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That's an oversimplified and cynical take. Apple spends orders of magnitude more money and effort to ensure worker conditions in their supply lines than any ot

That's an oversimplified and cynical take. Apple spends orders of magnitude more money and effort to ensure worker conditions in their supply lines than any other company. Foxconn has a history of treating in-country employees like all the other local companies do. Multiply by a few thousand for scale, and some rate of bad things is inevitable. Apple audits Foxconn, but audits do not catch everything (and not immediately!). Note also that Apple effectively shut down this Foxconn plant by refusing to accept manufactured product until the situation was rectified. Extrapolating from a few cases of dramatic failures on the part of Apple's manufacturing partners is dishonest at best.

dutchbrit 5y ago
The thing is, it's always the same with Foxconn. Apple should know better... (and the same goes for other Foxconn customers)
- quesera 5y ago
  This is true, but Foxconn is the only game in town for the kind of manufacturing (precision and volume) that Apple requires. Foxconn doesn't uniformly suck, either. They abide by local laws, and they clearly cut corners and fail more often than they should -- but it's not like Foxconn is the seventh plane of Hell and all interactions are tainted with sin.
  - mohanmcgeek 5y ago
    And in this case, it's a sub contractor of Foxconn that's responsible for accomodation and that's behind the horribly substandard food.
  - mhoad 5y ago
    The last time they were in the news that I recall it was because workers were killing themselves in such large numbers that they decided installing “suicide nets” was the solution. Apple 1000% are capable of making sure that nothing like that ever happened again and yet here we are not long after. Apple has a very sketchy history in general when it comes to China and there is no reason at this point to assume this is some innocent mistake.
    - gruez 5y ago
      >The last time they were in the news that I recall it was because workers were killing themselves in such large numbers that they decided installing “suicide nets” was the solution. My city has installed suicide netting on bridges, presumably because residents "were killing themselves in such large numbers". Should they be getting similar flak?
      - arpa 5y ago
        That actually might be a good idea.
      - renewiltord 5y ago
        If a city can't exist without people committing suicide, maybe it shouldn't exist.
      - marcosdumay 5y ago
        Somebody does deserve. Just because people were killing themselves on that city, it doesn't mean it's the city fault. But that logic does not apply to corporation dorms.
    - maerF0x0 5y ago
      I agree we can continue to pursue better, but I think it's only fair to note that crowding, sickness, and bad food is progress over suicidal tendencies .
      - mhoad 5y ago
        It was the absolute bare minimum change that they thought (correctly it seems) that they could get away with. Dressing that up as progress hardly feels right. They could have solved all of this the first time around.
    - FredPret 5y ago
      If you employ a million people, there will be a certain number of suicides per year
ParanoidShroom 5y ago
>Apple spends orders of magnitude more money and effort to ensure worker conditions in their supply lines than any other company Please back this statement up. I'm honestly curious. It's a company, they optimize for their interest. They will invest according to that image/reputation value. But as any company, profits... But this reply just sounds like blind PR.
- setr 5y ago
  > It's a company, they optimize for their interest. They will invest according to that image/reputation value. Given this article exists, which specifically targets damages against apple’s image/reputation value, then it seems clear to me there exists at least some incentive for apple to do as GP describes
  - grogenaut 5y ago
    There might be an incentive != they are doing things about it. ParanoidShroom righly asked for proof from GP, you offered "they are incentivized" that's not proof.
- Bud 5y ago
  https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2021_Progress_Report.pdf https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2... https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple-Combat-Human-Trafficking-and-Slavery-in-Supply-Chain-2020.pdf https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple-Comb... https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/ https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/
lp0_on_fire 5y ago
> Foxconn has a history of treating in-country employees like all the other local companies do. Multiply by a few thousand for scale, and some rate of bad things is inevitable. Apple audits Foxconn, but audits do not catch everything (and not immediately!). They have a LONG and storied history of treating in-country employees like this. This isn't some new revelation. Apple has had more than enough time to start moving their manufacturing to a country that doesn't allow this sort of thing. They won't do that, though, because their pricing is already exorbitant for that they offer and it just doesn't work if you have to pay western wages and respect western labor laws.
LeifCarrotson 5y ago
> Apple spends orders of magnitude more money and effort to ensure worker conditions in their supply lines than any other company. Citation definitely needed. Apple has a global revenue of about $360B, but the automotive industry is an order of magnitude larger at $3.6T. You're suggesting that the automotive industry expends about 1000x less per dollar of revenue on supply chain working conditions than Apple does?
- smabie 5y ago
  The entire automotive industry isn't one company.

