cannot leave their country and start a new life somewere else. so i think in the context of china you might be even further correct.
• jonathannat 6y ago
  The good news is all macro trends portend to factories leaving faster out of China. And less trade with China. - Unfavorable Views of China Reach Historic Highs in Many Countries in 2020 https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-views-of-china-reach-historic-highs-in-many-countries/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-vi.... Consciously or subconsciously, consumers will favor goods made not in China - US President-elect Joe Biden affirms his anti-China position. On Monday, he slammed China once again for “abuses” on trade, technology and human rights and said America can best pursue its goals relative to Beijing, when it is “flanked” by like-minded partners and allies. https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/biden-slams-chinese-abuses-stresses-security-and-prosperity-in-indo-pacific/story-vzc4w6SkjF3Z7sM9V4tKbN.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/biden-slams-chines.... This should help confirm multinational COO's decisions to leave China faster. - China keeps attacking other countries, and further isolating itself. From stopping coal trade with Australia, and causing blackouts for its own cities https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/world/australia/china-coal-climate-change.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/world/australia/china-coa..., to engaging in border war with india, to antagonizing US, Canada and UK. - Chinese suppliers engaging in more and more thievery and sabotage against its own global partners, as reported at chinalawblog. Western companies are reporting Chinese suppliers are brazenly not delivering on goods paid for.
  • stefan_ 6y ago
    Okay, but it was the Indian iPhone slave workers actually rioting.
  • koheripbal 6y ago
    This trend is not what you think it is. The factories are moving to other countries, but still owned by Chinese firms and still using the same, if not more brutal tactics. They are just moving the chips around the board.
    • jonathannat 6y ago
      Multinational factories are owned by multinationals. Yes, some factories are owned by Chinese firms, but even that's misleading. Alot of the "Chinese" firms have Hong Kong owners, who usually operates more ethically, and hates China, than "CCP state" firms that engages in modern day slavery.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• mgh2 6y ago
  Apple fans don’t seem to care, as long as they are getting their magic, nothing else matters...
  • lemonspat 6y ago
    As an iOS user, I care. Tim Cook needs to investigate and respond publicly to this immediately
    • onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
      Immediately? It's been going on for years. Why now?
      • Gracana 6y ago
        Immediately, because there is no better alternative.
  • hombre_fatal 6y ago
    Eh, nobody, including yourself, maybe except the Jainists, are willing to do without the creature comforts of their lifestyle, not just Apple users. Look at all the things you own and use, some of them built in the same Foxconn factory no doubt. We can look the squalor of factory-farmed animals right in the eye while biting into our ham sandwich and say "damn, someone should really do something about that." Or, perhaps more commonly, "I'm entitled to this, actually." So why would we budge over a little forced labor on the other side of the world? Or pollution? Or anything else? We care about things right up to the point where we have to lift a finger. Though, aside, for this reason I think legislation is one of the only solutions short of waiting for a cultural awakening that probably won't ever come.
    • mgh2 6y ago
      Emphasis on the word "fans". Analogy: I hate Google's business model, but I still have to use their products for lack of better alternatives. The difference is that I won't go around evangelizing (i.e. marketing) their products as a consumer, pumping up demand if I knew the negative costs associated with it. On the corporate side is Apple's hypocrisy PR- i.e. don't drink their koolaid.
• bergstromm466 6y ago
  > instead of quietly consuming the products The problem is the propertied capitalist class, not the working class. The capitalist class has the power. I appreciate your intention, yet it's super important to be clear that the problem is the bourgeoisie and the capitalist system, as the means of production are monopolized in their hands. The most advanced form through which the bourgeoisie (in this case Apple) expropriates, creates enclosures and exploits/oppresses, is 1) through the use of trade secret laws [1], which steals away new inventions from the commons and stifles learning and innovation, as well as 2) through the means-of-exchange money system that obscures relationships between people and places [2]. "Zak Cope makes the case that capitalism is empirically inseparable from imperialism, historically and today. Using a rigorous political economic framework, he lays bare the vast ongoing transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest countries through the mechanisms of monopoly rent, unequal exchange, and colonial tribute. The result is a polarized international class structure with a relatively rich Global North and an impoverished, exploited Global South. Cope makes the controversial claim that it is because of these conditions that workers in rich countries benefit from higher incomes and welfare systems with public health, education, pensions, and social security. As a result, the internationalism of populations in the Global North is weakened and transnational solidarity is compromised. The only way forward, Cope argues is through a renewed anti-imperialist politics rooted in a firm commitment to a radical labor internationalism." [3] [1] https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2019/02/19/dont-fooled-patent-purge-elon-musk-just-another-hypocritical-tech-billionaire/ https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2019/02/19/dont-fooled-patent-pur... [2] http://mikorizal.org/Fromprivateownershipaccountingtocommonsaccoun.html http://mikorizal.org/Fromprivateownershipaccountingtocommons... [3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43015121-the-wealth-of-some-nations https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43015121-the-wealth-of-s...
  • Veen 6y ago
    As an anti-capitalist, does it give you pause for thought that the Campaign for Accountability, which is behind this report, was co-founded by Louis Mayberg, the principal in a large investment management company.
    • wizzwizz4 6y ago
• hourislate 6y ago
  Forced Labor is considered a "Crime Against Humanity" and participants can be taken to a Court of International Law. If Apple is a willing participant, I would imagine they could be dragged in front of the Hague.
  • blhack 6y ago
    And yet: China is on the UN Human Rights Council.
    • cmdshiftf4 6y ago
      Are we back to pretending the UN is an entity of reverence again?
• rowanG077 6y ago
  Because it's not about the historical injustices. Those people don't care about injustices. They care about looking good and moral.
• hedora 6y ago
  Note that slavery is still legal in the US. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." There’s an active attempt in congress to amend the constitution to abolish slavery in the US: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/03/942413221/democrats-push-abolition-amendment-to-fully-erase-slavery-from-u-s-constitution https://www.npr.org/2020/12/03/942413221/democrats-push-abol... Legal, domestic forced labor is over a $2 billion dollar industry. People that refuse to work are retaliated against: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/23/prisoner-speak-out-american-slave-labor-strike https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/23/prison... Think globally, act locally.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • henvic 6y ago
    It's even worse when you remember plenty of victims are behind bars due to victimless "crimes", police fraud, or minor infractions.