dutchbrit 5y ago

The thing is, it's always the same with Foxconn. Apple should know better... (and the same goes for other Foxconn customers)

quesera 5y ago
This is true, but Foxconn is the only game in town for the kind of manufacturing (precision and volume) that Apple requires. Foxconn doesn't uniformly suck, either. They abide by local laws, and they clearly cut corners and fail more often than they should -- but it's not like Foxconn is the seventh plane of Hell and all interactions are tainted with sin.
- mohanmcgeek 5y ago
  And in this case, it's a sub contractor of Foxconn that's responsible for accomodation and that's behind the horribly substandard food.
- mhoad 5y ago
  The last time they were in the news that I recall it was because workers were killing themselves in such large numbers that they decided installing “suicide nets” was the solution. Apple 1000% are capable of making sure that nothing like that ever happened again and yet here we are not long after. Apple has a very sketchy history in general when it comes to China and there is no reason at this point to assume this is some innocent mistake.
  - gruez 5y ago
    >The last time they were in the news that I recall it was because workers were killing themselves in such large numbers that they decided installing “suicide nets” was the solution. My city has installed suicide netting on bridges, presumably because residents "were killing themselves in such large numbers". Should they be getting similar flak?
    - arpa 5y ago
      That actually might be a good idea.
    - renewiltord 5y ago
      If a city can't exist without people committing suicide, maybe it shouldn't exist.
    - marcosdumay 5y ago
      Somebody does deserve. Just because people were killing themselves on that city, it doesn't mean it's the city fault. But that logic does not apply to corporation dorms.
  - maerF0x0 5y ago
    I agree we can continue to pursue better, but I think it's only fair to note that crowding, sickness, and bad food is progress over suicidal tendencies .
    - mhoad 5y ago
      It was the absolute bare minimum change that they thought (correctly it seems) that they could get away with. Dressing that up as progress hardly feels right. They could have solved all of this the first time around.
  - FredPret 5y ago
    If you employ a million people, there will be a certain number of suicides per year

ParanoidShroom 5y ago

>Apple spends orders of magnitude more money and effort to ensure worker conditions in their supply lines than any other company Please back this statement up. I'm honestly curious. It's a company, they optimize for their interest. They will invest according to that image/reputation value. But as any company, profits... But this reply just sounds like blind PR.

setr 5y ago
> It's a company, they optimize for their interest. They will invest according to that image/reputation value. Given this article exists, which specifically targets damages against apple’s image/reputation value, then it seems clear to me there exists at least some incentive for apple to do as GP describes
- grogenaut 5y ago
  There might be an incentive != they are doing things about it. ParanoidShroom righly asked for proof from GP, you offered "they are incentivized" that's not proof.
Bud 5y ago
https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2021_Progress_Report.pdf https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2... https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple-Combat-Human-Trafficking-and-Slavery-in-Supply-Chain-2020.pdf https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple-Comb... https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/ https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/

lp0_on_fire 5y ago

> Foxconn has a history of treating in-country employees like all the other local companies do. Multiply by a few thousand for scale, and some rate of bad things is inevitable. Apple audits Foxconn, but audits do not catch everything (and not immediately!). They have a LONG and storied history of treating in-country employees like this. This isn't some new revelation. Apple has had more than enough time to start moving their manufacturing to a country that doesn't allow this sort of thing. They won't do that, though, because their pricing is already exorbitant for that they offer and it just doesn't work if you have to pay western wages and respect western labor laws.

LeifCarrotson 5y ago

> Apple spends orders of magnitude more money and effort to ensure worker conditions in their supply lines than any other company. Citation definitely needed. Apple has a global revenue of about $360B, but the automotive industry is an order of magnitude larger at $3.6T. You're suggesting that the automotive industry expends about 1000x less per dollar of revenue on supply chain working conditions than Apple does?

smabie 5y ago
The entire automotive industry isn't one company.